Camcorders forum: External hard drive firewire capture to USB-only pc?

That's a dead end. I decline to explain why.

-> A rather crass method would be to get http://www.shining.com/ then rip the drive out of that into some other USB case...

Bob

to get the video into your computer is to use the AV cable with the composite AV port on the camcorder... and a Pinnacle Dazzle (or other USB based Analog/Digital bridge). This sort of defeats the purpose of having a high definition camcorder, but it will get the video into your computer...

You just need patience. Importing from the camcorder and exporting or rendering DVD is time consuming, but once you start that render process, go do other stuff. Once the video is in the computer, there is some rendering when you do transitions and titles and such, but it is fine as long as the sequence is not very long... I've been importing and editing high definition video (Sony HDR-HC1) for over two years on my iMac flatpanel 2 GHz PowerPC G5 (not Intel CoreDuo)... then either exporting back out to the camera or burning standard def DVDs or compressing for YouTube or MySpace (or whatever) uploading... Having the latest/greatest fastest CPU might get things done faster, but a screamer machine really is not necessary.

I agree that saving the compression as the last step is the correct process (and one of the main reasons why hard drive or flash memory camcorders doing AVCHD just don't do it for me... too much compression as the FIRST step in the capture process - and DVD camcorders compress even more).

is smooth and aligned with the video (even when multiple audio tracks are being rendered in). I don't normally go to full-screen... so I guess 29.97 fps.

I import, cut, adjust brightness, insert transitions... playing back periodically to ensure continuity and flow... The video and audio all plays back fine. I added in the audio piece because when that (music or other sound-design/foley) gets added at the end and I playback, it looks like the hard drive is pushing harder (than before it was added) to keep up. My guess is that in the grand scheme of things, the available hard drive space where the audio now resides is at a place on the hard drive which is far away from where the video is because the LED that shows read/write activity looks to be much busier with the heads grabbing video - then audio - then video, etc... for the playback... but the video and audio are smooth and sync'd... before rendering...

I expect most video editing apps to be pretty similar... There is the "clips" area where the imported video clips reside; the "timeline" area where the editing of the video happens - along with the audio and multiple audio tracks; and a "playback window" where one can view/hear the clips or timeline contents... so I am referring to the "playback window" and no rendering has yet occurred (unless a transition, special effect or title/credit has been rendered on the timeline).

"Final rendering" happens at the end of the project to computer-readable data file or out to DVD or back out to the camera... so, are we on the same page?

I use iMovie and FinalCutPro on my Apple Macintoshes...

Yes, they are large files. Standard def uses ~13 gig of hard drive space; high def uses ~44 gig of hard drive space. I have two external 500 gig hard drives ONLY for video editing projects.