Panasonic NV- GS60 ; How to capture video on PC?

meganf

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Hi

I have a large set of mini dv cassettes recorded with my Panasonic NV-GS60 camcorder.

I want to transfer these home movies to my laptop to edit them better and preserve them. How do I go about doing this? I remember once upon a time I had to buy Dazzle Video software to capture the movies.

I did buy a cable with firewire port but still my DELL Laptop does not recognize the camcorder. Can any one guide me with the details?

The manual is here although it doesn't help me (pages 32- 33 relevant) : http://www.camcordermanual.com/manuals/panasonic/Panasonic_NV-GS60.pdf

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Moved from Projectors as you'll probably get better responses here!
 
Unless your laptop has a Firewire port (very few do these days) or a PCMCIA Express Card slot (again not very common on newer laptops) then you will not be able to transfer your tapes directly onto your laptop, without losing some quality.

Firewire to USB converter cables will NOT work for this task.

If your laptop does have a Firewire port, then just use the (now) free Scenalyser software for your transfers.

Transferring DV video via Firewire is just that - it transfers the actual data on the tape, without any loss of quality.
To maintain this full quality, you might like to consider finding an old desktop PC with a Firewire port - or fit a Firewire card to an old desktop (Firewire cards are still quite cheap)
Once you have the DV data transferred, you can then copy those files onto your laptop - via USB - for further editing and archiving - So the desktop is just used for 'capturing' (transferring from the tapes).

You can capture directly to your laptop from the composite (AV) output connector of the camcorder, using a USB capture device - like those from EZCapTV - but you will lose some quality doing it that way.
 
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Unless your laptop has a Firewire port (very few do these days) or a PCMCIA Express Card slot (again not very common on newer laptops) then you will not be able to transfer your tapes directly onto your laptop, without losing some quality.

Firewire to USB converter cables will NOT work for this task.

ice - like those from EZCapTV - but you will lose some quality doing it that way.

Hi
Thanks so much rogs. I have done further reading on that on the points you suggested. Really appreciate your help. :)

Maybe getting a DVD recorder might be an idea for me.
 
Maybe getting a DVD recorder might be an idea for me.
This is an option but you may need to search. Some of the older DVD recorders have FireWire ports for example my Panasonic DMR-ES15EB is fitted with one. I occasionally used it to record directly to a DVD but, as my PC has a FireWire card, the usual route was through the PC editor.
Other options would be to find a transfer service to do the copying for you.

I have always stayed with tower PCs as they are so much easier to upgrade. My earlier unit had a FireWire port built in but my current one came without. My dealer fitted a card and, after a bit of fiddling, got it to work with my (then) Canon HV20 DV camcorder. My current stock of camcorders use SD cards so now the port is rarely used.

P.S. Just had a look on Amazon and E-Bay. There are one or two second hand ( Sorry - Pre Used:facepalm:) ones still about.
 

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