Digital Video to PC

[juk]

I've just inherited a Sharp Camcorder (VL-Z8H) & would like to transfer taped video footage to PC for editing etc. I've been told I need a video capture card.

Any recommendations & advice on which sort & best editing software would be much appreciated.

[dougt]

You just need to connect the camcorder to your PC via firewire and use something like Adobe Premier to capture the footage. There are probably lots of other software packages that'll do this, I just mention premier because that's what I use at work.

You definitely don't need a video capture card if your camera has dv-out (I think it does based on a quick web search).

[juk]

Thanks for that - I'll check DV ins & outs etc, I guess you find the Adobe software good enough?

[dougt]

Adobe premier is fine if you're prepared to work with it but I often think it's a bit non intuitive. I've not used anything else so I don't really have much to compare it with.

[meeja]

dougt said:

Adobe premier is fine if you're prepared to work with it but I often think it's a bit non intuitive. I've not used anything else so I don't really have much to compare it with.

Adobe Premiere is superb video editing software..... but it aimed at professional users - hence the official purchase price of it

It works very similar to many other professional Non-Linear Edit systems, and once you get to grips with the basics of it, editing becomes very quick and easy.

I'm pretty certain if you have a google or two, you'll find plenty of support sites and forums that can help!

[meeja]

juk said:

I've just inherited a Sharp Camcorder (VL-Z8H) & would like to transfer taped video footage to PC for editing etc. I've been told I need a video capture card. Any recommendations & advice on which sort & best editing software would be much appreciated.

If this is your camcorder.... then you do not need a video capture card, you can connect your camera to your PC via IEEE1394 (Firewire) and transfer the footage that way (minimal quality loss)

This model also appears to have DV-in enabled... which means tha once you have edited your footage, you can transfer it digitally back to DV tape, which menas that you will have suffered negligable quality loss.... which is nice....

[meeja]

juk said:

I've just inherited a Sharp Camcorder (VL-Z8H) & would like to transfer taped video footage to PC for editing etc. I've been told I need a video capture card. Any recommendations & advice on which sort & best editing software would be much appreciated.

If this is your camcorder.... then you do not need a video capture card, you can connect your camera to your PC via IEEE1394 (Firewire) and transfer the footage that way (minimal quality loss)

This model also appears to have DV-in enabled... which means tha once you have edited your footage, you can transfer it digitally back to DV tape, which menas that you will have suffered negligable quality loss.... which is nice....