[zorba11]

My partner has a Samsung VP-D352 cam which is broken (see other post about broken LCD screen).

We have a few family SD miniDV's that we never managed to get onto a computer before the cam broke.

Flash or HDD storage for cams seems to be all the rage now and as I'm considering buying a replacement cam WITHOUT miniDV, I need to know how I could get the miniDV footage onto a PC / Mac's harddrive DIRECTLY.

Is there some sort of a miniDV reader with an interface to another device ?

thanks

[senu]

No
There are standalone MiniDV "players" which cost way more than a consumer camcorder
You can still transfer footage to PC via firewire even if the LCD is gone. You dont need to " see" the footage as such
You can
Borrow a miniDV if you realy need to see
Get a cheap working second hand one from , say the likes of cash converters or ebay ( and sell it back when done with)
or
Use yours
As long as its the LCD it will work
Even if the sensor is spoilt it wont affect what is already on the tape

[Mr Cheese]

...and depending on your capture software you should be able to see the footage as it's captured on your pc.

[zorba11]

Originally Posted by senu

No
There are standalone MiniDV "players" which cost way more than a consumer camcorder

Ok, that's out of the question then

Originally Posted by senu

You can still transfer footage to PC via firewire even if the LCD is gone. You dont need to " see" the footage as such

The manual talks about IEEE 1394, which some vague memory told me was firewire, which google just confirmed. I can see from the manual that the LCD menu isn't needed to drive this process (but it is with USB2.0). However we need a "compatible IEEE 1394 card" for the PC, it seems ?

Originally Posted by senu

You can
Borrow a miniDV if you realy need to see
Get a cheap working second hand one from , say the likes of cash converters or ebay ( and sell it back when done with)

Yes, that's another option, or go to a shop with the miniDV tapes and ask them to put it on an SDHC card for us - could that be an option ?
(ponders...)
Hmm, differing formats - HDV to AVCHD..
there'd need to be a conversion taking place somewhere ?
...(ponders more)
maybe not, as SDHC is just a filestore, so why shouldn't it take HDV !

[senu]

Originally Posted by zorba11

The manual talks about IEEE 1394, which some vague memory told me was firewire, which google just confirmed. I can see from the manual that the LCD menu isn't needed to drive this process (but it is with USB2.0). However we need a "compatible IEEE 1394 card" for the PC, it seems ?

You may already have one, otherwise a PCI one should cost less than a tenner, and needs no drivers

Yes, that's another option, or go to a shop with the miniDV tapes and ask them to put it on an SDHC card for us - could that be an option ?
(ponders...)

No not very practical
DV AVI from tapes is about 13Gb/ hr; It then goes down to 4.7Gb hr as est quality DVD mpeg2
Either way it can be done but why pay to have someone capture and encode material on your tape if you can do it yourself

Hmm, differing formats - HDV to AVCHD..
there'd need to be a conversion taking place somewhere ?
...(ponders more)

Yes HDV is mpeg2 1080i and AVCHD is H.264 mpeg4 AVC; conversion can be time consuming
but these are Hi def formats, not SD

maybe not, as SDHC is just a filestore, so why shouldn't it take HDV !

It can, it just wont take much Both HDV and DV AVI are larger files are they are far less compressed than AVCHD and SD mpeg2
Note that HDV is mpeg2 but it is High Def variety with fixed Encoding bitrate of 25mps and larger pixel dimensions than SD mpeg2 , as such it will similarly be 13Gb/hr