How do I Burn my Camcorder movies to DVD with my computer?

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cag1000

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I have a Sony Digital 8 Camcorder and also have DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink. I bought a 6 pin to 4 pin digital media cable which connects IEEE 1394 digital camcorders to your computer. I guess i need to know this..
Do I need a special program to transfer the digital 8 tapes to the computer?
Not sure where any disks that came with the camcorder are or if they came with any.
Is there a good free program that I could download to make this easier?
Also once I have the tapes on my computer can I use dvd shrink since that's what I use now to burn dvds?
Lastly will this be the right format to play on my home TV DVD player?

I'm extremely new to this and any help you could give(or detailed directions)would be sooooo nice. Thanx guys
 
I have only done this with the intent of editing the footage on the camcorder, and on a mac with programs not available for pc. If you just want a quick transfer to DVD with no editing, the easiest thing might be to pick up one of those stand alone DVD Burners and hook up the camcorder to the video source for the DVD burner.

That being said the process I used on a mac involved 4 main steps (to overly simplify the process):

1. Use an editing program to capture the footage from the tape to your hard disk (Final Cut Pro)

2. After you edit the footage, it needs to be compressed to Mpeg2 for a DVD (Compressor)

3. Take the compressed mpeg2 files into a DVD production program and mux them into the video_ts folder needed for the DVD. (DVD Studio Pro)

4. burn the disc

I know Avid makes a free version of their video editing program, however I have never used it and can't say whether it has the capture footage functionality built in. More information on the Avid program can be found at: http://www.avid.com/freedv/resources.asp if you are interested.
 
[quote name='pubes']I have only done this with the intent of editing the footage on the camcorder, and on a mac with programs not available for pc. If you just want a quick transfer to DVD with no editing, the easiest thing might be to pick up one of those stand alone DVD Burners and hook up the camcorder to the video source for the DVD burner.

That being said the process I used on a mac involved 4 main steps (to overly simplify the process):

1. Use an editing program to capture the footage from the tape to your hard disk (Final Cut Pro)

2. After you edit the footage, it needs to be compressed to Mpeg2 for a DVD (Compressor)

3. Take the compressed mpeg2 files into a DVD production program and mux them into the video_ts folder needed for the DVD. (DVD Studio Pro)

4. burn the disc

I know Avid makes a free version of their video editing program, however I have never used it and can't say whether it has the capture footage functionality built in. More information on the Avid program can be found at: http://www.avid.com/freedv/resources.asp if you are interested.[/QUOTE]


wow ok thanx for that. Sounds sorta complicated. I have a PC so not sure if there are any short cuts. I have an internal DVD Burner also in my computer. Anyone know if DVD shrink will compress this data or convert it into Mpeg2? Is this the only format that would work for a DVD? What format will it be once it comes off the Digital 8 tapes and onto my computer?
 
Can't you capture in windows movie maker? (I'm not sure and am too lazy to check right now).
 
i've been using the Ilife suite on the Mac at my school.. make me wanna get a mac for my own someday.... as for PC.. i guess you need to get a capture card then capture it using some sort of software like Adobe Premier then edit the movie.. then burn to dvd...
 
ok i'm sorta learning so far.....

I need to caputure it using something?

then edit it using something?

then burn it using something?

But how do i make it go from my tape through the wire to the computer?
 
I would check out Windows Movie Maker, like DMFunk suggested, and see if there is any option to import the footage from the camcorder. Look for menu options like "Capture" or "Log and Capture" or "import from camcorder" something like that.

Also you'll need to have your camcorder turned on and in VCR/VTR (playback) mode. With miniDV camcorders many programs will allow you to control the camera through the computer software. However, with older camcorders you may need to tell the software to start to capturing, then manually hit play on the camcorder.

You are basically using your hard drive as a "vcr". You want to "hit record" in the capture software then hit play on your camcorder. It's a 1 to 1 process in terms of time, there's no way to do it any faster than real-time, unlike ripping a cd.

The captured footage might have the extension .dv, but on pc it may be a .avi using the DV codec.
 
sounds good thanx for the link but it doesn't tell me which program to capture the Digital 8 tapes with, or what format it comes onto the computer as or how to burn it from there.

So confused?
 
http://Videohelp.com is a great site.

WinDV is a free capture program for Firewire/1394.
You need lots of disc space (13 gig per hour)

Windows Movie maker will also capture and let you do some basic editing.

Go to the tools section on videohelp.com and there are some free tools you can use to author your dvd.

I use dvd styler for some things and it does basic menu's just fine.

Hope this helps.
 
ok sounds good so what format will it be captured in?
and then I use another prgram to edit it?
Does it have to be shrank?
What do i use to burn it?
 
Your computer needs a 1394/firewire port.
I have a Sony MiniDV Camcorder which records the info on the tape digitally... Not sure if Digital 8 works the same. If so, then connect your camera to the firewire/1394 port. Turn on the camera and set to VTR/playback mode. Computer should display icon on task bar in lower right saying camera was connected. Open Microsoft Movie Maker 2 (free with XP) and capture the video. Youy will be able to capture and edit the video - delete scenes, add music, add special effects, titles, etc. I know MiniDV is in AVI format. You can capture and convert to other formats to save hard drive space. You can NOT burn a DVD with Microsoft Movie Maker. You need another program to do that. My PC cam with Sonic MyDVD LE (limited Edition) so that I could create DVD menus and create DVDs. There are other software packages out there that will do it all - Pinnacle Studio, Roxio VideoWave, Sonic MyDVD that can be found for under $50.
 
Sorry to jump into this conversation late, but ya, you're pretty much doing what the pros do for digital editing now (although we use decks so that we don't have to digitize (capture) from our camera.)

There are lots of low-cost (although I don't know if any are free) programs for video editing, which is essentially what you're doing. Final Cut and AVID are the professional programs, on a Mac iMovie works fine for what your doing, I don't know if there's a PC Equivalent.

If your computer doesn't have a firewire port, you may be in trouble, firewire is the standard for film capturing.

If you still need help, just post again and let me know whats up.
 
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