this is confusing!

[fastpuma]

hi! can anyone help me here please, i have a sony camcorder dcr pc 106e and i have made recordings on a mini dv tape and i want to transfer it on to a cdr. i have installed the software cd that came with it(picture package) and i cant get the usb streaming going, all it say is that its unable to detect the camcorder, i have tried all of my ports (usb) and nothing i even got another usb cable but it picks up the device, but it doesnt transfer it over. the option to select the usb streaming is switched to on, on my camcorder and the docking station that came with it. but nothing! its a sony laptop that i have got. Unfortunately i dont know a lot about camcorders, do i need a firewire cable or something? or the i link? god im really confused! please help! ps: i have tried using windows movie maker and another program called dv gate but it still doesnt pick up the camcorder.

[MarkE19]

TBH the USB port on camcorders should be dropped! It is only causeing confusion to those that don't know what they are really doing!
USB is no good for the transfer of video, it is only any good for still images and low quality video such as web cam. To get the full quality video onto the PC/laptop you do need to use a firewire connection. Firewire is the same thing as iLink, ieee1394 or DV port.
When connected via firewire Movie Maker should find the camcorder with no problems. Forget the supplied software.

HTH,
Mark.

[fastpuma]

mark, thanks for your reply mate! i think i will order a i link cable now, do you know what kind i should be using? i seen a few about, there are 4pins to 4 pins and 4 pins to 6 pins. I have a sony vaio laptop. Thanks again for your reply to my previous problem.

[MarkE19]

The chances are that on a laptop you will need a 4 pin to 4 pin firewire cable.
Does the laptop already have a firewire port? If it dies then you just need a cable, but if not you will need to get a PCMCIA card with the firewire port. tHis card should be supplied with the cable and online will cost you around £20. Just the cable should be under £10.

Mark.

[fastpuma]

thanks mark. i have ordered a 4pin to 4pin firewire cable over the internet, so i will just have to wait to a couple of days later to see if i can get my camcorder working thru the laptop. Could you also recommend a program for me to use so that i can make my recordings on to a blank cdr? do you think i should buy pinnacle studio? i heard that was quite a good program, but in all honesty i wouldnt be using the program a lot as i just want to save all my recordings on to a blank cdr so i can give to family and friends to view, so i either buy pinnacle or just stick to the windows movie maker. Many thanks for your sound advice :-)

[MarkE19]

Movie Maker is ideal for capture and editing of the video, but you can't make a disc from it. To do this you need some sort of burning program - such a Nero. If you have a CD burner then you should already have a burning program, just read the online help/manual to find out how to create a VCD. Be ware though that the quality of a VCD is fairly poor. A better quality will be to record a SVCD, but these will only hold around 15 minutes of video (VCD should be approx 1 hour) per disc and will not play on a lot of standalone DVD players. But even better would be to get yourself a DVD burner. These can be bought for under £100 for an external drive, that you connect by either USB2.0 or better still firewire.

Mark.