How to convert from analogue to digital

vbs1979 · 23rd January 2007

Dear all, i am newbie in videography. Recently bought a 2nd hand Canon MV850i.
The vc comes with a firewire output. I suppose to buy a firewire to hook up to a computer. But the laptop that i am using doesnt have a firewire port.

How am i going to transfer the videos? expert pls enlighten me.

jerry25 · 23rd January 2007

ur cam is analog or digital? if digital cam no need for u to convert. if ur source is analog u may use the digital camcorder to record ur analog source to become digital..to transfer you really need a firewire port to capture ur video and start editing (note: ur 1hr dv tape equals more or less 12gigabites)..thanks

vbs1979 · 23rd January 2007

Originally Posted by jerry25

ur cam is analog or digital? if digital cam no need for u to convert. if ur source is analog u may use the digital camcorder to record ur analog source to become digital..to transfer you really need a firewire port to capture ur video and start editing (note: ur 1hr dv tape equals more or less 12gigabites)..thanks

i think it is digital... so i can buy a firewire port from sim lim which has a USB port connecting to my laptop

frenchbean · 23rd January 2007

Originally Posted by vbs1979

i think it is digital... so i can buy a firewire port from sim lim which has a USB port connecting to my laptop

I think Snazzi has some product that can do it. Not sure of the exact model. Go check it out.

vbs1979 · 23rd January 2007

Originally Posted by frenchbean

I think Snazzi has some product that can do it. Not sure of the exact model. Go check it out.

thanks man.

shojibake · 23rd January 2007

To transfer to your laptop, you're going to need a pcmcia firewire card. If you have the newer laptops, you'll need an expresscard firewire card. Those, unlike the pcmcia cards, are a lot more expensive. Anyone will do.

vbs1979 · 23rd January 2007

hw abt those Snazzi products... whereby u convert the AV and it does the conversion... will the quality will be affected?

shojibake · 23rd January 2007

It's actually best that you transfer through firewire, which keeps the data as is. You will get about 13 GB for 1 hour of mniDV tape in DV format. I'm not too sure about the snazzi products, but if they use the video out from your camera, that's going to be lossy. You'll get hit with a dgital/analog loss, and format loss from converting to some other file format.

jaegersing · 23rd January 2007

Yes, shojibake is correct. If the video is from a DV cam you should use firewire to transfer it to the computer for editing. Any other way will cause degradation of the video.

vbs1979 · 23rd January 2007

thank u all for yr input.

lwm · 24th January 2007

What do you plan to do with the transferred video? You might check if you have enough resources on your notebook to do what you want.

tommon · 3rd February 2007

Go to FUNAN, (try 4th floor PK Computers), buy a firewire PCMCIA card. About $60. Install that into your laptop and Viola, you have firewire input.

bartman · 3rd February 2007

First step, get a firewire card(PCMCIA) or USB video capturing device from those video converter vendor(examples are hauppauge, snazzi, pinnacle etc). Next install the software that comes with the capture device that you have bought. If the device that you bought does not come with any video capturing software, you will need to source for one.

Make sure your notebook has sufficent harddisk space to store the captured raw DV video from your DV cam. Raw DV video file size are quite large. About an hour of DV video might require 8Gb or more. These are not mpeg2 yet and they cannot be used directly to burn into a DVD-video with your DVD burning software unless it is able to do so.

Ensure that you have a sufficently fast notebook processing power so that you can compress the DV video in real-time to mpeg2(DVD). If not, the next choice would be to capture it to AVI(raw) onto the harddisk, then convert it to mpeg2 at a later time(the conversion process is very slow). You can also choose to look for video conversion device that can do hardware real-time mpeg2 compression to go around this problem.

vbs1979 · 6th February 2007

Originally Posted by lwm

What do you plan to do with the transferred video? You might check if you have enough resources on your notebook to do what you want.

thanks for the info. i am using Ulead VideoStudio for editing. i bought the firewire card frm sim lim at $35.

23rd January 2007	#1
vbs1979 Member Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Lot One Posts: 1,531	How to convert from analogue to digital Dear all, i am newbie in videography. Recently bought a 2nd hand Canon MV850i. The vc comes with a firewire output. I suppose to buy a firewire to hook up to a computer. But the laptop that i am using doesnt have a firewire port. How am i going to transfer the videos? expert pls enlighten me.

23rd January 2007	#2
jerry25 Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 123	Re: How to convert from analogue to digital ur cam is analog or digital? if digital cam no need for u to convert. if ur source is analog u may use the digital camcorder to record ur analog source to become digital..to transfer you really need a firewire port to capture ur video and start editing (note: ur 1hr dv tape equals more or less 12gigabites)..thanks Last edited by jerry25; 23rd January 2007 at 03:26 PM.

23rd January 2007	#6
shojibake Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 385	Re: How to convert from analogue to digital To transfer to your laptop, you're going to need a pcmcia firewire card. If you have the newer laptops, you'll need an expresscard firewire card. Those, unlike the pcmcia cards, are a lot more expensive. Anyone will do.

23rd January 2007	#7
vbs1979 Member Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Lot One Posts: 1,531	Re: How to convert from analogue to digital hw abt those Snazzi products... whereby u convert the AV and it does the conversion... will the quality will be affected?

23rd January 2007	#8
shojibake Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 385	Re: How to convert from analogue to digital It's actually best that you transfer through firewire, which keeps the data as is. You will get about 13 GB for 1 hour of mniDV tape in DV format. I'm not too sure about the snazzi products, but if they use the video out from your camera, that's going to be lossy. You'll get hit with a dgital/analog loss, and format loss from converting to some other file format.

23rd January 2007	#9
jaegersing Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 1,135	Re: How to convert from analogue to digital Yes, shojibake is correct. If the video is from a DV cam you should use firewire to transfer it to the computer for editing. Any other way will cause degradation of the video.

24th January 2007	#11
lwm Member Join Date: Feb 2004 Posts: 135	Re: How to convert from analogue to digital What do you plan to do with the transferred video? You might check if you have enough resources on your notebook to do what you want.

3rd February 2007	#12
tommon Deregistered Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Currently, Singapore but hope Posts: 729	Re: How to convert from analogue to digital Go to FUNAN, (try 4th floor PK Computers), buy a firewire PCMCIA card. About $60. Install that into your laptop and Viola, you have firewire input.

3rd February 2007	#13
bartman Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Singapore Posts: 138	Re: How to convert from analogue to digital First step, get a firewire card(PCMCIA) or USB video capturing device from those video converter vendor(examples are hauppauge, snazzi, pinnacle etc). Next install the software that comes with the capture device that you have bought. If the device that you bought does not come with any video capturing software, you will need to source for one. Make sure your notebook has sufficent harddisk space to store the captured raw DV video from your DV cam. Raw DV video file size are quite large. About an hour of DV video might require 8Gb or more. These are not mpeg2 yet and they cannot be used directly to burn into a DVD-video with your DVD burning software unless it is able to do so. Ensure that you have a sufficently fast notebook processing power so that you can compress the DV video in real-time to mpeg2(DVD). If not, the next choice would be to capture it to AVI(raw) onto the harddisk, then convert it to mpeg2 at a later time(the conversion process is very slow). You can also choose to look for video conversion device that can do hardware real-time mpeg2 compression to go around this problem. Last edited by bartman; 3rd February 2007 at 02:59 AM.