Help needed - DV camcorder + firewire

hallelujajordan

Hi,

Im planning on buying a JVC GR-D23 camcorder (any comments??) . . and I want to be able to transfer footage onto my PC and then onto DVD . . so how do I get it onto the PC . . It says in the specs I've read that it connects over firewire, but my PC doesn't have a firewire port . . Is there an adaptor that will allow me to connect via USB, or will I have to buy a firewire card for my PC .. if so, does anyone know how much these cost . . .

Any advice much appreciated . .

Thanks,

. . hj

McGintyMcGoo

Buy a Firewire card for your PC. I picked one up on EBay a few months ago for about 20euro. That included the cable. You'll need to use firewire to have adequate bandwidth for streaming video footage from your Camcorder to your PC. A high spec PC would be of great benefit too

Forget about USB. That's fine for transferring images. I know that USB2 exists and is supposed to be good enough but I don't know much about it.

TheDuke

make sure you get the right wire - there's 6 and 4 pin ones - the most common is 4 to 4.

Also, keep in mind that this will stream (i.e. flow) data to your PC more importantly hard drive so all of that need to keep up with it as well other wise you might get dropped frames. Best give it a try and see how it works.

hallelujajordan

TheDuke wrote:

make sure you get the right wire - there's 6 and 4 pin ones - the most common is 4 to 4.

Also, keep in mind that this will stream (i.e. flow) data to your PC more importantly hard drive so all of that need to keep up with it as well other wise you might get dropped frames. Best give it a try and see how it works.

OK . . so, if the camera has a 4pin slot and I have a 6pin port on my PC . . I can use a 4 to 6 cable right ? ?

PC spec is Pentium 4, 2.8GHz; 512Mb RAM; 80Gb HD - Should be OK ? ? Is there anything else I need to consider ? Is it easy to install a firewire card ? ? Am currently bidding on e-bay for one . .

FX Meister

The camera will more than likely be a 4 pin and the card a 6 pin. www.marx-computers.com usually have them at decent price. You will need a good bit of HD space to capture your footage. Premier is good to capture it with, then you can export it from premier encoded for dvd and use adobe encore to add chapter points and menus if you want then encore will create the files needed to burn the dvd in Nero or whatever burning software you use. Sorry if that seemed like a lot of programs, it's generally how do it at home.

TheDuke

if you're PC fire wire card is a six pin then yes.

As for card installation it 'should' be straight forward.

If it's a P4 2.8 it should be pretty new so I don't think you'll have any problems with that.

As for space it realy depends on the quality of video processing you want to do- 1 mins of MiniDV quality could be 150MB but at a compression of 2.1mbps it'll be 14MB - you'll need to mess arround with it.

Also, if you want to edit and play arround with it messing about with 14 is going to be allot easyer then 150 and you'll have allot more then 1 minute!

As for progs Adobe is very complicated - that why I'd advise to start with Movie Make and then maybe go to Pinacle Stuido 9 (arround 50 E's if you look arround0.

Hope that helps

FX Meister

Dont pinnacle do a card that captures in low quality and once youy edit your fopotage it just recaptures what it needs at top quality. Sort of a lighter version of offline/online editing.

Dilbert75

Just bought a camcorder yesterday - Sony DCR HC14E, from the Sony centre - €499 including case, extra battery and a tape. Probably could have got a slightly better price online but IMO worth a few quid to have them around the corner if I need them. As it happens, the buying experience might as well have been online - only the Sony Centre were willing to offer me a chance to play around with a powered-up unit. The rest showed them to me in a case.

In any case, I based my decision on the reviews in the December "What Digital Camcorder", which put the Sony only slightly ahead of the Canon MV700 and a further bit ahead of the JVC GR-D23, mainly because of the performance in indoor conditions. Apparently the JVC is particularly prone to image degradation in this kind of situation. The review is worth a read. The Canon and JVC do admittedly have much better optical zoom (16x and 18x vs 10x) but, for my purposes, the Sony will do that fine.

Anyway, I'm going looking for a firewire card tomorrow - tried to download streamed video from camcorder today, using Movie Maker on XP, and its full of lost frames. Sound is fine, but the picture is dire. Either a setting is wrong or the USB (via hub and USB2.0 card) is not the optimum method.

MrVestek

My guess is, is that it's trying to stream over the USB 1.1 standard and not 2.0. How you'd remedy this i dunno. I had that kinda trouble before but went out and got myself a firewire card and hooked it up to the pc via firewire. Worked flawlessly, best choice imho.

tinofapples

Just wondering lads , what's the best way to re-format a file you up load from a Mini DV so that it will play back on a DVD player after you burn it to DVD+R ? I created a movie using Windows Movie Maker and burned it to disc but it won't replay on a DVD player.

kmb

If you know anyone with a audigy sound card,it had a firewire port.I used to use mine with no probs till i got a firewire built in motherboard.
creative.ie have them,i think €29 or so not sure.
regds kieran

Chalk

http://www.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/tda.html

i always used tmpgenc for dvd authoring.
free trial for 30 days .

all you do is load an mpeg into it, split the chapters , create a menu if you want, and let it work.

tinofapples

KMB , I have a firewire card already and have the file on the HD , it's formatting it so that it will play on a DVD player that was the problem.

Cheers Chalk , will try that over the W/end.