question about videography

Kho King · 12th September 2002

Dear all,
I have just bought a Sony digital video camera. Do I need a special video capture board if I want to transfer the recorded miniDV tape to my computer and edit them and later store into VCD format (watch on normal VCD player)?

Is a video capture board a must? Can I transfer the captured video using the USB cable supplied?

Thanks.

pit · 12th September 2002

Apparently not. The USB cable is meant for transfer of files stored in your memory stick - image capture and mpeg files.

You'll need a Firewire port on your PC to download the video from your tape. These files are huge ! 15GB average. Hence the need for Firewire.

If you're hard up for disk space, you can try Ulead Video Studio which does "almost" real-time encoding. It takes the streamed data from the Firewire and encode it to a compressed format, e.g. MPEG2. So, you'll need far lesser storage space on your PC.

mpenza · 12th September 2002

you also need a harddisk that has NTFS volume. Fat32 is limited to 4BG files.

ben.naden · 12th September 2002

You need:
1. Firewire card if it is not already on your PC. Firewire cable too!
2. A video editing software, like Adobe Premier.
3. A large hard drive.

Tranfering video to your PC is half the fun. Thenother half involves video editing and some creativity.

I have a video editing setup at home so let me know if need help! Have fun!

Kho King · 12th September 2002

Thanks, guys!

Some more questions:
My Sony DCR PC110 doesn't have firewire socketleh...so how?
Below is the in/out it has:
S-VIDEO IN/OUT,
VIDEO IN/OUT (Special AV mini),
AUDIO IN/OUT
(Special AV mini, Stereo),
External MIC Input
(Stereo plug in power),
DV IN/OUT (i. LINK),
Phone Jack, LANC Jack,
USB terminal, DC IN

Ulead Video Studio, is this just software or comes with hardware? Expensive? I don't have much budget now after getting the camcorder.

I don't have much storage on my hardisk, 15GB is too big for me, so what's the best solution u guys suggest? I want to burn the video to CD later and view as VCD on VCD player.

Thanks again.

drafting88 · 12th September 2002

Quote:

Originally posted by Kho King
Thanks, guys!

Some more questions:
My Sony DCR PC110 doesn't have firewire socketleh...so how?
Below is the in/out it has:
S-VIDEO IN/OUT,
VIDEO IN/OUT (Special AV mini),
AUDIO IN/OUT
(Special AV mini, Stereo),
External MIC Input
(Stereo plug in power),
DV IN/OUT (i. LINK),
Phone Jack, LANC Jack,
USB terminal, DC IN

Ulead Video Studio, is this just software or comes with hardware? Expensive? I don't have much budget now after getting the camcorder.

I don't have much storage on my hardisk, 15GB is too big for me, so what's the best solution u guys suggest? I want to burn the video to CD later and view as VCD on VCD player.

Thanks again.

The DV IN/OUT (i.Link) IS referring to the firewire. It is also referred as the IEEE 1394 connection (?).

Kho King · 12th September 2002

Quote:

Originally posted by drafting88

The DV IN/OUT (i.Link) IS referring to the firewire. It is also referred as the IEEE 1394 connection (?).

Oh...thanks!

So...now I need to get a firewire card (for my computer) and cable...right?

What software do I need to change the big file size to MPEG2 and edit it?

Thanks.

pit · 12th September 2002

You dont need NTFS file system as Ulead Video has a feature that automatically splits captured file by 4GB. e.g. Total Video Captured = 10GB, 3 files will be generated: 4,4,2GB.

Ulead Video Studio is just a software. You can get the Firewire card with cable for about S$50 from Sim Lim. Mine (Iwill brand) came with the Ulead Video Studio Software. But the bundled version does not have the real-time compressing feature.

If you need that (looks like you do, no hard disk space), you will need the updated full version which also supports MPEG2 compression. Take note: the real-time compression reduces the resultant file size but with that it also reduces quality slightly. You can then use the Ulead software to do your editing.

It's quite a user friendly software. Maybe when you're more pro, you can opt for Adobe Premiere or Ulead Media Studio Pro.

