Video to Computer Basics
 
Analog or Digital?

The first thing you want to do is to determine if your video is in digital format (Digital-8, miniDV) or analog format (Hi-8, VHS, S-VHS). If it is in digital format, which is more the norm these days, you will need to transfer the video to the computer using a Firewire port.(aka IEEE-1394, iLink, or DV port) If it is in analog format, you will need an analog-to-digital conversion device to do the transfer.



Firewire (also called IEEE 1394 or I-Link)

Most new Computers and laptops have a firewire card already installed if you need to install one , it is advisable to get a package which include the card, a connectioncable and videocapturesoftware.

For laptops it is even easyer as one would use a package with a PCMCIA Firewire card that fits in a slot
mostly on the side of your laptop.
Make sure you have the correct cable to connect the camera to the computer or card . Most cameras
have a 4pin connecter while the card are mostly 6 pin but build in ports in lapts also have a 4 pin
connecter . ( so you need most likely a 4p to 6p cable or 4p to 4p cable )

 

 

Analog-to-Digital Conversion Devices

An analog-to-digital conversion device converts video from analog format to digital format. These type
of device is well suited for the following video editing scenarios:

* You have video shot by an analog camcorder and wish to convert it into a digital format.
* You have some old VHS tapes which are growing dusty and you wish to convert them into a digital
format

If you are in either of the above scenarios, I highly recommend you get an analog-to-digital conversion
device to help with the time consuming work of your computer is not already equipped with a TV-card
(check if it has input capabilitys )

Capture software

Some of the package or even the computers themselves already have some sort of video capture-editing software installed
Windows XP for example already has MovieMaker (highly adviced to upgrade to MovieMaker 2 )

But there are noumerous small little programs that are freely downloadable and easy to use to transfer your video (DV) from your camera to your computer : WinDV DVApp AMCap STOIK Capturer
Always turn on the camera in VCR (playback) mode before starting the capture program;
Save the videos as "Uncompressed"

 

Compressing your captured file

DV Files are very big in filesize , 1 minute of video takes up around 200MB
Therefore we have to make the filesize smaller ( compress) to be able to send while maintaining as much quality as possible for our analysing ( 15 second duration and around 2MB in filesize)
It is strongly adviced that you upgrade your windows with the Mediaplayer 9 series as they have very good compressors ( works as of Windows 98). This way you have the necesarry compressors installed and have a good mediaplayer .

 

Converting can be done in Moviemaker 2 if you run Windows XP (under "saving video" option )
or STOIK Video Converter (see download page )




A good compression for the 15 second Yourfile.WMV clip to be analysed

You can Download a setting for NTSC (Agilwmv9NTSC.prx) video or PAL (Agilwmv9PAL.prx) video

 

© Guy Blancke 2004