How to put video onto computer from video camera when it is plugded with the usb cord and it is not showing?

Question

How to put video onto computer from video camera when it is plugded with the usb cord and it is not showing?

Answer 1

Since you neglected to say which camcorder you own, your best bet is to download a manual from the manufacturer support site & read it. There is a whole section devoted to the answer of your question.

Answer 2

It depends on the camcorder.

If it is a miniDV or Digital8 tape based camcorder, you will connect it to your computer with a Firewire (IEEE1394a, i.Link - all the same thing) cable. Launch iMovie (Apple Macintosh) or MovieMaker (Windows) and with the camcorder in edit/play mode, import or capture the video. USB will not work.

If it is a hard drive or flash memory based camcorder, you will connect the camcorder using USB. For Apple Macintosh, you need to download and install StreamClip.

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/vi...

Connect the camcorder to the Mac. The camcorder memory will mount like any other mass storage removable USB device. Launch StreamClip. Import the copied video; export the video as DV or .mov. Quit StreamClip; Launch iMovie, drag the converted files into the clips pane or the timeline. Windows MovieMaker should be fine with that MPEG2 video.

If you have a choice, PLEASE DO NOT USE A DVD BASED CAMCORDER. The video quality is horrible (especially for editing), the small discs should NEVER be put in a slot-loading optical drive and the discs are a pain. BUT if you don't have a choice, hopefully, your computer has a drawer loading DVD drive... because then you can download and install HandBrake

http://handbrake.fr/

and rip the video. If you have a slot loading optical drive - or that drive ONLY does CDs (not DVD) or if the camcorder is analog (VHS, VHS-C or Hi8), then you will need to use an "analog/digital bridge". If your computer has only USB, use one from Pinnacle:

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us...

If your computer has a firewire port, then the Canopus bridges are great:

http://canopus.com/products/videoconvers...

If the camera is actually a still camera that happens to take highly compressed video, take the memory card out of the camera, use a card reader to copy the files and follow the instructions for hard drive or flash memory based camcorders.