It used to be when you captured a video with your camcorder, if you wanted to keep the footage, you had to keep the tapes. There was also no easy way to edit the footage, so whatever you captured would be exactly how your video stayed. Today, there are plenty of consumer-friendly video editing programs on the market that allow amateurs to capture video footage on their PCs and edit their home movies to perfection. In order to capture and edit, you must first hook up your camcorder to your PC.
Instructions
1. Connect the camcorder via Firewire or i.Link. With your camcorder off, plug the Firewire into the camcorder. The port will be somewhere on the side or back of the camcorder, and will be the only port on the camera that the plug fits into.
2. Plug the Firewire or i.Link cord into your computer. Some computers put the port on the front behind a flip-down panel. With others, you will have to locate the port on the back of the computer.
3. Turn on the camcorder. If the cords are connected correctly, the computer should automatically recognize the camera, and a pop-up menu will come up with different actions you can take with your camcorder, such as capturing the footage.
4. Connect analog camcorders through a digital video converter. If you do not have a digital video camera, it will not have a Firewire. Analog footage cannot be directly captured onto a PC. You will have to convert the footage to digital by running it through a digital video converter. The camcorder will be connected to the digital converter with basic audio-video cords. The video converter is connected to the PC with either a Firewire or an S-video cord.
5. Use the USB port if you are just grabbing photos. Some popular brands of camcorders are now being made with a USB port. USB does not have the bandwidth needed to transfer digital video, but if you want to import frames from your video footage as picture files, USB does have that capability. Hook one end of a USB cord to the camcorder and one to a USB port on your PC.
Tags: digital video, your camcorder, video converter, will have, camcorder port, camcorder will, digital video converter
