Video to PC

[maish42]

Hi there,

I recently read an article in a magazine about Video Editing on the PC, specifically creating VCDs. I would like to try this out but have a few problems and questions regarding video capture.

Firstly, my video camera (JVC GR-DVL210A) has a MiniDV output, but my PC does not have a Firewire prot so I can't connect it up this way. The camera manual also says you can capture still images via DV but for moving picture says I need a digital printer to enable me to transfer video onto the PC. I thought you could put the DV straight onto the PC with a firewire port.

Is this the case and do I need software other than EditStudio2?

Anyway, I dont have a firewire port so have turned to other options. The option I am looking at now is using an S-VHS cable because I have this on the camera and on my TV card on the PC. I don't have any capture software unless i can do it on Edit Studio (which I havent tried)

So do I need other software to capture from my TV card?
Can i capture from a TV card?

Finally when i bought the S VHS cable the guy in the shop said it only transferred video not sound - surely if its VHS at all there must be sound too!?

You can probably tell i'm very confused by all this - all i wanted was to play about with video on my PC! Hopefully someone can offer some words of wisdom... Thanks

[Running_on_Wheel]

first im not familiar w/ the software that you are using so ill be of little help there.

i think you may want to re-read the section of digital video ... ive never heard of the printer that you speak of ... it dosent jive with me.

it was my understanding that a tv card allow you to watch tv on you pc ... youll want to check the specifics w/ that card itself.

the person you spoke to at the shop was entirely correct ... a svideo cable will only carry video ... you normall connect rca's along w/ the svideo cable to pass sound

personally i have a ati-all-in-wonder video card and how i record movies etc is by connecting my vcr (svideo and rca) to the ati. then i select the source (which is aux i think) and then start the vcr. within the ati software there is a record button that i press and viola

www.vcdhelp.com is a great resource

[Beach Bum]

You can get a firewire card for your PC for $50 or less. If you want to transfer video, that is the way to go. Capturing the video analog to a capture board will just degrade the video and you will be digitizing it all over again. If you want to play with this stuff - and it is fun - get the card.

I think you may have misinterpreted something when you talk about a video printer. I think we call that a movie :-)

[spragers2]

If you're looking for a good video capture program, you might want to look into a program called VirtualDub (http://www.virtualdub.org) - it will let you capture audio and video, do simple editing, and change formats with many different codecs and settings etc. I'm using it to transfer home videos and such from VHS onto CD-ROM's as you are, though not in VCD format (haven't gone that far yet but plan on it ) Right now I'm encoding using the various DivX codecs.

I can fit four 45-minute episodes of La Femme Nikita on a single CD-ROM

[I'm_Joel]

I was going to post a new topic, but this kind of relates to what this one is circling around:

I have a IEEE 3-port pci card that I'm not currently using, but I want to transfer video to my pc via my vcr (putting home vids on cd...nothing illegal)

I didn't want to buy a TV Tuner card if there is an external device/cable available that will connect to my RCA Plugs on my vcr to the Fire Wire ports...

Or am I totally off the wall with that idea?

[spragers2]

I'm sure they have a firewire version out by now as well, but I know about a year ago or so they had a USB video capture device where you would plug your RCA video cables in one end, and the other end was the USB cable that plugged into your computer.

[Running_on_Wheel]

dosent look like there is anything cheap to do this yet but it is possible ...

http://www.simplydv.co.uk/Background/analog_conv.html

[Ridgerunr]

A good read along these lines can be found here also...

[maish42]

thanks to all who have helped, everything is now a lot clearer especially from the websites linked in posts. Firewire is obviously the way to go... but my PC doesnt have a free PCI slot. I'll just have to get another i guess - what a shame... not!