Camcorder with USB 2 transfer?

jborer · 03-09-2007, 2:37 PM

Hi, I have managed to blow the firewire on serveral of the last 3 devices I have connected to my PC (2 camcorders and 1 ipod), so suspect there is obviously something going wrong with my PC there!

Anyway, I am going to buy a new camcorder and if I can afford it I would love to get the Sony HDR-SR7E camcorder next month. The added advantage to this is that it doesn't need firewire to transfer the footage across, but obviously costs quite a lot of money being high def!

I was wondering if there were perhaps any mini-dv camcorders out there (not high def ones) that also allow footage to be transferred via a USB 2.0 connection (not just photos as is usually the case), just in-case my budget won't stretch that far.

Is anyone aware of any?

Thanks.

toadoftoadhall · 03-09-2007, 3:14 PM

if its a dodgy firewire socket you have, why not put a firewire card in the computer. Much cheaper option, and works.

toad

jborer · 04-09-2007, 6:10 AM

Without getting in to it too much, I seem to have blown the firewire ports using both the internal firewire port, and an addon card. With the card I think it could have been my own fault as I had left a silver rectangle sheet type thing that came with the PC case inbetween the firewire port and the outside of the case. I left it there because it was hollow in the middle (so the firewire ports were exposed) and it was different from the big silver strips you have to remove to put an expansion card in. And I couldn't work out why else it would be there if it should be, and it didn't appear to be touching anything electrical.

When I tried a replacement camcorder I removed the expansion card and tried it directly with the onboard firewire, carefully switching the PC off, and the camcorder off whilst doing it. My heart sank when it did not recoginse the device.

I am too worried about getting another camcorder with firewire for the same thing to happen again, especially when I am not 100% certain on what it is that caused it first time, and the fact that my ipod won't connect via firewire also.

All this has happened on a new PC that I got, things were fine with my old one (now gone).

So, if anyone does have any ideas on camcorders I would appreciate it.

Thanks.

redsox_mark · 04-09-2007, 7:35 AM

To capture DV over USB you would need both:

- A camcorder which supports this
- Video capture software which supports this

Both are rare. I know in the past there were some Panasonic models which did this, and were supplied with software which supported it. But I don't believe any of the current models do this.