Help needed to interface handycam to PC

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Kneo

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My neighbor owns a Sony Handycam which records on a miniDV tape. He does have the software and the USB cable which allows him to connect to the PC but the transfer process (video capture) is extremely slow and the transferred clip does not have the video and audio in sync.

Also, after transferring one would have to compress (encode) the video files to a usable size e.g. 700 Mb for around 60 mins of recording.
  • Can someone recommend any software which makes the complete process of transferring from Sony Handycam to PC and then encoding a breeze?
  • Can a third party software recognize the handycam or is one stuck to the software provided by Sony.
  • Why does the captured video (4:3) bloated in size - a typical 10 mins captured video took almost 2Gb of space! Something seems to be wrong somewhere
 
generally sony handycams are a breeze when to use with pc connection.

Its own software bundled is also good for capture.

but the problem in usb capture is it is slow, resource hogg, sometimes as you said there are some sync problems, and also the brightness and contrast levels change also.

best option is that you connect the handycam via IEEE 1394 port if there is availability. it is also faster and better.

there is one handy utility which is smaller, less resource hungry and works like a charm.

here is a link to it. WINDV

there after you can use VIRTUALDUB to edit and recode your captured videos.

As the first capture has to be uncompressed and lossless its in uncompressed AVI format so it has to be huge. thats the reason for the large file.

I have used usb transfer with ease but i was not successfull with windv firewire transfter. There are some known problems which is abundant on forums on net.

try it and if you succeed do update me too :P
 
As medpal said,

a) use firewire if possible

b) The capture is uncompressed hence the huge file size. File sizes of 20-40 gb for a capture are common enough. Its only when you save to a compressed format like MPEG2 (for DVD) or AVI etc that the file size will be reduced.

c) Some freeware video editors - Free video editing software list for all platforms.
 
Doesn't firewire require a compatible motherboard or at least a good video capture card like Pinnacle?
 
Either a motherboard with onboard 1394 or get a cheap PCI firewire card. You don't need a capture card unless you're also going to do analog captures. Also, most of the capture cards come with software, making them more expensive.
 
dubbing from minidv is going to be slow as it is real time and not like other HDD cam, if you have video of 1 hour on miniDV it will take 1 hours to transfer from your cam to computer, firewire ensure high quality dubbing as is is bi directional. MiniDv is raw uncompressed format so it will take as in your case too very high space. it is normal with MiniDV format.
 
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