How do you transfer video footage from older camcorders(not digital) to pc?

[vulkan75]

Ok,firstly excuse the thread title ...A friend has asked me how to transfer video he has of his daughter to pc for editing.

The trouble is its one of the older formats.. VHS I think, and I only know how to do it via firewire cos I have a newer camera..

Anybody done this?

thanks in advance..

[Gary Palmer]

Hi Vulkan75

I've just transferred a lot of old, analogue camcorder footage to PC using my Sony digicam - it happens to have a video input, effectively using it as a video capture card. Check if your digital camcorder has one. If not you'll need one of the many video capture devices out there.

If you have a media centre PC or a TV card you may already have a video input which you can use to grab the analogue video footage..

gary

[vulkan75]

Thanks for the reply gary..I'm not sure exactly what you mean in terms of how you used your digicam..are you saying that you connected the old camera to the digicam via composite analouge, then out to pc digitaly..sounds tricky,I've probably got that all wrong .

Anyway if He has a tv capture card what software would he need to pull it off.I'm assuming studio pinnacle 8 or similar...

ta

alex

[Brian110507]

Yes if your DV camera has AV-in - thats composite NOT DV-in - check your cameras specs - you can connect your old camera/VCR composite output to the composite on your DV camera then on via firewire to your PC - on many DV cams you do not even need to have a tape in the DV cam the signal passes straight through - this is known as Pass-through - but on some you may have to record to tape as well/instead . if you use a VCR do not attempt to use the scart>>phono adapter supplied with your camera plugged into your VCR for this unless it is a 'switched' type and you can switch it to 'OUT' - the ones supplied with cameras are 99% IN only and you may need to nip down to your local Maplins.

You either need to read your cameras specification carefully or post the make and type of your camera and one of us will check it out for you.

If your camcorder cannot do that then you either need an analogue capture card in your PC ( sometimes coupled with a TV tuner so you can watch TV on your PC ) or you need to buy an external conversion box like the range from 'Dazzle' (or others) which externally takes your composite and turns that to digital for capture by firewire.

Whatever capture/editing programme you are already using should be able to do everything for you.

[Gary Palmer]

Hi Vulkan

As Beejay says, the digital camcorder has a composite video input. In my case I don't even need a tape in the digital camcorder.

If you're using Windows NT the standard Micro$oft moviemaker works fine and lets you choose what bit-rate you want to use (file-size, image quality tradeoff). The downside is that it produces a WMV file rather than Divx etc... If you need other file-formats you can download various convertors for free or just buy a package from Pinnacle etc..

Good luck !

Gary

[vulkan75]

A bit late coming, i've bin away....#but thanks guys, these forums are truley handy..