Hello All, can anyone out there help me capture video from my Panasonic NV-GS120 to my PC. I bought the camcorder on the understanding that I would be able to transfer movies to my PC and later edit them and burn to DVD. Alas I can find nothing in the included software which would allow this. The camera is being found as a USB drive with no problems. When I try to capture (i'm using MS Movie Maker in XP) it tells me there are no devices connected. What I'd really like to be able to do is transfer it all from the tape to my computer, edit out all the dross I've been shooting and put together DVD's with a front page listing all my clips. Have I bought the wrong kit here? Grateful for any help, thanks in advance, Ian

[lurcher]

Hi,
Got the same model as you , just connect the camcorder via the dv out socket (rear of cam beneath flap bottom right hand corner of battery) to the dv in of your pc.
If you havent got dv socket you need to get a firewire card.
Searches on this forum will point you in the direction.
I use a 4pin to 4pin firewire lead which is not supplied with the camcorder.
HTH

BTW Movie maker wont burn dvd"s, you will need other software such as ulead/nero etc.

Hello Lurcher, thanks for the info, my PC doesn't have a Firewire card, can the connection be made from the camera to USB 2.0 card?

[vonhosen]

Firewire is the way to reliably get digital video onto the PC (firewire cards are v cheap & easy to install).

USB is only meant for lower res webcam use & stills transfer, not full res video.

To Lurcher

PCI Firewire cards can be picked up from Jessops, PC World, etc for £20 and as said before are v easy to install. Just remember to get a four pin to six pin cable to connect camera to computer.

[MarkE19]

I think most, if not all firewire cards are supplied with a firewire cable, so if buying the card you wont need to buy a separate cable.
You may not have a firewire card installed on your PC, but you may still have firewire as many modern motherboards have an onboard port (or even on a soundcard, but best not to use these if possible!). Do a search in 'Device Manager' and look for ieee1394. If this is listed then you do have firewire. It loos fairly similar to a USB port, just a bit fatter with one edge of the socket having rounded off courners.

Mark.

Ok.....the firewire card and cable are on the way. Regarding the editing, I've been looking at MS Movie Maker. I wondered, if anyone could tell me what format does it save your project as? If I burn a disc from Move Maker using Nero will my DVD player read it? I'd like to be able to watch my movies on a DVD player.....anyone got any tips.

Thanks for all the help so far.

[lurcher]

Save it as an Avi file when useing Movie Maker, that way you will not lose quality before editing etc in another program.

[MarkE19]

Movie maker is very limited in what formats it can output. As suggested you should save the output as another AVI file. This however will not fit on a DVD, and if it did a standalone player would not play the disc. What you need to do is author the AVI file for DVD. This means that the file needs to be converted to MPEG-2 so it will fit on a DVD disc and be able to play in a DVD player.
Nero (5.5 or later I believe) will do this, but AFAIK only if you have the full retail version. I have Nero 6 OEM and can't find a way to convert file formats, but there again I normally use Ulead DVD Movie Factory to do my authoring so haven't really looked that closely at Nero.

Mark.

The Jessops and PC World stores I visited don't include a firewire cable. You have to spend an extra £14 to get one.