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[UncleUB]

Hi all,my brother-in-law asked me for help about his camcorder,but as I have no idea about them I thought I would ask if anyone can give me some advice.He has a Panasonic camcorder 5years old and he is trying to transfer his films on to the PC so he can make DVD's.He has tried using USB transfer without success(was told it is too slow).He went to the Panasonic shop and they told him he needs a firewire cable?
He has a Dell pc which is XP and about 5 years old.I would appreciate any help please.

[roseway]

Probably his old PC won't have a firewire interface, but you can buy a PCI card to provide that interface. Here's an example. Firewire is a sort of high speed USB interface, if you didn't know.

[UncleUB]

Thanks eric,he didn't say if his comuter had a firewire interface,although he did contact dell and they said he could buy a cable from them.I will ask him later about this.

[oldfogy]

As it is only five years old is it a "Digital" camcorder
Or does it take tapes?

If it's digital, then yes with a decent connection such as firewire he can copy over his movie, although he could also use USB but it would be slower to copy over.

IF, it's the older tape type, then he will also need a "Picture Capture" program to be able to record the movie from the camcorder onto the PC.

So firstly, is it Digital or Analogue (Tape)?

[UncleUB]

Not 100% certain OF but I'm sure he uses tapes

[dave.m]

Phil,
We have an analogue Video camera which records on mini tapes.
I use one of these to load onto the PC:
http://tinyurl.com/2qdmvy

If he does not intend editing the videos and he has a DVD recorder, get him to check the input connections on that because on some you can connect the camera and record direct to DVD.

dave

[oldfogy]

If that is so, then he will also need a picture capture program, ask him if he has one before we go into recommending 101 different ones (Personally I use Nero and Cyberlink) but there are lots out there.

Just in-case or to clear-up any thoughts how this happens.
Basically he plays the camcorder, and records at the same time into the PC.


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[soms]

We have an old Sony camcorder... when I say old, it dates from 1999/2000 and uses tapes.

However it is a digital camcorder and has a DV interface which can be used via firewire.

I had to buy a cheap PCI firewire card and a standard firewire cable and then I was away.

Pretty well any video editing suite is capable of capturing video from a camcorder.

I do it very infrequently and don't know much about video editing so have tended to use Windows Movie Maker for the video capture. I can capture it as WMV 640x480 resoultion at a high frame rate and it looks good on screen.

I tried fitting the PCI card in my Dell system (2007) but the stupid thing refuses to boot Windows when I add PCI cards (it was seriously annoying - firewire, serial, modem, sound cards you name it it doesn't like them - in any spare slot).

A bit annoyed, i swapped my Dual core Dell PC with my brothers PC which I built for him and can now add PCI cards freely.

Firewire is ALOT easier than using analogue capture on a PC. If the camcorder has a Digital Video (DV) interface then the PC can control the tape as well i.e. play, pause, stop, RW, FF etc which is good.

[UncleUB]

Just been confirmed that it is a camcorder that uses tapes,so will he need a pci firewire card as well as the software that Dave recommends,or just the software?

[soms]

Just been confirmed that it is a camcorder that uses tapes,so will he need a pci firewire card as well as the software that Dave recommends,or just the software?

Best bet is to check the connections available on the camcorder.

Obviously pretty well all have analogue connections - the yellow, white and red RCA connectors for video and audio but also most with have digital connections.

These can be used to capture the video in analogue mode just like with a VCR, but requires a TV tuner card or graphics card with video input, be it S-video or just an RCA jack.

The better option is look for a very small digital video connector. This is what you can use with firewire and it is very easy to import video. If you can find a DV port then yes, a firewire PCI card and a stardard firewire lead are what you need.

If you have Windows XP, I know first hand that Windows Movie Maker makes capturing the video very easy without the need for 3rd party software though of course its editing capabilities may be a little more basic. Thats not to say you could also buy a video editing suite as well either to play with the video after importing it on to the PC or doing it all within the one program.

[UncleUB]

Just to update guys,my Brother in law has now sorted it.After I passed on all the info from you guys he downloaded Windows movie maker and got it sorted.So thanks again for everyones input.