Audio & video software forum: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it

hi Alex,

easiest way to transfer footage to the PC for editing,
is via Firewire.

These are then the software and hardware that you'll need -
1. Firewire port (aka 1394) on your PC
2. Firewire cable (note the ends from your DV cam to your PC)
3. Software such as Windows MovieMaker or Adobe Premiere.

Since my son was born (he turns 1 next week) i've been copying and editing a lot of video. My wife has a JVC miniDV cam, and its got a firewire out on it. It also has a USB, but the firewire seems to be more stable for the transfer. with windows XP, I've been using windows movie maker. it comes with XPSP2, is easy to clip, organize, add fades and crossovers, as well as combining stills and videos with alternate audio and title screens.

Very simple to use and free.

As far as burning, you can use WMM to create and AVI file, which is readable by many recent DVD players, or even record to DVD VOB files for direct copy to a DVD for playing.

If you need help or walkthroughs with any of this stuff, of you want a more professional way to do it, visit www.videohelp.com, where they have about a million help guides for every form of video capture, editing and duplication.

Hope this helps!

A Macintosh with iMovie and iDVD is the best solution in the computer world, using Firewire input from the camera.

This is the solution I opted for when trying to find a way to back up all my old analogue video8 tapes and still use it now I'm using a digicam.I was so fixated upon finding a computer solution to the problem that the obvious answer eluded me for weeks and I'm frankly surprised it took over 40 replies for someone to suggest it.

When you consider that a DVD recorder, particularly one with a hard drive and digital tuner is far more versatile than any piece of hardware you might add to your computer it's not hard to see which is the most cost effective option.

I've now backed up about 8 years worth of videos of my youngest kid growing up just before my decrepit old analogue sony handycam finally gave up the ghost.I haven't got round to editing any of them yet but at least they are safely archived on reliable media, one CRUCIAL recommendation though, make two copies of everything, one for watching and one to keep somewhere safe for the inevitable day when someone puts a scratch through your precious memories and renders them completely unplayable.

One of the big issues I keep running into from newbies is how to get their video from either VHS tapes and/or Hi8 video tapes (both of which are analog) into their computers so they can be transferred to DVD or edited and then transferred to DVD.

Most MiniDV camcorders USED to come with a feature called Video Pass-Through. You hook your analog component's video and audio out (usually RCA jacks) to the inputs provided on the camcorder. Then you run a firewire cable from your camcorder to your computer. You take the tape OUT of your camcorder, press record on whatever software you are using (Movie Maker, Pinnacle Studio, Ulead, Premier, et.al.) and press play on your analogue device. The camcorder converts the analog signal to digital, and voila, your computer captures it and then off you go.

Unfortunalely, this feature has disappeared from most comsumer camcorders these days. You can find it only on SOME of the higher end HDV camcorders such as the Canon HV30.

The only alternative is to buy a capture card that you install into your computer that will convert analog to digital. But most of them are fairly expensive.

There are a few cheap solutions on the market that will convert analog to digital via USB connection to your computer, but the results I have seen are poor, and there are usually lots of dropped frames during the capture process.

Keep in mind also that since most of the newer consumer camcorders don't use MINIDV tape, and instead use a memory card or they write to a DVD, that the video you end up with had been COMPRESSED. Which means that when you transfer it to your computer, you will end up compressing it AGAIN to MPG2 when you write it to DVD...which lowers the quality of the video. You do save time during the capture process using one of these camcorders. With MiniDV tape, the capture process must be done in "real time" meaning if you have an hour of video on the tape, you press play, and it plays back for an hour while you capture it. Whereas with a memory card or DVD, you either just transfer the compressed files to your computer, or rip the MPG2 files off the DVD your camcorder used. This speeds up the transfer process, but at a cost of lower quality on your final DVD which will have been compressed twice in a "lossy" format. (Lossy means the video loses quality...as opposed to AVI). SO there are decisions to be made about which way you want to go.

Most discouraging though is the dearth of inexpensive analog to digital capture cards available that don't drop frames or lower the incoming video quality. It might even be worth it to check on eBay for an older camcorder that has Video Pass through. So long as that feature works, you don't really care if anything else on the camcorder works because you'd just be using it as an analogue to digital converter.

