Can you connect a MiniDV camera to the computer?

Question

I have a Canon video camera that takes MiniDV Tapes (the really small ones) and I've heard that you can connect somehow to a computer and put those videos on your PC, can you, how? Any help is greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Supplying the model number of the camcorder would have helped. Same with a bit more detail on your computer.

ALL miniDV tape based camcorders transfer DV from the tape to the computer by connecting a firewire cable (not USB) from the DV port of the camcorder to the firewire400 port of the computer. If your computer does not have one, hopefully it has an expansion slot so you can add one.

You will also need a firewire cable. Firewire400, i.LINK, DV and IEEE1394a are all the same thing.

Once connected correctly and the firewire port is working correctly, the camcorder needs to be in Play or VCR mode. MovieMaker will Capture the video; iMovieHD will Import the video. There are other editors out there. If you are in the Windows environment and MovieMaker does not Capture tha video, try WinDV. Once the video file is on your computer's hard drive, drag it into the clips area or the timeline in the video editor.