I have recently purchased my first Camcorder, it is as Panasonic DV, it has a few diffrent conectors on the side (1 for digital stills, 1 S Video and one headphone type jack for playback on TV etc as well as some sort of editing jack.) I am trying to find out how I can plug it in to my computer to capture videos in MPEG format or alike, I am not to concerned with the software side but need to know how to conect it up. I do have a USB TV tuner for my laptop which has a S-Video input, but when I conect it up I just get a fuzzy screen. Any help or advise would be very much appreciated, I dont know how else to ask as most people are just trying to sell you something

Much appreciated
Ross
Sales@Scantecgb.fsnet.co.uk

[JefUK]

To capture video from a DV camcorder the usual way is to use a IEEE1394 connection and PC port, otherwise known as "Firewire". The socket is a very square rectangular device, a bit like a small USB socket. All camcorders have DV-out enabled ports, but not all European camcorders have DV-in enabled. This means that you can capture, but cannot write back to the camera, which is often required to store the edited video.

USB is not fast enough for full quality capture.

You will need a 1394 port on the PC. The data will be captured as DV coded AVI files, not as MPEG. The alternative is to use an analogue capture board, which usually captures as MJEPG's

[Dubbing Mixer]

All you need is a basic Firewire card and some software. Try scan.co.uk for something less than £20 with basic editing software.