Good Luck.

ben.naden · 12th September 2002

Quote:

Originally posted by Kho King

Oh...thanks!

So...now I need to get a firewire card (for my computer) and cable...right?

What software do I need to change the big file size to MPEG2 and edit it?

Thanks.

I beleive Sony had a bundle before for about $100 and it includes the Firewire casrd, cables and Adobe Premier bundled. Check and see if the bundle still exissts. Otherwise you will neeed to get them separately.

To do MPEG2, you will neeed one of those DVD movie maker software which can be quite expeensive. I don;t have any info for this on teh PC. Most video editing software allows output to VCD which is essentially MPEG1 format.

Que Lynn · 12th September 2002

And remember, when buying a firewire card, make sure it's the kind that is made for video capturing!

A friend bought a regular firewire card once (the ones that don't come with any form of video capture software), thinking it would be enough for video capture. But when she got home and tried the card, the video being captured was having a lot of dropped frames, ie skipping! Using adobe premiere, no less!

I looked for a firewire card made for video capture, plugged it into her computer, plugged the cam in, and the capture went smoothly then.

Apparently, after conversing with some folks whose jobs involve capturing digital video, you really can't use the regular-plain-joe firewire cards for the job.

imaginary_number · 12th September 2002

Quote:

Originally posted by Que Lynn
And remember, when buying a firewire card, make sure it's the kind that is made for video capturing!

A friend bought a regular firewire card once (the ones that don't come with any form of video capture software), thinking it would be enough for video capture. But when she got home and tried the card, the video being captured was having a lot of dropped frames, ie skipping! Using adobe premiere, no less!

I looked for a firewire card made for video capture, plugged it into her computer, plugged the cam in, and the capture went smoothly then.

Apparently, after conversing with some folks whose jobs involve capturing digital video, you really can't use the regular-plain-joe firewire cards for the job.

There are different types of firewire?

Care to share what's the difference?

'coz I thought all firewire ports are the same...

Kho King · 14th September 2002

Can anyone suggest good video capture card? Is it good to buy the Sony brand one?

Thanks.

Jethro · 14th September 2002

Hmm I don't think Sony has manufactured any video capture cards. Recently bought the Fusion DV movie studio which claimes to have real time VCD & DVD encoder. Installed on WinXP but soon realised that there was'nt any hardware encoder chip on it. This was fyrther confirmed as the in-camera pre-edited text and the date/time data was not shown on the captured video.
Trie on my VIVO Radeon(with the ATI Theatre encorder but with composite input) it worked as everything was seen as the same as LCD panel on the camera.
I concluded that though these fire-wire capture cards are of varied quality, they maybe all the same. CPU speed and hard disks makes the difference when doing video capture.

ben.naden · 14th September 2002

Quote:

Originally posted by Kho King
Can anyone suggest good video capture card? Is it good to buy the Sony brand one?

Thanks.

I was jusst thinking, do you really need a captture card other than a Firewire card since you have a DV camera which can do transfers this way. I think A reasonably fast PC and good vvideo editing software will do the trick!

Que Lynn · 15th September 2002

Hey Kho King,

I hope this list of capture cards and reviews will help you (that is, if you haven't bought one yet):
http://www.vcdhelp.com/capturecards.php

Some of them are actually capable of capturing direct to mpeg (a process much faster than capturing to AVI, then encoding to mpeg).

Currently, I have a Dazzle WinDV card in my computer. A few basic capture cards are getting cheaper these days, almost as cheap as the "generic" ones, so it's generally a good idea to get a capture one because at least it comes with some fairly-decent original software.

Plus, as with the experience I related earlier, it was the card that made the difference.

Kho King · 15th September 2002

Thanks everyone! I will study more before buying one. I don't have a firewire card in my PC currently, and from what Que Lynn suggest, I think it is safer to buy a capture card than just a firewire card.

Thanks again

angy · 19th September 2002

I suggest you focus on:

1. Budget
2. Time
3. Interest
(Not in order)

1. Budget
Card
there are good cards and there are even better cards. you budget will decide the types of card you are going to get. Of course you cannot have the cake and eat it.

