Help required with Mini DV

ADinelt wrote on 9/20/2004, 7:14 PM

I am borrowing a friends Sony DCR-PC110 Mini DV camcorder to do some recording and am in need of some advice. I will be buying a firewire card and cable for my PC in order to capture the video.

Has anyone had experience with this model that can offer some insight?

Are there any tips, tricks or things I should look out for or avoid when trying to capture via firewire?

I am used to capturing analog via a DC10plus capture card and that is pretty straight forward. Not really sure how to go about doing it with firewire. Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance...
Al

Comments

btbrossard wrote on 9/20/2004, 9:12 PM

It should go pretty easy.

As long as you get the firewire card set up correctly, you should have no problems capturing the video.

No drivers are required to capture the video via firewire, so don't install any. The troubleshooting manual for video capture lists this as one of the main problems.

When I set up my video camera, it took all of about 30 seconds (plug in cable, start the capture program, start capture).

Good luck-

Benjamin

IanG wrote on 9/21/2004, 12:36 AM

I agree with Benjamin, though I'm not sure what "set up correctly" means - it just plugs into a PCI slot straight out of the box. One thing that could cause confusion is the internal firewire port, if your card has one. This is to connect the card to a socket on the front of the pc case. You can ignore it if you want - it makes no difference.

Ian G.

ADinelt wrote on 9/21/2004, 3:28 AM

Thanks for the info folks.

Not to seem really ignorant or stupid about this, but do I need to turn off the computer and camcorder before connecting the two together? And if so, is there a specific order in which to turn them back on?

Or is it more like USB and can connect and disconnect them on the fly?

Thanks again...
Al

IanG wrote on 9/21/2004, 4:34 AM

I suspect you'll get conflicting stories with this one - it may depend on which OS you're using. From memory, the first time I did this was with 98SE, when I had to boot the pc with the camera connected and powered up the very first time I used it - after that it didn't matter what order I did things in. With ME and XP I don't think it's ever mattered - it just works!

Ian G.

cbrillow wrote on 9/21/2004, 5:09 AM

Generally speaking, firewire is considered to be hot-swappable, but I believe in being somewhat cautious. I try to avoid connecting/disconnecting cables from my devices while they're powered. Specifically, when I connect my camera, I'll have the computer running, but the camera turned off. After making the connection, I turn the camcorder on, and it's recognized right away. (my O/S is XP Pro) I've also connected things while both the computer and camera have been powered, and had no problems, but I prefer the more controlled-approach cited first.

There's a failure mode in some firewire interfaces that can result in destroying the devices connected to them. Seems it happens more frequently with Mac devices, but it also appears in the PC universe. I didn't know about this until it happened to me, then I did some searching on the 'net and saw other examples that were virtually identical to my experience. In my case, the fault was with a friend's computer, which fried two of my external hard drives and an expensive Canon camcorder (not all at the same time) before we figured out what was happening.

This is not intended to scare, but to advise. Be careful while making connections and there should be no problems.

Oh, yeah -- and I concur with the others who say that capturing via firewire is very easy and that there's little to consider with the card other than that it's OHCI-compliant.

rondi wrote on 9/21/2004, 8:57 AM

my new camcorder (panny GS400) manual sez--do NOT connect firewire with power on either the computer or camcorder. this is really the safest approach.

ron

ADinelt wrote on 9/21/2004, 9:20 AM

Thanks again for all the info.

I am using Win 98SE and I think to be on the safeside, I will :

1) Make sure everything is turned off
2) Connect camera and PC using firewire cable
3) Turn on the computer first and get to the desktop
4) Turn on the camera
5) Hope for the best ;-)

This is my friends camera and certainly don't want to mess it up on him. Really appreciate all your help.

Actually, here is one more question. His camera has S-VHS out and my analog capture card has S-VHS in. Does anyone know if there would be noticeable difference in picture quality between S-VHS and firewire?

Al

Chienworks wrote on 9/21/2004, 10:05 AM

The digital stream over firewire is better than the best you could possibly get from S-Video.

(And, just to be a stickler, the camcorder has S-Video out, not S-VHS. There's a big difference!)

ADinelt wrote on 9/21/2004, 10:08 AM

Thanks Chienworks.

And you are not being a stickler. I would prefer to be corrected so that I am using the correct terminology and not sounding more goofy than I sometimes do.

Al

ADinelt wrote on 9/21/2004, 5:18 PM

Here is an update:

1) I purchased an OHCI compliant fire wire card this evening and popped into my computer.

2) Played around recording a few minutes of stuff with the camcorder.

3) Made sure everything was turned off, then connected the camcorder to the PC. Turned on the computer, then after it was at the desktop, turned on the camcorder.

4) Went into MS 3, then to capture video. Based on an earlier post, made sure Enable DV was selected.

5) Had no trouble at all capturing from the camcorder. It was really nice how it split the video into separate files for each scene.

6) Rendered clips to .wmv file first and it played just fine.

7) Tried mpeg2 (NTSC DV) next and there was no audio. There was with the .wmv and it was there in MS. Tried rendering just a highlighted portion and sound was there. So re-rendered the entire clip and everything was okay, sound and video was there. And the video was absolutely beautiful.

One thing that did mess me up (and may have caused problems with the audio??), is that I turned off the camcorder while I was in MS. I was not in the capture program at the time. MS seemed to hang until I turned the camcorder back on and things went along merrily again.

Anywho, gonna' have ta' get me one of them thar new fangled partable teleovision studios.

Thanks to everyone who helped and lent me their wisdom and advice.
Al