Home Video on a PC (1 Viewer)

[TravisKH]

I'm considering getting a new Video Camera and a dvd burner. Will I need a video capture card or is there software that will allow me to get the video from the camera to the burner?

 

[Ken Chan]

Make sure the camera has a FireWire (Sony calls it iLink) port; most do. Then you want a FireWire (sometimes called 1394) port on your computer. If you don't have one, you can buy an add-on card for like $40. With FireWire, the DV data is "copied" directly, there's no "capturing" per se. A FireWire port on the computer can also be used to hook up external hard drives and other stuff, so it's good to have.

You need some DV "capture"/editing software. If you have the FireWire port already with your computer, it might already be included. If you buy an add-on card, it might be bundled. If you have a Mac, it will have FireWire, and come with iMovie, which is a decent consumer-level video editing program.

If you buy a DVD burner, it will probably come with some kind of DVD authoring software, and that might include the DV capturing functionality, so that you can can capture from the camera, make simple edits, author and burn the DVD, all in one program. If such a program is not included with the DVD burner, you can buy one. (Macs come with iDVD.)

If you want a little more flexibility, you can go with separate programs that (1) capture DV and edit, (2) encode MPEG and AC-3, (3) author/burn DVDs. If you have more questions, the "Computers and HTPC Area" of HTF is the place to go.

//Ken