I am going to video a school show and am concerned about changing tapes during the show. I have been told that I could video directly to my laptop. My intention would be to connect a USB2 external 120GB hardfile to my laptop and go directly on to that.

I have DV in on my laptop so I can get a DV-DV cable but I am looking for information for the setup.

[DigiStuff]

Hi,

Sounds good in theroy but you would need an external firewire hard drive and not an USB 2 one for it to work fully. USB 2 does not sustain transfer speeds required for DV capture. Also I would still keep recording on tape in case anything goes wrong. IS there going to be some form of interval during the show that you could change tapes during??

Hope this helps

DigiStuff

[MarkE19]

I would aslo recommend recording to tape as it is the most robust media format, and the chances are you will only get the one chance to capture it.
A miniDV tape will record 60minutes in SP, or if needed you can get away with 90minutes in LP. There are a few 80minute DV tapes around as well, but use these with caution IMO as the tape will be thinner to get it into the case!
As suggested you could record to tape & onto the laptop, but PC's being what they are they could well crash at any point or the battery run down etc etc. IMO you are going to find it easier to stick to tape.
As stated though, if you do want to live capture to the PC then the external HDD must be connected via firewire. Any standard editing software such as Movie Maker 2 that is part of the XP install will be able to capture from the camcorder.

Mark.

Thanks for the info. My Camcorder is a Digital8 so I can get 90 minute tapes and although the show is almost 2 hours, I have asked for an interval to allow me to change tapes.

I thought USB2 was faster than Firewire!!!!!!!!! shows how wrong you can be.

[MarkE19]

Actually USB2.0 (but definately not USB1.1) is faster than standard firewire. However the maximum speed of USB is not constant, but peeks and drops, but with video transfer you need a constant high speed or you get dropped frames etc.
USB2.0 = (up to) 480mbs
Firewire = (constant) 400mbs (there is a new 'firewire 800' that has a transfer speed of 800mbs, but AFAIK this is not used on camcorders)

Mark.