New Panasonic GS50

[Goober11]

Just bought one today and was slightly surprised that it did not come with software to capture the video as i would like to burn my movies as VCD. Anyone know where i can get free / cheap software to capture and edit my videos prior to transferring to VCD. Also do i really need a firewire connection or can i transfer the video via USB.

Any help in this regard would be great appreciated.

Thanks

[Goober11]

Anyone???

Also interested to here from anyone withis camcorder what their experience is so far. Thought about the Sony trv33 but was not sure it was worth the extra dosh, am i wrong, should i take it back and get the trv33?

[pcblues]

Hi Goober,

I think the GS50 is a pretty neat camcorder, sure the sony's got a good review but I couldn't buy one at the time because of the earthquake disrupting the factory in Japan. I am pretty impressed by it.
I have firewire ports direct from motherboard.
I have been using Movie Maker 2.0, it is free. I have seen a lot of people say that they quite like MovieMaker, so far, I think it ain't bad.

cheers

pcblues

[JayX]

when you're transfering video from the USB im fairly sure its not going to be full quality DV, so you'll need a firewire card for this. firewire is very fast and works brilliantly, and you can get a card / cable for under £30 now.

then you'll need to download a trial (or buy, but its best to use a trial first) a non-linear editor. pinnacle make easy to use products, and personally i use Vegas 4.0 from sonic foundry. its a lot more powerful , and not hard to use if you're familiar with the basic concept of digital video. i went straight into it, and found i was making usable video within the hour.

[Goober11]

I suppose my main problem is my PC, its bloody ancient and 4 gig of memory, so it is unlikely i am going to go far with this. This means i need to go out a find a decent pc that has a dvd burner, firewire and XP with movie maker or similar.

With regards to the cam I was wondering whether i would really notice the difference in quality between my new panny and the 1 mega pixel trv33 that everyone seems to be raving about.

[JayX]

when you say 4gb of memory, i presume you mean 4gb of hdd space. if i had a box with 4gb of memory, i'd be grinning like a cheshire cat

and you're right, you will need to buy a new pc. if you had a theoretically impossible 4gb free on that harddisk, that'd be enough to capture 20mins of digital video. then you wouldn't be able to edit it, because you wouldn't have any hdd space left

you're gonna need to spend at least £1k on a box thats truly capable of being a good home DV workstation. if you just want to do simple things, then lesser equipment is fine, it'll just take longer.

[Goober11]

Thanks Jay, any views on the specs i should look for in the new PC - I am probably willing to spend about £1-1.3k.

Ta

[pcblues]

how about this:
AMD Athlon XP 3200+ Processor
ASUS A7N8XnVIDIA nForce2 Deluxe Mainboard
2x (1394 Firewire, Serial ATA, 10/100 LAN) & S/PDIF
512MB DDR RAM (PC2700) Memory
160GB 7200rpm Ultra DMA-133 HDD with 8MB Buffer
256MB nVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 SE, TV Out/DVI
17" Sharp TFT Flat Panel Monitor
SONY DVD Multi Burner *, PLUS 16x DVD-ROM Drive
Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Dolby Surround with FireWire
Creative Labs Inspire 6700 6.1 Surround Speakers
Internet Ready V.92 56Kbps data/fax/voice modem
Network Ready integrated 10/100 Ethernet Adaptor
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
FREE Microsoft Works 7.0
FREE Pinnacle Studio 8 SE Video Editing Software
FREE 3 Year On-Site Warranty (UK Mainland only)
Midi Tower Case/6 USBs + Additional Features

£1467.58

This can be configured to have another 160Gb hard disk.

cheers

pcblues

[pcblues]

or this:

Processor
Intel Pentium 4 2.66GHz processor
Memory
2 x 256MB DDR RAM (PC2700)
Hard disk
40GB UDMA100 IDE hard disk
120GB 7200rpm UDMA 100 hard disk drive
Graphics
64MB Edition PRO AGP card
Monitor
19" Viewsonic G90F+B PerfectFlat (CRT) monitor
Floppy drive
3.5" 1.44MB floppy drive
CD/DVD Rewriter
CD-RW (48x24x48) / DVD (16x) combo drive
Modem
v92 56k internet ready modem
Speakers
Creative I-Trigue 2.1 3300
Case
Black tower case (470mm x 205mm x 522mm)
Keyboard and mouse
Microsoft Wireless optical keyboard and mouse
Standard software
Pinnacle Edition 5 Pro

£1869.00

cheers

pcblues

[Goober11]

PCB both look pretty damn good, where did you see them advertised?

[pcblues]

MESH COMPUTERS

&

EVESHAM COMPUTERS

respectively

cheers

pcblues

[Goober11]

Many thanks PCB.

[JayX]

stick with a CRT monitor for video editing. plus you'll get a bigger display for your money, and size is everything

crucial things for a DV system

1. fast processor
2. as much memory as possible
3. as much hdd space as possible
4. firewire port (either seperate or on motherboard or soundcard)

CCL Computers Video Editing Box

Main Features
DVD/CDRW: Pioneer DVR-A05 (DVD- Writer) RTL
CPU: AMD AthlonXP PR2600+ (OEM) Thoroughbred
GRAPHICS CARD: 64Mb ATI Radeon 9000 Pro All In Wonder (Sapphire)
HDD: 120Gb Hitachi Deskstar 180GXP - 8MB Cache
HDD: 40Gb Hitachi Deskstar 120GXP
MOTHERBOARD: Epox 8RDA3+ (DDR / Nforce2 / LAN / 1394 / SATA / 400FSB)
OPERATING SYSTEM: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition OEM
RAM: 1024MB Using 2x 512Mb DDR (PC2700) 333

Specification
MONITOR: 19" Iiyama Vision Master Pro 455 (MM904UT)
SPEAKERS: Creative Inspire 2.1 RTL (inc Sub)
CASE: Aopen Tower Case H500 (Beige)
COOLER: Global Win FSP82
FDD: 3.5 Floppy Disk Drive 1.44Mb
KBD / MOUSE: Microsoft Natural Multimedia Keyboard & Wheel Mouse Optical Bundle
MODEM: 56K Speedcom+ Rockwell Int PCI
SOFTWARE: Pinnacle Studio 8 (OEM)

Online Price__£973.55 (£1,143.92_Including VAT at 17.5%)

for a pre built system, thats pretty good value considering the fact it has a gb of RAM. the All In Wonder card allows analogue video input too, so you can mix VHS / TV footage with the DV if required.

[Goober11]

Thanks jay.

[Rose1346]

Originally Posted by Goober11

Anyone???

Also interested to here from anyone withis camcorder what their experience is so far. Thought about the Sony trv33 but was not sure it was worth the extra dosh, am i wrong, should i take it back and get the trv33?

I have had my GS50 for some time. Its great to use for movies of events. It has many extras which I haven't tried as yet. The only problem I am having is downloading movies to my pc, as others also seem to be having.My pc is not old as it was upgraded in Dec 2008.