Watching my Digital Handyman tapes through my pc?

Question

i have got a Sony Digital Handyman DCR-PC9E PAL which i have had for several years but not used alot, although the tapes i have got i would like to veiw on my laptop(then maybe put on dvd) how do i veiw these on my laptop? thanks

Answer 1

The DCR-PC9E is a MiniDV camcorder, so you need to capture the video via firewire.  If your PC hasn't already got one you'll need to install a firewire card. They're cheap, easy to install and readily available from places like Novatech. Make sure you check whether your laptop uses PCMCIA or Express cards - they're not interchangeable.

You'll also need a firewire cable.

If your laptop does have firewire, but you haven't got a cable, you need to check whether it has a 4 pin or 6 pin connection.  The camcorder uses 4 pin, so if they're both the same you'll need a 4 pin to 4 pin cable.  If not, it'll be a 4 pin to 6 pin.

Once everything's connected you can capture and edit the video with Windows Movie Maker (it should already be on your laptop), save it as DV-AVI (it's under Save on My Computer, Best quality show more choices, Other settings) and then write it to DVD using DVD Flick.

Be warned - MiniDV footage uses a lot of disk space - about 13GByte / hour!