Anyone into digital video?

[reachme2003]

areas include filming, lighting, editing, dubbing, post-production, etc.

does one need a PC capture card before footages can be downloaded into hard disk? difference between ubs and dv cable(ieee 1394)? how much does an average capture card costs? thanks

 

[ness96]

As long as you have Window XP Pro and firewire on board, that's all it is needed to capture image onto your computer.

For simple editing you can use Window Movie Maker to capture and edit.

areas include filming, lighting, editing, dubbing, post-production, etc.

does one need a PC capture card before footages can be downloaded into hard disk? difference between ubs and dv cable(ieee 1394)? how much does an average capture card costs? thanks

 

[reachme2003]

i am using Windows XP Home Ed. can i use usb instead of firewire?

As long as you have Window XP Pro and firewire on board, that's all it is needed to capture image onto your computer.

For simple editing you can use Window Movie Maker to capture and edit.

 

[BBTM]

As long your Video camera support that transfer, it is ok to use usb else you have to get a firewire card (IEEE 1394)

Nowadays most mainboard got onboard firewire and usb2. But for those old model of viewcam, i think they do only have firewire for transfer as usb 1.1 is slow in transfering that.

If you got extra $, get a decent video package and their s/w provide u basic editing n special effect. Else, stick to what you got.

 

[reachme2003]

my cam supports dv cable and usb. i connected via usb, managed to transfer the still pics but not the footages. i wonder why?

As long your Video camera support that transfer, it is ok to use usb else you have to get a firewire card (IEEE 1394)

Nowadays most mainboard got onboard firewire and usb2. But for those old model of viewcam, i think they do only have firewire for transfer as usb 1.1 is slow in transfering that.

If you got extra $, get a decent video package and their s/w provide u basic editing n special effect. Else, stick to what you got.

 

[kenele]

which software you are refering to for capturing? Did u check the cable? very unlikely usb works, must use firewire, it seems that your computer does not have 1394 port, that means u need to purchase port and capture card at sil lim for abt $ 50. You may pm me should you need professional editing.

 

[reachme2003]

you are right that my pc does not have 1394 port. why not the usb?

which software you are refering to for capturing? Did u check the cable? very unlikely usb works, must use firewire, it seems that your computer does not have 1394 port, that means u need to purchase port and capture card at sil lim for abt $ 50. You may pm me should you need professional editing.

 

[ness96]

Window XP Home ed can also. It come with Movie maker. You need firewire to make the transfer. USB is not fast enough. Get a firewire card. Also, is alway advisable to have a 2nd drive just for the capturing.

For capturing, I use WinDV (free) successfully without drop frames. For simple editing, use the Windows Movie maker. For more complex editing, you can get those commercial editing softwares.

My advise, start it with the firewire card and the movie maker. Once you get the hand of it, then add. There is no point geting the topend of everything and ended up a white elephant. I once set up with a topend computer system, software and DV Rapture Capture card, only to finding that one year down the line, Window XP have it all that I need.

Enjoy

i am using Windows XP Home Ed. can i use usb instead of firewire?

 

[reachme2003]

thanks for your advice. one question. with firewire installed, i will not need a capture card, right?

Window XP Home ed can also. It come with Movie maker. You need firewire to make the transfer. USB is not fast enough. Get a firewire card. Also, is alway advisable to have a 2nd drive just for the capturing.

For capturing, I use WinDV (free) successfully without drop frames. For simple editing, use the Windows Movie maker. For more complex editing, you can get those commercial editing softwares.

My advise, start it with the firewire card and the movie maker. Once you get the hand of it, then add. There is no point geting the topend of everything and ended up a white elephant. I once set up with a topend computer system, software and DV Rapture Capture card, only to finding that one year down the line, Window XP have it all that I need.

Enjoy

 

[ness96]

If your motherboard comes with firewire, you do not need any capture card or firewire card.

But since you say that your computer do not have a firewire port, then you will need a firewire card. A capture card is similar, but comes with some software to do capturing. That's all.

In video works, the computer speed is important. Very imnportant!! On the hard drive and the processing.

thanks for your advice. one question. with firewire installed, i will not need a capture card, right?

 

[vince123123]

the cheap "capture" cards are basically just firewire cards with some software.

The "expensive" capture cards will have hardware encoding into MPEG2 or MPEG1. Transfer via firewire without encoding results in uncompressed AVI files.

thanks for your advice. one question. with firewire installed, i will not need a capture card, right?

 

[BBTM]

If you tight on budget, a normal capture card will do. Those experience one, like vince said, do more stuffs as they do have onboard processor. CPU n RAM also important when you converting your RAW avi into Mpeg and then you burn onto your CD/DVD. Not to forget having a huge capacity HDD as for my case, 1 hour of video is abt 9GB of data??? (Forget but roughly there, sorry)

 

[kenele]

You may want to try this, no need firewire, quite affortable.

Snazzi* Video Creator 250 is the latest High Speed USB2.0 Video Encoder designed for easy,
fast and high quality video encoding to make VCD, SVCD, DVD and DivX CD. With the standard Composite and S-Video AV inputs you can capture video from TV, Camcorder, DVD, VCR and VCD/DVD players into digital video files. Video Creator 250 also comes with user friendly editing and VCD / SVCD / DVD creation features to turn your video into fun and entertaining home movies. You will experience the joy of Hollywood directors in producing your own movies with steps as easy as 1.2.3.....


<SPAN class=style1><FONT color=#0000cc>Software Inclusion:

 

[leeter]

ya, Firewire card. I got one for sale~ haha... interested to get it?

Firewire is a must if you want to do videography (thats what i heard) somehow USB even the 2.0 is discouraged. (read somewhere)

Nowadays PC / Notebooks come with on-board firewire. check again to see if you got them.

 

[ilovehouse]

Firewire is still the best way to dump ur video onto ur com. Be it, DV, DVCAM, HDV, firewire so far has never given me problems at all! A good choice for u to learn would be FCP. The tutorials are useful and its powerful. But sadly, protools are still the best when it comes to sound editing also, but its under the digidesign family which owns Avid Xpress Pro HD. or the very much lusted Avid DS Nitris family. yum yum.

my 2 cents worth.

 

[shojibake]

Most digital video cams should be firewire only for transferring of footage. The usb is only for still images. It should be written in the manual. On some cams it's just usb. For those it's likely to be usb 2.0. usb 2 data transfer rates are preferred to usb 1.1 and are on paper slightly faster than firewire 400. You basically don't need a capture card anymore if your camera supports fw or usb. You can also try freeware editors like wax, which can run virtualdub plugins, i.e. anti shake plugins. For DV AVI's it's 13GB per hour of footage, and rendering into mpeg2 or burning into dvds usually takes, at least for me, 1.5 -> 5 times the original footage length, which is why dvd camcorders are now in the market.

 

[reachme2003]

update. bought one firewire card and cable for about $30.00. transferred using windows movies maker.

 

[kenele]

update. bought one firewire card and cable for about $30.00. transferred using windows movies maker.

Goodie! wanna join me for a video shoot early Sept?

 

[shawnlim]

update. bought one firewire card and cable for about $30.00. transferred using windows movies maker.

Remember WMM2 only allows you to encode as AVI or WMV only. You still need some consumer level type of VE software to encode it to VCD, SVCD or DVD format.

 

[reachme2003]

what will u be shooting?

Goodie! wanna join me for a video shoot early Sept?