Dave

Alex,
To answer the first part of your question. Copying video from a mini dvd tape to your hard drive will in all likelihood require you to connect your camcorder to your computer via a fire wire cable. This means your computer must have a fire wire port.

In the event your computer does not have a fire wire port, you maybe able to accomplish the same thing by using a video card with video in capability. You could then play the mini dvd tape in your camcorder and send it directly to your computer. This method could prove problematic with dropped frames and would not be the optimum method in my opinion.

To answer the 2nd part of the question. How to edit the video. There are any number of software programs available for this purpose, from free Windows Movie Maker to more expensive stuff like Sony Vegas.

There is something to keep in mind however. Disk space! Editing video can be a major project and requires massive amounts of disk space. A rule of thumb that I follow is 200 meg of disk space per 1 minute of uncompressed avi footage.

I would think of editing video with less than 2 gig of RAM, 4 would be a lot better.

Remember, after you edit the video it has to be "compiled" back into a movie. Depending on the size of the video this can be a very time consuming process, taking in some cases several hours to complete. Don't feel too bad though. Some motion picture special effect sequences can take a month or more to compile. So you see, it could be worse....

You don't need to burn the movies to a dvd while refining them. The video editing software all have a preview option to let you see how things are looking and make changes before you compile them, so you are good there.

Personally, I enjoy editing video and find it to be a lot of fun. However it can also be a royal pain in the neck sometimes, but the sense of satisfaction that comes with watching your hours of hard work on the big screen TV makes it worthwhile.

Hi, I wouldn't be firing on all cylinders with this subject, but your camera should have shipped with the appropriate software enabling you to carry out your task of transferring to and editing on any PC.

I carry out this very procedure on my iMac, but then again it shipped with iMovie pre-installed.

Good luck.

The answers to Alex's question I'm sure will be myriad, as there are plenty of ways to do what he aspires to. What CNET should have dealt with is the far more difficult question of how to get videos off a DVD camcorder, esp. Sony's, into a computer, edit them, and burn them to 12 cm DVD's. I've had a Sony DVD505 for 2 years and am piling up RW mini-disks because I can't get them into any program on my computer.

I've tried Nero, as well as Sony's software that came with the camcorder (useless), but whether direct off the mini-disk or with camcorder plugged into computer, the software just doesn't jive with the data apparently, and won't accept it to the editing programs. I've moved only one 30 min. video, and that was by using my home theater's Panasonic DVD recorder; but I can't edit with that.

I have a couple Canon HV20s (miniDV tape cameras) which I use mostly, but also a Sony DCR-DVD-108 which uses miniDVDs. Sucking the video off the miniDVDs is easy using Sony's Vegas software. It's far easier than the process involved with miniDV tape. (I bought the software off ebay for $75.)
The video quality of the miniDV tape is FAR superior to that of the miniDVD, by the way.
I keep and use the Sony camera because it does a good job with infra-red. (Great fun.)

A quick comparison/look at the file-sizes of video from miniDVD vs miniDV will show why the quality difference is so great.

I use a Dell laptop with only 30G built-in hard drive so an external 450G Seagate HD is necessary to hold my video files during editing etc.
I've spent the last 6-8 months learning to use this stuff as I want to shoot local bands/concerts professionally. (wish me luck)

I have tried to use two different DVD format cameras that belong to friends of mine (one panasonic and one sony). In either case, it was an absolute nightmare to import the files in any sort of "standard standard". Both of them want you to use their software as opposed to importing in a generic MPEG or AVI format for editing in third party software. I would say to anyone looking at going that route: DO YOUR HOMEWORK!

More editors have Batch capture which allows your to control your camera througha firewire,
one you rewind your tape log in your capture location (SHOULD BE ASECOND DRIVE)
And then record. After each scence change a new file will start.
Adobe
AVid
Sony
final cut
imovie
adobe elements all have this freature.

What soft ware to do have?
If you are not editing there is cheap and even free software that will take your minidv and convert to DVD.