HD
You need lots and lots of space. So, buy the biggest you can effort. The 80Gb should be fine.

2. Time
Rendering or Authoring
This is the toughest part. If you have a MPEG hardware decoder, then 1 hour of raw video, will take 1 hour to render or compile. If you are willing to wait and want better results, you can try software decoder. Then the ratio is 1 : 3.5 or 4. Yes, it takes that long.

3. Interest
After what I have said, if you still interested, then go ahead, try out and enjoy it.

Last, if you are still after reading, I suggest that you look at the following ads, it is a solid card and this guy is selling pretty good price. The Matrox RT2000

http://classifieds.singnet.com.sg/se...ord=matrox&ID=

ckiang · 19th September 2002

Simplest way : Buy a Sound Blaster Audigy series of cards. You get FireWire/IEEE1394 card, Dolby Digital 5.1 support, EAX Advanced HD, and all. Much more worth it than any standalone cards. The Platinum version even comes with ULead VideoStudio SE. Great sound, great video, what more can you ask for?

Regards
CK

Kit · 19th September 2002

Quote:

Originally posted by ckiang
Simplest way : Buy a Sound Blaster Audigy series of cards. You get FireWire/IEEE1394 card, Dolby Digital 5.1 support, EAX Advanced HD, and all. Much more worth it than any standalone cards. The Platinum version even comes with ULead VideoStudio SE. Great sound, great video, what more can you ask for?

Regards
CK

Eh? Make sure Mr Sim sees this...

Kho King · 20th September 2002

Thanks CK.

I find the Sound Blaster AUDIGY quite value for money. S$99 only and can get high end sound with firewire port.

But now...is the card fully compatible with DV? after hearing Que Lynn experience, I kind of not so sure. Has anyone using this card for digital video editing?

I can upgrade my hardisk to bigger size if needed, but can't afford to upgrade the whole computer now. I am still using old Pentium II 333 with 256ram and 20GB hardisk.

12th September 2002	#1
Kho King Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 2,799	question about videography Dear all, I have just bought a Sony digital video camera. Do I need a special video capture board if I want to transfer the recorded miniDV tape to my computer and edit them and later store into VCD format (watch on normal VCD player)? Is a video capture board a must? Can I transfer the captured video using the USB cable supplied? Thanks. __________________ KOH KHO KING http://ShaShinKi.com ~ Malaysia Online Camera Shop! :cool:

12th September 2002	#5
Kho King Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 2,799	Thanks, guys! Some more questions: My Sony DCR PC110 doesn't have firewire socketleh...so how? Below is the in/out it has: S-VIDEO IN/OUT, VIDEO IN/OUT (Special AV mini), AUDIO IN/OUT (Special AV mini, Stereo), External MIC Input (Stereo plug in power), DV IN/OUT (i. LINK), Phone Jack, LANC Jack, USB terminal, DC IN Ulead Video Studio, is this just software or comes with hardware? Expensive? I don't have much budget now after getting the camcorder. I don't have much storage on my hardisk, 15GB is too big for me, so what's the best solution u guys suggest? I want to burn the video to CD later and view as VCD on VCD player. Thanks again. __________________ KOH KHO KING http://ShaShinKi.com ~ Malaysia Online Camera Shop! :cool:

14th September 2002	#12
Kho King Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 2,799	Can anyone suggest good video capture card? Is it good to buy the Sony brand one? Thanks. __________________ KOH KHO KING http://ShaShinKi.com ~ Malaysia Online Camera Shop! :cool:

15th September 2002	#16
Kho King Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 2,799	Thanks everyone! I will study more before buying one. I don't have a firewire card in my PC currently, and from what Que Lynn suggest, I think it is safer to buy a capture card than just a firewire card. Thanks again __________________ KOH KHO KING http://ShaShinKi.com ~ Malaysia Online Camera Shop! :cool:

