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eamo
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.
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 Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2004 7:44 am Post subject: Video capturing and Firewire cables..... 4 or 6 pin |
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I want to do some video capturing and editing on my PC when I return to Korea next month.
I know I need a firewire DV cable and I know my camcorder has a 4 pin output.
So now I need to buy a separate card for my PC?
And if so, will this card accept a 4 pin or 6 pin Firewire cable? |
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the_beaver
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2004 7:46 am Post subject: Re: Video capturing and Firewire cables..... 4 or 6 pin |
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| eamo wrote: |
I want to do some video capturing and editing on my PC when I return to Korea next month.
I know I need a firewire DV cable and I know my camcorder has a 4 pin output.
So now I need to buy a separate card for my PC?
And if so, will this card accept a 4 pin or 6 pin Firewire cable? |
What's the camcorder model name and number? |
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Demophobe
Joined: 17 May 2004
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| Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2004 7:55 am Post subject: |
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The computer ends of a firewire cable are universal, it's the camcorder end you have to think about....but you know this, so no worries.
The question is, does your mainboard have onboard firewire support? If yes, then you need not buy anything. If no, then just get a generic firewire card. |
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eamo
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.
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| Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 7:06 am Post subject: Re: Video capturing and Firewire cables..... 4 or 6 pin |
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| the_beaver wrote: |
| eamo wrote: |
I want to do some video capturing and editing on my PC when I return to Korea next month.
I know I need a firewire DV cable and I know my camcorder has a 4 pin output.
So now I need to buy a separate card for my PC?
And if so, will this card accept a 4 pin or 6 pin Firewire cable? |
What's the camcorder model name and number? |
It's a Canon MV700 (UK model no. It's the ZR80 in the US). A nice little camcorder which is ideal for beginners. Not too many bells and whistles. Battery hungry though. Amazing zoom. 18X optical. 360X digital although the digital zoom is pretty useless after about 50X
Thanks Demophobe. I can't remember all the inputs at the back of my PC as I'm sadly separated from my baby at the moment. Whatever it has it seems to be a straightforward enough situation. |
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Demophobe
Joined: 17 May 2004
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| Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 2:49 pm Post subject: |
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Cool....the cards are dirt cheap....around 10,000 if I recall correctly.
Also keep in mind that a good hard drive (min. 7200K) is useful for capturing large amounts of video. This will depend on the quality of the video as well.....DVI is the best quality, but it makes huge files and thus the hard drive needs to have a fast write speed to keep up. If you just want to make web quality, then no worries no matter what you have.
Lots of RAM helps too.
Sorry....you probably know all of this.  |
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Walter Mitty
Joined: 27 Mar 2003
Location: Tokyo! ^.^
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| Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 3:16 pm Post subject: Re: Video capturing and Firewire cables..... 4 or 6 pin |
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| eamo wrote: |
| It's a Canon MV700 (UK model no. It's the ZR80 in the US). A nice little camcorder which is ideal for beginners. Not too many bells and whistles. Battery hungry though. Amazing zoom. 18X optical. 360X digital although the digital zoom is pretty useless after about 50X |
Nice cam! I've got a ZR-60 and I love it. The firewire port on the cam is a standard 4-pin connector. Odds are you'll have a regular 6-pin connector on the back of your PC. If not, that's what you'll need to buy.
The only exception I can think of for this is Sony Vaio PCs. Sony uses a 4-pin connector instead of 6-pin, that way they can call it "i-Link" and make it sound like their own thing.
Demo's right about the hard drive though. A one-hour DV tape will take up 11 gigs of space if you capture the whole thing. |
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eamo
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.
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| Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2004 6:21 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Nice cam! I've got a ZR-60 and I love it. The firewire port on the cam is a standard 4-pin connector. Odds are you'll have a regular 6-pin connector on the back of your PC. If not, that's what you'll need to buy. |
So the port on the PC end will be 6 pin? I didn't know that. I assumed 4 pin.
| Quote: |
Cool....the cards are dirt cheap....around 10,000 if I recall correctly.
Also keep in mind that a good hard drive (min. 7200K) is useful for capturing large amounts of video. This will depend on the quality of the video as well.....DVI is the best quality, but it makes huge files and thus the hard drive needs to have a fast write speed to keep up. If you just want to make web quality, then no worries no matter what you have.
Lots of RAM helps too.
Sorry....you probably know all of this. |
Er...no, I didn't know all that.
I'm completely new to transferring video to PC.
I'm sure I can free up 11 gig on my hard drive but I would never want to burn that many gig to disc. VCD or DVD. I'm assuming that there's a way to compress the video in the respective software so you can burn say, 2 hours onto one DVD. Or maybe 1 hour onto a CD-r. |
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Demophobe
Joined: 17 May 2004
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| Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2004 7:29 am Post subject: |
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Well, the PC end of the cable will look like a hollow kind of house-shape....a rectangular side with a triangular edge....hard to explain, but anyways....it really doesn't have "pins", but side connectors....6 of them, but they are more like bushing connectors than pins.
Fear not...most (except Sony Viao notebooks, I guess) PC ends are the same. Just get the right number of pins for the camera end and all will be fine.
As far as video burning, you will just have to choose a different quality level. DV quality is lossless...it preserves all of the digital information from the original on the camera, and is thus massive in size. There are many, many options for quality/size managing. Encoding in VCD for example, can make the video file sizes much more reasonable.
If you use movie maker (free with WinXP) you can choose from a list of "quality" settings. This is quite easy to decide upon.
I use Pinnacle Studio 8, and gives you a lot more freedom to manipulate the settings....for instance, you can select your encoding codec from any that are present on your machine. So, if you have a really good MPEG-4 codec, you can get good quality at very reasonable sizes.
If you need a copy of this software, PM me and I will put it on my FTP for you to grab.
Perhaps this just confused the issue...a quick Googling will probably help you more than my novice knowledge. Gord seems to know a lot about video on the PC....maybe he will chime in. |
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korian
Joined: 26 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 12:42 am Post subject: |
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| pcs take 6 pin and notebooks take 4 pin |
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