Please excuse this (first-time) post - I am not a very technical person.

I have had a Canon MV20 digital camcorder and, for the past 5 years, have been editing straight onto VHS through my video recorder.

I would now like to edit through my laptop onto DVD. Is it possible to do this with the MV20? If so, what additional equipment/software will I need?

And, most importantly, how easy is it (and will the quality be any good)?

Thanks (in advance) for all your help.

[MarkE19]

Hi Connors and welcome to the forum

Well not being technical should not put you off trying to edit your video on a PC/laptop. Once you have the correct leads and conections sorted its not that difficault to get great results.

Your camcorder will have a DV output that should be used to connect to your laptop. If the laptop does not have a DV port (aka firewire, iLink, ieee1394) you can get a PCMCIA firewire card that adds these ports for around £20 from ebuyer etc. If you already have the DV ports or if not supplied with the card suggested above then you will need to buy a 4 pin to 4 pin firewire cable also available from ebuyer etc.
Then all you need is the software and disk space along with a DVD burner to create the final disks. If the laptop is running Windows XP then you already have Movie Maker to do the editing & capture. Make sure you have the free upgrade to MM2 via SP2 and you have all you need to get started. You will likely need more disk space though as video capture take around 13Gb per hour. The chances are that with a laptop adding another drive will need to be external and can be connected by either firewire (see above) or USB2.0

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

Mark.

Mark, thanks for that. It looks as though the laptop already has a firewire port but I'll need to get the cable you suggest (and an external DVD rewriter - any suggestions?).

My IT guy at work has looked at the laptop and he thinks I have enough memory (and processor speed) to do what want. So, I'm hoping to spend as much time over Christmas as the kids/wife will allow me transferring 15 hours of mini DV onto disk. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

By the way, "MM2 via SP2" - please translate!

[vonhosen]

Originally Posted by Connors

By the way, "MM2 via SP2" - please translate!

Movie Maker 2 (free editing software from Microsoft) via SP2 (XP Service Pack 2)

[MarkE19]

Well for more tips than I could ever give you on useing Movie Maker 2 take a look at www.papajohn.org
As for an external DVD writer then I have just had a quick look on www.ebuyer.co.uk and found the following that looks good:

Liteon 1633SX 16x DVD R/RW Dual Layer External USB 2.0
Quickfind code: 76821
£77.54 inc VAT

or another option would be to buy your own external case and put the DVD writer of your choice in it. This can often work out cheaper and you get exactly what you want. I would always recommend the Pioneer DVD writers, the latest one being the DVR-108 drive for around £57 plus about £30 for the case.

Mark.

Thanks again for all your help. I've ordered what I need and I should have it all by the middle of next week. I'll let you know how I get on in due course (and, if I need any more help in the meantime, I'll be in touch....)

OK - so I've connected the camcorder to the laptop with a firewire cable and I've installed moviemaker. However, the laptop says it doesn't recognise the camcorder.

I assume that I need to install some kind of software/driver (firewire/microsoft/canon?). Is this correct and, if so, where do I get it from?

Apologies for continually being thick!!

[MarkE19]

There should be no drivers etc to install for any device connected by firewire as Windows XP has all the required drivers included.

Connect the cam to the PC.
Turn on the cam in VCR mode.
Start Movie Maker.
The cam should now be found by the software.
It is always a good idea to reboot your PC before you start!

Mark.

Do not upgrade to sp2 with a mv20.

read

The is a problem that sp2 does not like the video feed and therefor will not capture it.

read the newsgroups for move maker

I have problems with connections at the momment but look for a title about PAL

Thanks DRC - how can I tell whether I already have SP2 and can you let me have a link to the newsgroups.

Mark, I've now successfully connected the camcorder and laptop (turns out I hadn't been using a firewire cable at all). The software is trying to capture the digital video (rewinds tape and plays/records automatically) but the picture is completely distorted.

Is this likely to be a service pack problem, a memory/processor speed problem or neither?

Help

[MarkE19]

To find out if you have SP2 installed:
open 'My Computer'
click on the 'help' drop down menu
click on 'about windows'
This will open a window that will tell you if SP2 is installed

When you say the video looks distorted - in what way?
If the picture is stretch too wide or squashed then you might need to set the capture format as it could be 16:9 (widescreen) or 4:3 depending on which format you have recorded the footage.

Mark.

It's not stretched or squashed. I can't really explain it - it just looks like the pixels haven't translated properly (if that makes any sense). A bit like one of the digital effects, when the picture fades in from blocks.

[MarkE19]

The only thing I can really think of is that perhaps your graphics card just can't cope with displaying full rsolution moving video.
If this is the cause then its no real problem as the video will have been copied onto the HDD without any problems. To check you need to copy it back to the camcorder, or play the video off the HDD to a TV.

Mark.

But if that's the case, how can I edit the picture (if I can't see it properly)?

Is the graphics card upgrade-able?

I think this is the effect of SP2.
I have never had problems with my mv20 before, but now when I was about to start capturing I got exactly what you described.
I will investigate this further

Hello, after installing SP2 on my computer I can not capture my videos from my Canon MV20 DV. Does anyone have a solution ??

Kind regards, Fermin

I hope this helps

http://www.eicsoftware.com/PapaJohn/MM2/MM2.html

Digital Camcorders ++

Canon

I have done this and it works fine now.