8mm camcorder to PC

**sniper** · 31st December 2003

Whats the best way to copy the tapes from my 8mm camcorder to my pc so i can put them on cd or dvd . as far as i can see i need a capture card and some software .... whats the best combination?

i have seen this at PCworld , is it just the job ?

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/sto...gory_oid=-9960

for �70 everywhere else its about �120 ... am i missing something ?

**Pegasus** · 31st December 2003

Can't follow your link because of the way the PC World site works, but I can tell you that if you want to see quality results then that costs money.

**matrix** · 2nd January 2004

I have just started to do this, I put a firewire card (Cost me �30 from pc world) in my pc to connect to my Sony Camcorder. The card comes with MGI video capture software and lets you transfer the video to your hard disk and will even transcode it into dvd format for you, ready to burn.

I have been using Nero/nero vision express for making my movies and putting them onto dvd. it will also let you do vcd and svcd as well.

hope this is of some help, I am fairly new to capturing video and have only been doing it for about a month, but it seems to be going okay so far.

cheers,

Andy

**sniper** · 2nd January 2004

matrix, don't think my camcorder will be firewire(i don't know what it is) , i thought i'd just plug the yellow & white plugs into a card, also i don't have a dvd writer .... do you know how much video you can put onto a VCD from what I have read it seems to swallow up disk space , is the quality good?

**Q-Buster** · 2nd January 2004

You can put 74/80 minutes of video on a 74/80 minute disk, the quality is about the same as VHS, perhaps not quite as good. And thats not really very good, is it

If you know someone with a Digital 8 camcorder, you could transfer the tapes using it and a firewire connection, the Digital 8 camcorder will convert the video to digital format internally and output digital to the PC.

Q-Buster

**Leeum** · 3rd January 2004

Incase they're baffling you here, Firewire is a faster connection of USB.

**Pegasus** · 3rd January 2004

Originally Posted by Leeum

Incase they're baffling you here, Firewire is a faster connection of USB.

But not as fast as USB2

**Q-Buster** · 3rd January 2004

And I cant see on the software manufactureres websites any mention of support for transfer via USB, digital or analogue . I'm not saying the software wont support it, just that I can't see it mentioned

Q-Buster

**Pegasus** · 3rd January 2004

Most capture software will not recognise a USB (or USB2) interface anyway, only Firewire.
If you do have capture software that recognises USB, then it is more than likely bundled with the camera to start with (and invariably crap).

**Leeum** · 4th January 2004

Looks like you may need a Firewire card if your Motherboard doesn't have it

**cosmicma** · 4th January 2004

with you saying a 8mm camcorder your going to need an anologue video capture card firewire is going to be a waste of time it isn't going to help you
unfortunatly a decent capture card isn't going to be cheap and there are a couple of types you could go for, one that captures to avi or one that captures to mpeg personaly i would go for an mpeg2 capture card happauge do a pvr card that captures to mpeg and has the encoder built into hardware so it doesn't rely on the proccessor in your pc the quality of these cards is very good but they are fiddly with the drivers
miro do a nice set of capture cards starting with the dc10 and upwards but these capture to avi (mjpeg) and are really suited for going back to tape rather than going to cd or dvd
i would steer clear of the mpeg 1 capture cards like the pinnacle mp10 or the external usb type the quality is not very good

**ParadoX** · 4th January 2004

I tryed to get into all this video capturing stuff a year or so back. I got myself a ATI all in wonder card, however the realtime hardware mpeg encoding wasnt that impressive. Coverting to avi is the most lossless way to do it, it takes up some silly space like 60 gig an hour or so. I couldnt be arced with it in the end after having probs, I plan to get a digital video camera in the near future with analogue inputs. The DV camera will then be able to convert staright to the DV format and then it can be turned into mpeg once downloaded to the computer via firewire as mentioned earlier.

**sniper** · 5th January 2004

Thx for all the responses - think i'm more confused about what to go for , all this info has got me spending 100's of pounds , I have heard that DVD recorders that sit under your telly accept the yellow plug from a camcorder so if I can find a new project I'll wait till I can afford one of these , if I get something and its good i'll let you know

**huxley** · 5th January 2004

if it helps sainsburys sell dvd+rw recorders for �200

**diond1** · 12th January 2004

Right. I was in the same position as you a while back. All I got was a WinTV PVR 250(approx �90-�110), but they have cheaper entry level cards with less functions that would work but also ATI's equivalent card would do too.
I tended to get dropped frames, which you will do if you have poor analogue footage, but using a programme called AVI/I_O sorted that out and out of over 1 hour constant streaming footage to my P.C, i had not a single dropped frame.
Yes, keeping it as avi as it transfers to your PC is the best and is *almost* lossless, but as stated above, it will take up shed loads of your hard drive, but I have had no problems using my 30 gig hard drive for it all.
Once you've edited it (I use Vegas Video), you can render it as an mpeg so it will fit on your CD.
That's how I've been doing it for a couple of years and have had no problems.

**Pongo** · 12th January 2004

If you look on this page http://www.ctdl.co.uk/ctechindex.asp#
You'll see a DVD Maker that plugs into USB. I've got one and it's fine.
Even comes with editing software.
Works Ok through USB2 (640 x 480 captures)
and for �30 it's cheap!!

HTH

Pongo

**Cam** · 12th January 2004

I do this all the time ive got a simple wintv pci card doesnt cost much then i use windows media encoder (will also work as a web cam as well which is cool) it saves the files to wmv which u can convert with many video tools if gives me gr8 qualaty ( i even hooked my dvd player up to it once and recorded a movie off it gr8 qualaty )
then i use windows movie maker to edit the bits i need and make it smaller clips

tbh i cant see why people spend like 200 quid of this, that and the other to get the same results

i do no some ati devices (like the all in 1s) have troble with s/w like window media encoder because they are hardware 'started' where as many things need to 'start' then via s/w

was thinkin of this and need t oget mi camcorder back off my m8......

hope this helped

Cam.