Absolute beginner

[nedflounders]

This is probably one of the most simple request you will probably hear.
If someone could point me in the right direction of converting DV to a format to be watched on TV.
It will need to be as basic as starting from what type of cable I need to view my film on my p.c.
Then a walk through or site links to help me end up with the final artical.
Be patient please :(

Ned

[jggimi]

Hello, and welcome to the forum.

The answer to your question will depend upon how you intend to display your output. Here are some examples:[list=a] You could display from your PC, if your video card has TV Out capability.

You could use a standalone dvd player, using either video DVDs or various type of Video CDs (such as VCD or SVCD). This method requires either a DVD or CD burner, and the appropriate software. It also assumes your player is capable of doing this in those formats and with those media. You can look up your make and model of DVD player at www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdplayers, and see what media and what formats it may support.

Some standalone players are capable of playing MPEG-4 videos from .avi files.

You could use Firewire to record back to DV from your PC after editing, and then merely play back from your camcorder to your TV, or record them to analog video tape from the camcorder.
[/list=a] More information will get you more specific help.

[nedflounders]

I'm familiar with writing to vcd and svcd so that's a problem using Nero.
I need to know how to connect to my p.c i.e type of cable. Then I need to know the best software to convert dv to svcd or vcd.
I know my dvd player will play vcd.

[jggimi]

If I understand you correctly, you want to know how to connect a DV camcorder to your PC, how to copy DV to your PC, then how to create VCD and/or SVCD from the DV file on your PC.

Connectivity:This is done most commonly via an IEEE 1394 ("FireWire") interface and cable. If your computer does not have an IEEE 1394 interface, you will need to acquire a PCI card to add the capability to your PC.Copying DV to the PC:The DV video is copied to the PC through a process known as "capture" -- it occurs in real time, and consumes approximately 216 MB of disk space for every minute of video. The "Links" sticky thread will point you to two different free DV Capture tools. In addition, many consumer-grade video editing software products include DV capture capability.

I use Ulead VideoStudio, a consumer-grade editing tool, for DV capture, as well as simple editing, and VCD/SVCD creation (more below). There's a 30-day trial, and the software is not very expensive. www.ulead.comCreating Video CDs:There are free tools (excepting the MPEG-2 encoder needed for SVCD) such as AVI2SVCD that can manage the conversion from AVI to VCD or SVCD for you. Doom9 has step-by-step guides for converting AVI to SVCD. Be aware that DV is a little different from standard AVI in that it doesn't use square pixels, so resizing can be confusing, and, you usually need to capture in "Type-2" AVI format to be compatible with most encoding tools. Personally, I prefer to use Ulead's VideoStudio for creating SVCD/VCDs from DV, since the tool has an MPEG-2 encoder, menu development, even burning, built right into it.Did this help?