19th September 2002	#17
angy Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 84	I suggest you focus on: 1. Budget 2. Time 3. Interest (Not in order) 1. Budget Card there are good cards and there are even better cards. you budget will decide the types of card you are going to get. Of course you cannot have the cake and eat it. HD You need lots and lots of space. So, buy the biggest you can effort. The 80Gb should be fine. 2. Time Rendering or Authoring This is the toughest part. If you have a MPEG hardware decoder, then 1 hour of raw video, will take 1 hour to render or compile. If you are willing to wait and want better results, you can try software decoder. Then the ratio is 1 : 3.5 or 4. Yes, it takes that long. 3. Interest After what I have said, if you still interested, then go ahead, try out and enjoy it. Last, if you are still after reading, I suggest that you look at the following ads, it is a solid card and this guy is selling pretty good price. The Matrox RT2000 http://classifieds.singnet.com.sg/se...ord=matrox&ID= Last edited by angy; 19th September 2002 at 12:11 AM.

12th September 2002	#2
pit Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 139	Apparently not. The USB cable is meant for transfer of files stored in your memory stick - image capture and mpeg files. You'll need a Firewire port on your PC to download the video from your tape. These files are huge ! 15GB average. Hence the need for Firewire. If you're hard up for disk space, you can try Ulead Video Studio which does "almost" real-time encoding. It takes the streamed data from the Firewire and encode it to a compressed format, e.g. MPEG2. So, you'll need far lesser storage space on your PC.

12th September 2002	#3
mpenza Moderator Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: New York City Posts: 13,397	you also need a harddisk that has NTFS volume. Fat32 is limited to 4BG files.

12th September 2002	#4
ben.naden Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Choa Chu Kang Posts: 70	You need: 1. Firewire card if it is not already on your PC. Firewire cable too! 2. A video editing software, like Adobe Premier. 3. A large hard drive. Tranfering video to your PC is half the fun. Thenother half involves video editing and some creativity. I have a video editing setup at home so let me know if need help! Have fun!

12th September 2002	#10
Que Lynn Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Singapore! :) Posts: 270	And remember, when buying a firewire card, make sure it's the kind that is made for video capturing! A friend bought a regular firewire card once (the ones that don't come with any form of video capture software), thinking it would be enough for video capture. But when she got home and tried the card, the video being captured was having a lot of dropped frames, ie skipping! Using adobe premiere, no less! I looked for a firewire card made for video capture, plugged it into her computer, plugged the cam in, and the capture went smoothly then. Apparently, after conversing with some folks whose jobs involve capturing digital video, you really can't use the regular-plain-joe firewire cards for the job.

14th September 2002	#13
Jethro Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 148	Hmm I don't think Sony has manufactured any video capture cards. Recently bought the Fusion DV movie studio which claimes to have real time VCD & DVD encoder. Installed on WinXP but soon realised that there was'nt any hardware encoder chip on it. This was fyrther confirmed as the in-camera pre-edited text and the date/time data was not shown on the captured video. Trie on my VIVO Radeon(with the ATI Theatre encorder but with composite input) it worked as everything was seen as the same as LCD panel on the camera. I concluded that though these fire-wire capture cards are of varied quality, they maybe all the same. CPU speed and hard disks makes the difference when doing video capture.

19th September 2002	#18
ckiang Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Singapore Posts: 6,597	Simplest way : Buy a Sound Blaster Audigy series of cards. You get FireWire/IEEE1394 card, Dolby Digital 5.1 support, EAX Advanced HD, and all. Much more worth it than any standalone cards. The Platinum version even comes with ULead VideoStudio SE. Great sound, great video, what more can you ask for? Regards CK

20th September 2002	#20
Kho King Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 2,799	Thanks CK. I find the Sound Blaster AUDIGY quite value for money. S$99 only and can get high end sound with firewire port. But now...is the card fully compatible with DV? after hearing Que Lynn experience, I kind of not so sure. Has anyone using this card for digital video editing? I can upgrade my hardisk to bigger size if needed, but can't afford to upgrade the whole computer now. I am still using old Pentium II 333 with 256ram and 20GB hardisk. __________________ KOH KHO KING http://ShaShinKi.com ~ Malaysia Online Camera Shop! :cool: