capturing video?

[jer446]

I was capturing video from my aunts camera last week, my first time ever doing it. She has never done it either.. I was obligated to use sony's image mixer software to capture the video because the camera was going threw usb. But when i captured the video, all of it looked HORRIBLE. Like video at really low resolution. What is another good way to capture video on a windows machine? She has a dcr-ip220 camera, and is transferring it threw usb. The video always looks good when i hook it up to a tv. I am going make her send me her camera, and use my tv tuner to capture the video, but what program should i use to make it capture at the best quality?

 

[Mr. Anderson]

does the camera have firewire? You'd probably have better luck using that.

D

 

[LethalWolfe]

Unfortunately that camera use MicroMV. Only Sony's software that comes w/the camera can read it. MicroMV is also only about the res of DVD. And capturing via USB just makes it worse, Firewire might yield better results.


Lethal

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Does it still use the MiniDV tapes? You might be better off borrowing someone else's camera and capturing it from there.

Sometimes I don't get why Sony tries to make proprietary hardware/software.....

D

 

[LethalWolfe]

Does it still use the MiniDV tapes?

Nope, it uses MicroMV tapes that are about 1/2 the size of a MiniDV tape.


Lethal

 

[Laslo Panaflex]

You want Mpeg Streamclip, you can get it from version tracker here.

MicoMV uses mpeg2 to compress the video so it fits on those "conviently" smaller tapes. The problem is iMovie and FCP 4 and older can't capture mpeg2 directly. What Mpeg Streamclip allows you to do is capture the mpeg2 stream and convert it to a quicktime movie that is editable in iMovie or FCP/E.

This same technique is/was used for HDV footage, but with the advent of FCP 5, there is no need for conversion becuase FCP 5 supports native mpeg2 Long GOP format. I'm not sure if MicroMV uses the same mpeg2 stream as HDV, but it might, and if that is the case you might be able to capture the footage and edit it natively with FCP 5, saving time.

Good Luck.

 

[jer446]

will that program do the capturing for me? i dont really want it to be in quicktime format because i have a pc. I want to capture it on my pc, and the camera does have firewire, just on all of our computers we dont.