DV capture from Sony Handicam but appears progressive???

[coordz]

I've just captured some video over USB from my girlfriends Sony (NTSC) DV handicam to AVI files. Taking a look at the AVIs they are 30fps uncompressed BMPs with PCM sound.... which I wasn't expecting :confused: I then thought, okay, the fields have been combined into single frames and everything has been done uncompressed from the compressed DV stream...... but taking a look at the still frames I can see no signs of interlacing which left me confused. Any ideas what is being done behind my back? I would like to get the "raw" data off the DV tape onto my (windoze) computer for some simple editing and then conversion to DVD. Raw data meaning either the actual DV stream or uncompressed interlaced frames.

This is really frustrating as I've got access to a pro video editing lab but it's all set up for PAL into a Final Cut Mac so I can't use it for some quick NTSC holiday vids.

TIA

[Blue_MiSfit]

How are you getting the video off the DV camera?

[JohnnyMalaria]

What size are the bitmaps? If they are half-resolution (360 x 240), you won't see any interlacing.

[Mtz]

Forget about USB and use firewire for your transfers from MiniDV.

enjoy,
Mtz

[coordz]

I'm using Picture Package Video Capture Tool to get the video. It's some really simple software bundled with the camera. The bitmaps are 320x240 which I assume are the half resolution version of the original and explains the lack of interlacing.

To capture via firewire on a Windows PC is there some free software I can download to do the transfer? I've just tried capturing some video using Final Cut Pro on a Mac which works fine but don;t want this as the permanent solution (see previous post on the background).

Continued thanks :)

[JohnnyMalaria]

Assuming it has FireWire, just connect it to your PC's FireWire interface. If the PC doesn't have one, you can buy one for very little ($30 or so).

Once the cam is connected and turned on, Windows (XP or Vista) will show a small window with some options. One is to capture the video. Windows has its own built-in capture/editing software - Windows Movie Maker.

Many 3rd party options exist. The simplest and most popular is WinDV. We also have a free application for capturing, too. It is easy, too, and offers many other features that will probably be overkill for your needs.

[coordz]

LOL so easy. I've now got a perfect DV version on my HD. Thanks for the help guys!