Sony handycam to PC?

[Teknophobia]

Hello,

I'm a bit naive to this, so bear with me.

Trying to connect my Sony DCR-HC40E to my PC via USB, but all I can see on the PC is my memory card in the Sony.

I want to upload my video that I've taken from the DV tape.

I'm thinking that I need to use the DV connection instead, but the lead I have has a DV to 4 plugs (3 x male connectors (red, yellow and white) plus what look likes an s-video connector). I can find a slot for the latter (s-video) but the other 3 I've no idea where to put. I was thinking of sticking them into a scart socket, but even then I've got nowhere on my PC to stick a scart into. Am I understanding this right?

Any clues/advice any1?

Thanks,

TEk

PS. XPS4 Dell system with XP Pro SP2

[photolady]

red, yellow and white = Red, white, for sound, yellow of video, and unless your computer has those connections on the back, you'll probably going to need a capture card. The S-video, if your computer has S-Video in, not out like most computer graphics cards have, would work.

[Teknophobia]

Thanks photolady,

That makes complete sense. I'm off to get me a TV/capture card now - currently looking at the WinTV-PVR-350 by Hauppauge - any good?

Cheers,

TEk

[104456]

You should be able to use the USB if you want you just need to get whichever imaging software your using to recognise the camera input.

[reddyjs]

does your computer have a firewire connection? its a lot better than using a capture card.

[ProfessorU]

The USB on my sony DCR TRV20 works exactly the same way (which is to say, not at all for video). I believe you have to use the firewire cable and card. You will get a MUCH better picture than using any analog capture software and the yellow cable. I use premiere and have excellent results.

[Nix]

I use USB cable with my DCRTRV22 and the video comes out sort of jumpy like my system is too slow for the transfer process.

It's an AMD Athlon 950Mhz with 512Mb ram running WinMe and I think USB1.

Btw to all those people with Sony that say you can't d/l video via USB you need to install the Pixela Image software that comes with the camera (at least it used to) and then you need to be in video playback mode and then go into the menu (on the camera) and select USB Streaming and then the playback controls in the imaging software become ungreyed.

Possibly this works with Windows Movie Maker too.

If you just connect it up to the USB and then set it to memory then yes it will only see the memory card.

It's all outlined in the instruction manual.

[falcon2000]

The Red, White and Yellow plugs are RCA connectors. The Red and White are audio connectors and the Yellow is the Composite Video connector. The S-Video (Seperated Video) is a Component Video connector. Use one of the two for video (S-Video is way better.)

You can but no need to use a capture card if you connect it via the USB or Firewire (iLink for Sony) connector. Firewire is better (Nix, you may want to get a PCI-to-Firewire card for smoother video.) But need to use the software (the Sony one comes w/ the camcorder or 3rd party.) Follow what Nix said (skip the "USB Stream" part if using iLink) and you'll be fine. Otherwise consult the manual.

[Teknophobia]

Thanks for all your feedback everyone - well appreciated.

Right - I've got the USB connected, but the Picture Package software that came with it will only allow me to send it straight to CD-R (CD-RW and DVD-R/RW doesn't work according to the manual). I find it kind of wierd that it wont allow me to write to my HDD, but heyho! As I haven't got any CD-Rs with me, I can't test it, but the sound in the USB streaming tool was awful - very very echoey.

I've got a firewire connection on my PC (it's got 6 pins), so I guess I should be looking to buy one of these? http://tinyurl.com/9sc2u

I've just tried Pinnacle Studio (v9) and I can capture to HDD, but the quality of video is poor (sound is okay this time) - max res is 720 x 576, and even this setting is eating up my HDD like no mans business (roughly 1Mb per second!). So even if this firewire device gets me better video, am I in the same boat for HDD space?

This cant be right seeing as I have seen quality videos that are say 5 minutes long and only take up 25MB or so.

Advice, as always, welcome.

Thanks again.

TEk

[shanmukhi_peri]

Thanks for all your feedback everyone - well appreciated.

Right - I've got the USB connected, but the Picture Package software that came with it will only allow me to send it straight to CD-R (CD-RW and DVD-R/RW doesn't work according to the manual). I find it kind of wierd that it wont allow me to write to my HDD, but heyho! As I haven't got any CD-Rs with me, I can't test it, but the sound in the USB streaming tool was awful - very very echoey.

I've got a firewire connection on my PC (it's got 6 pins), so I guess I should be looking to buy one of these? http://tinyurl.com/9sc2u

I've just tried Pinnacle Studio (v9) and I can capture to HDD, but the quality of video is poor (sound is okay this time) - max res is 720 x 576, and even this setting is eating up my HDD like no mans business (roughly 1Mb per second!). So even if this firewire device gets me better video, am I in the same boat for HDD space?

This cant be right seeing as I have seen quality videos that are say 5 minutes long and only take up 25MB or so.

Advice, as always, welcome.

Thanks again.
aishwarya

can u give me the answer for this

[photolady]

I'm sure your system is different from Teknophobia's, so please start a new thread under your own user name. This thread is two years old and thus will be closed.