Capture Of Home Video

Digital video is from a source that has a firewire connection, for example a mini-DV or Digital-8 video camera.

To capture digital video, power on your camera and put the camera in "play" mode. Connect your digital video camera to the "firewire" cable connected to the multimedia computer. The firewire cable has a mini-firewire female end which connects to the camera and a regular firewire male end which connects to the computer. There may be a firewire cable already connected to the computer, but it is best to come prepared with your own firewire "mini-female to regular male" cable (many times digital cameras come with such a cable, and many refer to this cable simply as a "MiniDV cable"). You should see the computer recognize that your device connected and open a Digital Video Device"window asking you which program you want to open to use with the camera. You can capture digital video using a variety of software programs.

There are many popular capture video software programs available

. Most of these are a combination of capture and then editThe least expensive one that comes to mind is Windows Movie Maker, which is one of the programs included with your Windows operating system. Among the others are Pinnacle Studio, Adobe Premiere Pro, (My favorite), Adobe Premiere Elements.

The Best Way To Connect Your Camcorder To the PC Is Via Firewire.

When you connect your digital video source (camera) to the firewire cable on the computer, a window should open asking you what program you want to run to use your video device. You can click on "Windows Movie Maker" or your other choice to open your choice of capture/editing software, or alternatively you can click on the "Start""button in the lower left hand corner of the screen, then on "Programs", "Accessories", "Entertainment", and "Windows Movie Maker".

I will use Windows Moviemaker as the capture software here

. All packages come with tutorials on using the software. Most of them have very helpful forums. If you clicked on the "Digital Video Device" window, the capture window should already be open, but if not you can click on "File", "Capture Video". Enter a name for the video file you will capture. Click "Next". You can capture in a variety of formats. Choose "Best quality for playback on my computer""and click""Next". Select "Capture parts of the tape manually" and make sure "Show preview during capture" is checked. Click "Next". Now you can use the controls on the "Video Capture Wizard" window to play, fast forward, rewind, etc… your digital video device (camera). Click on the "play" button (with the right arrow). You can fast forward or rewind to the part of the tape that you want to capture. Press play to start playing the video (you should be a few seconds before the part you want to capture to be sure you get all the video you want to capture). When you are ready to start capturing video, press the "Start Capture" button. When you want to stop the capture, press the "Stop Capture" button. When you are done capturing videos you can click "finish". Now you can drag and drop you videos to the timeline for editing. This is where the fun begins and you can let your creative juices flow.

A personal example of capture and editing was a video I did of my grandson. I had a clip I shot of my grandson, Rowdy, demonstrating his karate prowess. In the middle of his kicks I inserted a column of light then inserted an effect that had Yoda dropping into the scene. Several frames later, on one of the kicks, I inserted a flame effect and then Yoda disappeared in a puff of flame. He thought Papaw was pretty cool.