[RaveyDaveyDave]

Hi Guys, I need a little bit of help and have used this forum for Plasmas, dvd players etc, but now im stuck on editing video software !!

I have recently purchased a NHJ Limited D'zign dv-5 digital http://www.empiredirect.co.uk/conten...V-5.htm#normalmini camcorder to replace my ageing hi8 analogue one. I use these in my race car to capture the footage from on track. The reason I have splashed out is the older one uses tapes and "jumps" when driving over kerbs etc, and also it weighs quite a lot. With the new one as it records to hard drive it never misses a thing.
My problem is this, until now I have been capturing my weekend warrior moments and turning them in to DVDs using Pinnacle Studio 9 and a dazzle DVC 90 analogue adapter.
With the new NHJ I can still capture the same way but the timeline and controls also capture on the screen with no way to turn them of. If I capture from the hard drive straight to PC it comes up as an avi file played by WMV, which cannot be used in Studio 9 as it says something like 'non standard fps of 30.02' and will not capture the audio.

Therefore am I doing something wrong, if so what (i have scoured the pinnacle site) or can somebody suggest a software package that is relitively inexpensive that I can use that will accept files like these, play sound, incorporate pip, add a few titles and music files ????

Thanks in advance

[jomike]

Your camcorder records video to its hard drive in MPEG4 compressed format. This is a digital format, so you do not need the analogue capture card. However, this format is not well supported by editing programs. What I would suggest, instead of getting another editing program, rather sell this camcorder and get a miniDV camcorder. The bottom of the range models will still give you better quality than the present cam. You can keep on using Pinnacle with a miniDV, but you will have to buy a FireWire cable and PC adapter card (these are cheap) to connect to the PC. People have used these cams on mountain bikes, skis etc so I don't think skipping will be a problem.
If you are determined to keep the present camcorder, you can try downloading free trial versions of Adobe premiere elements, Sony vegas movie studio and Ulead video studio 10 (there are others too) and see if they handle MPEG4 better.

Regards

Mike