How do you take a video from your video camera and put it on your computer?

 

Really depends on what type of camera it is. I know that on my old VHS-c camera I would a video capture device for my PC, at which point I could play the video at normal speed and capture in real time. Is that what you mean?

 

If it's a digital video camera then you'd most likely have a firewire port that can, with the appropriate cable, connect to your computer.

 

What type of media does your video camera record to? (e.g. VHS-C tape, Hi-8 tape, MiniDV tape, internal hard drive, mini-DVD, etc...) The media type often dictates how you can transfer it to a computer.

 

And, what type of computer? Windows? Mac?

 

My video camera records on a Mini-DV tape and I have a windows computer.

 

Good, the MiniDV tapes still have the best video quality right now. Do you know if your computer has a firewire port. Sometimes it's called a IEEE 1394 port. This page has photos of the cables and connectors. If you don't have one of these ports, don't worry as they can be added without too much hassle (assuming a desktop PC and not a laptop PC). Just requires a visit to a computer store... um, well, do some basic online research first because based on the staff I encounter at big box computer stores, they may not be too helpful.

In a nutshell, your camcorder takes ~30 digital photos per second and stores them on the MiniDV tape. You need to connect your camcorder to your PC with a firewire cable and then use some movie creation software that will control the camcorder and allow you to download the video to your PC.

Regarding PC software to use, I'll leave that for other folks to recommend. Only thing that comes to mind is Adobe Premiere Elements or Sony Vegas. If your PC came with a firewire port, you may already have some bundled software that came with the PC that you can use.

 

If you are going to put a lot of video into a computer, consider one of the new flash memory card based camcorders from Canon or Panasonic.

 

If you have the bucks and time-n-patience to learn, you can always get Video Toaster.

 

I have a laptop computer with no firewire port on it. :(

 

But your laptop does have a USB port. Did the camera come with any cables? If not, go online and look. I'll bet someone makes a USB cable for it. Then it's just a matter of playing the tape while you record it to your computer. If you have XP it should have Windows Moviemaker on it - that will do it for you.

It may depend on how old the camera is and what brand.........another way might be to take the tape somewhere and have them record the it to a disc for you. A few phone calls and you might find this is the easiest way........

 

No worries. All MiniDV camcorders have a firewire connections and not USB. However, I'm sure your laptop has an expansion slot, sometimes called PCMCIA or the newer ExpressCard. Check your laptop's owners manual to see what type of expansion slot you have. Searching google for "firewire PCMCIA" yields a lot of options for you. Don't waste extra money on the faster Firewire800 cards as the camcorder cannot take advantage of the faster speed. See if anyone offers a video software editing bundle with a firewire card.
Keep in mind that video editing eats up a ton of disk space and memory. If this is a 8 year old laptop, don't even bother. If it's <3 years old and has >10GB of free disk space, go for it.
Hope this helps...

 

Like speednut said, video takes up a lot of space. How much footage are you planning on recording? If I recall correctly, 4 minutes is about a 1gig. It adds up fast.

Usually the firewire (ieee1394) card will come bundled with a low end editing tool. good enough for free. Pinnacle studio is ok and about $150. I hear good things about Vegas from Sony.

Some camera stores will offer a tape transfer to disk service. It really boils down to what your intended goal is.

 

That does help but I have no clue where the owners manual for my computer is. It's almost 3 years old and has tons of disc space and 1GB of memory so I think i'm good there. I'll look for a USB cord for it. It came with a cord to connect the camera to a TV and I used that to record the video to a DVD but my computer doesn't recognize the disc.

 

Keep in mind everything I've been mentioning is to connect the camcorder to your PC for video editing. If you don't want to edit your video, connecting to a DVD recorder or using a xfer service like heyduard mentioned is the path of least resistance.

However, if you're wanting to do some video editing (a good idea IMHO), you'll need a firewire add-on card. Forget the USB cable as it won't work; you must use firewire. Google is your best friend when you've lost your owners manual. Or simply look up your laptop model number at the manufacture's web site and you'll be able to find the expansion card type details. You'll have to do some research on your own for this one. Once you've figured out what type of expansion card you need for your laptop, then search on amazon and newegg for the correct firewire laptop expansion card options.

Juan, have you ever stooped low enough to use a PC based video editing tool (rather than Amiga based ones )? If so, any recommendations? Is Adobe Premier Elements any good (I've frequently seen good deals on this software <$80)?

 

did your laptop ever have the ability to play DVDs like the ones you buy in the store? If not, you would need to make sure your laptop has a dvd-rom drive AND dvd playback software.

I would pass on USB for transferring footage from the miniDV to the PC as it can be slow. the data rates they tout for USB is maximum burst rating. Go for a pcmcia ieee 1394 interface card. But it's easy to spend other people's money. If your laptop is running xp, you might be able to use windows movie editor to capture the footage from the miniDV camera.

Anyway, good luck!