Please provide more info and I will show you how

windows vista makes it quite easy to import camera footage, i would suggest making use of a firewire cable to connect it to the laptop (if this is an option) as i find it slightly more reliable than USB for this purpose (could just be my camera). just go to the start menu, hover over all programs and open up windows movie maker (towards top of list) when it loads up click on 'from digital video camera' under the import header (make sure camera is connected and turned on first). from here on it is quite self explanatory and does most of the work for you. you can edit the movie from the same tool. for the burning aspect you can either burn straight from this tool to CD or create a video file and place it onto your hard drive. if you do publish to hard drive the i suggest using Nero Vision to burn the DVD as this allows you to create DVD menu's which just give the disc a finishing touch and professional look. you can however use Nero vision to do the importing from the camera, but its slightly more fiddly than using windows movie maker, and i wouldn't recommend this to a beginner (as Nero is aimed more towards professional editing than windows movie maker is).

hope this helps.

generalcaw

Hi Alex,
My answer doesnt exactly fit your mini-DVD question but many steps may be similar. I just spent many hours transferring 20 years of VHS, and Digital 8 tape to electronic storage and I am glad I did. I have noticed the old tapes lose some color and importantly, the transferring hardware can break and you cant buy a replacement to transfer in the future so do it when you can. Considerations:
1. Available drivers for your transferring system - Old cameras may not have Vista drivers and manufacturers may not make them. Sony didnt make one for my old digital 8 so I had to use my XP PC to do the hard work.
2. Software to clean up your video there are so many products out there and if you have the time to clean up your video and get rid of those unnecessary images and noises why not do it. I found some skipping or dropped frames would happen in the transfer process so I would use the software to identify any dropped video, fix light issues, sound issues, and cut the crap out. Avid and Adobe have great products (see them on CNET) but I went economical and used the Avid Pinnacle Studio 12 product. I have used Studio for years so I am use to it and its quirks. I have also used Adobe Premier but it is a bit more complicated and I consider it more for high-end videophiles.
3. Storage of the end product
a. Disks: from what I understand DVD +R seems to work better when playing on a PC and DVD R works better on some players. I have found that to be true but my players are a few years old. You may want to reconsider a RW because you can re-write it and these are images you may not want to record over. Video takes up a lot of space and you may be using a lot of disks. If you are considering disks and you have a lot of video then dual layer will take less hard space, but you need a dual layer burner.

b. Storage format: you have a lot of choices and this is where your intended future use is a consideration for the format you choose. I decided to not store the video in the DVD format because no one was going to watch the bulk of my videos right now. I did transfer my video to the avi format assuming technology will advance and the avi format will be easily adaptable with the next technology enhancement. The avi format is also easy for me to use today with the hardware and software I have to make special event DVD movies with menus,transitions and special effects for family events and such.

c. External hard drives and off-site storage. If you have a lot of video you can house electronic media efficiently this way. If these are really important videos to you then it may be worth paying for the off-site storage. In a disaster people seem to miss their irreplaceable photos and video the most. If that is you it could be worth it to pay the price. My video is about a terabyte so I went this way.
In summary, Id suggest transfer the video to your PC, edit it, and then store it in your final format and media and remove it from your PC. I wouldnt suggest the RW way in the middle because if you edit it you are moving it to your PC anyway and if there is an issue I find it easier recovering things from my PC. I am no computer buff so I am going to learn a bit from other peoples responses!
Best wishes Cathy Wada

Hi,

My Digital Video (MiniDV) is trasferred via a 1394 Connection
The software I use is Pinnacle Studio 9 Plus but there are later versions available.
There are lots of alternative packages which include; Cyberlink Power producer, Roxio and the basic Windows movie maker.

I hope this is of some help

Osmanthius

If you know anyone with a digital video camera (hard drive, mini-dv, etc) you can most likely use their camera as a "bridge" to your PC. I have done something similar to transfer VCR home movies to my PC. If you simply hook your camera into the inputs on the digital camera you can then hook the digital camera to the firewire port on the PC. Then you go to the "Capture" mode on your Video software, start the capture and playback the tape you want to capture. If that's too confusing and you don't mind spending the time, you can just use the digital camera to make a copy of the analog video (I'm guessing you're referring to an 8mm or VHS C video camera)then capture it in a separate step.