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Sony Handycam - ripping to computer
HMO
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I'm not that great with technology so I don't know how to port/rip the footage onto the computer - in the sense that I can't seem to find a correct wire (among those which came with it).
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The exact model number of the camera
The leads that you have with it
Some details of your computer, ie is it a desktop, laptop, Macbook, running Windows, Mac OS, Linux or whatever.
Basically the more you tell us the easier it is to suggest solutions.
b) USB cable with a plug at the end (which does fit into the slot, assume it's for TV), and the inevitable red, white and yellow wires (for the TV). It also comes with a sort of USB cable (which doesn't fit into the slot).
c) I run Windows 8/Vista (depending on which computer I decide to rip the footage onto).
My dad previously managed to do it, but without the sound.
It is possible that you may need specific Sony software to do this however. If you don't have the CD that came with the camera you might be able to download it from the Sony website. The cameras with USB seem to have a mini USB socket on them which is the slightly larger brother of the micro USB found on many mobile phones. Maybe the lead you have has the wrong variant out of mini/micro to fit the camera?
But from what I can see if you've got a USB lead that fits the camera and PC and any necessary software it should be fairly simple to download the footage from the camera to your computer.
Turn it over. Read the plate on the base that gives the model. Might start with something like DCR-TRV.... and then some numbers.
Chances are that if your camera has a DV (digital video) socket then a cable like this is used to connect the camcorder to the PC. This is more commonly known as a Firewire connection. Your PC might have a Firewire socket - in which case all you'll need then is some software to handle the video/audio capture and do editing - or you'll need a Firewire input card which will come with capture and edit software.
A random peek at the manual for one of these units showed that it uses USB to transfer footage from the tape in the camera to the PC using some Sony editing software.
Couldn't see any mention of Firewire. But then again without knowing what camera the OP has there is no guarantee I was looking at anything remotely relevant
Sony don't call it Firewire, but that's what it is - Sony call it i.Link.
All it mentions i-Link for is copying to a VCR or such like. It makes no mention of using it to copy to a computer. All the instructions for copying to computer revolve around USB.
Same applies to the High Definition HDV variant
Digital 8 uses the same digital compression but rather than Mini DV uses a 8mm cassete. Other than this the same restrictions apply.
USB won't work as it's not capable of maintaining the required sustained data transfer rate. A usb to firewire convertor won't work either. A proper firewire card is required.
WinDV is a free firewire capture utility
http://windv.mourek.cz/
My Sony TRV950E has firewire, usb and blutooth, the latter options only work with still photos or low quality web style video
However, I also came across mention of iLink in the manual, which is why I wrote "if your camera has....
It does say you can use either USB or i-Link to do this but will get better results with i-Link. The problem may be that you computer will almost certainly have USB but might not have firewire (which is what i-Link is).
DV is intraframe compressed (ie each frame is present). AVC HD camcorders use mpeg compression. Only 1 complete frame (I frame) exists in a group of pictures, the rest are built from difference info and the I frame. It's a lot more lossy than DV, hence the difference in file sizes.
One of the videos that were taken on that camcorder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYAltMICSoI
You can't save it in HD, the original is only SD. To capture video in the original quality you need a PC with a firewire (iee1394) port.