[eddscott]

So I have this camcorder to play with and have a couple of questions.

1) I've got some Premium Sony miniDV tapes. Will these be sufficient.

2) I've been given a Firewire cable to upload footage to my PC. Is this the best way of moving the footage around. In the past i have just transferred footage via USB to my DVD recorder.

[senu]

Originally Posted by eddscott

So I have this camcorder to play with and have a couple of questions.

1) I've got some Premium Sony miniDV tapes. Will these be sufficient.

Yes. The costlier ones are supposed to reduce the incidence of dropout in theory due to superior material used.
It may be argued that for a crictical recording you could use them .
In Practice the Premium tapes are adequalte
Also it would be bad practice to miix tapes so if you did start with the Higher grade HD ones you would be best adviced to carry on with them . TBH though they are reusable though most of us tend to avoid doing that as often as possible

2) I've been given a Firewire cable to upload footage to my PC. Is this the best way of moving the footage around.

Yes
In the past i have just transferred footage via USB to my DVD recorder.

On the PC? Settop recorders tend not to have a USB input
At any rate , while a few tape camcorders can transfer DV AVI by USB . I dont know of any HDV model which can
USB is usually for stills or web quality video if used to transfer from a tape based camcorder

[eddscott]

Sorry, talking out the top of my head.

On our old camcorder I used the middle one here

http://www.dvuser.co.uk/images/img/r...sony-v1/av.jpg

And on the other end was Red/White/Yellow connections that I put into the DVD recorder.

I'm going to try using the Firewire to get the footage onto the PC. From there I can edit it and store the raw footage on the hard drive.

If I then copy this to DVD it won't be in HD though. The camcorder has HDMI out so direct playback to my TV would be in HD (TV does 1080i) To be fair although I mention HD its not really that important. Just as long as I get half decent footage at normal indoor lighting I'll be happy.

I suspect I have a long night with the manual

[senu]

Originally Posted by eddscott

Sorry, talking out the top of my head.

On our old camcorder I used the middle one here

http://www.dvuser.co.uk/images/img/r...sony-v1/av.jpg

And on the other end was Red/White/Yellow connections that I put into the DVD recorder.

If your settop had a Firewire input , that would have been the best one to use as it would be a digital transfer all the way
it is the lowest one in that picture
Sony also do S-video through the middle one but it is often an optional cable which would give a superior video quality to the one with 3 phono plugs ( composite)

I'm going to try using the Firewire to get the footage onto the PC. From there I can edit it and store the raw footage on the hard drive.

If I then copy this to DVD it won't be in HD though.

No but then DVD players dont understand HD anyway .As data yes, but not as a DVD video

The camcorder has HDMI out so direct playback to my TV would be in HD (TV does 1080i) To be fair although I mention HD its not really that important. Just as long as I get half decent footage at normal indoor lighting I'll be happy.

True
You can record in HD and transfer downconverted SD "on the fly" to a PC though
Or capture and edit as HDV then output into different versions as you wish

I suspect I have a long night with the manual

Maybe not ( unless you read very slowly..) but it will make you slick when you finally get going..