What is a capture device?

[highflyer4u2]

Sorry for sounding so stupid, but I really need a simple explanation. My older JVC Mini-DV camcorder has only the on-board capacity to download "snap shots" to my PC. When I tried Nero to down load movie footage from the camera I got a message :"no capture device detected." I called Best Buy (where I bought my computer set-up) and was told by a guy in the computer department that "he didn't have a clue." All I need to know is: Is it software, hardware or what?

Sorry to bother you with this! But thanks.

[SallyDog]

Sorry for sounding so stupid, but I really need a simple explanation. My older JVC Mini-DV camcorder has only the on-board capacity to download "snap shots" to my PC. When I tried Nero to down load movie footage from the camera I got a message :"no capture device detected." I called Best Buy (where I bought my computer set-up) and was told by a guy in the computer department that "he didn't have a clue." All I need to know is: Is it software, hardware or what?

Sorry to bother you with this! But thanks.

Jeez :search: :readfaq: :readguid:

Start Here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=32575)

[jggimi]

Highflyer -- DV camcorders can be connected to computers to copy video to disc -- but to do this, they use a physical connection called "FireWire" or "IEEE-1394" -- if your computer doesn't have this type of connection, you'll need to acquire a PC card, and the apprpriate cable between the camera and the PC.

DV has its own forum -- this one is pretty much dedicated to capturing standard analog video (see our announcement (http://forum.doom9.org/announcement.php?f=10) for the different types of capture that are possible.

I'm moving this thread to the DV forum, where if needed, you may be able to get additional information from the DV-focused community.

[theReal]

was told by a guy in the computer department that "he didn't have a clue." :D :rolleyes:

The capture device is your camcorder, as soon as it's connected to your pc via Firewire (a.k.a. "I-Link" or "IEEE 1394")

[henryho_hk]

For poor ppls like me, DV capture is simply a digital data dump:
1) turn your dv cam to playback mode and press "stop"
2) connect your dv cam to the computer using 1394/firewire cable (probably Windows won't detect it as a new device)
3) run WinDV or DVIO (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=33519) in your computer, make some necessary settings (many online guides available)
4) press "capture" in the application
5) press "play" on your dv cam
6) watch the dv video played at 1x and its digitial data dumped to your computer as a huge AVI file
7) convert the huge AVI to wmv, xvid avi, dvd, etc. with high quality freewares

If you simply want a WMV file, you can use "moviemaker" as an one-stop solution. There are also other one-stop solutions for xvid, dvd, vcd, etc. IMO, they offer decent quality. If you are looking for more, I highly recommend you to read and compare the online guides and make more experiments.