I need some help :(

I know this may have been discussed million times but I am new, so plz don't flame me...so, here's the deal:

I have a samsung digital video camera (specific: VP-D20) and I want to transfer the data (video) to my pc. The product came with a cd that had a program (DVC Media) in it but I've lost it, and I was wondering if anoyne here can help me and suggest a good program that s/he has tested and knows it works good and s/he is satisfied with it (plus to be compatible with most of the camcoders out there).

Also, I don't want the saved file to be an uncompressed avi (or whatever it may be) cuz I want to burn it on a cd later. I guess that's all for now...


thank you for your time. :cool:

Sorry, I can't help with DV. You might want to post this in the Digital Video forum.

well, if it's in the wrong section some admin here may move it...I don't mind

I would suggest going to samsung's website and looking for the download there, most of the time programs will be made available for those of us who tend to lose things ... and I'm pretty sure if you're in the wrong place, it's your responsibility to re-post... You are the one looking for answers to a problem.... *smiles*

Cyberdeamon,

People on these forums don't usually get flamed much unless it is down right necessary to do so because of thier own insults so don't feel too bad about that it happens to everyone sometime in their lives.

If you are looking at transfering your video from the tape to the computer you need a card of some sort to hook the camera up to the computer. A video Capture Card. There are many programs out there that will capture the video into the computer, starting at a few tens of $$'s up to thousands of $$$$$'s.

Sonic MYDVD is a fairly easy program to use. Ulead Movie Factory. Adobe Premiere. http://www.pegasys-inc.com has TMPGEnc Plus which can capture the video file.

These are just some there are many out there. If you won't to then put it onto disk, you need a program to prepare the file to be then played on your player, being it a DVD player usually. A good place to get info for that is http://www.dvdrhelp.com/ which should get you on to the right track.

It isn't as simple as just copy the file over onto a disk and then playing it, it has to be rendered first and that is where all the fun starts.

Hope this get you onto the righ track and yes this post should have been in the video section of the fourms, just for future reference.

I don't have a video Capture Card...I just plugged the USB from the camera into the pc so I guess I can't transfer the video from the tape to the computer. Is that right?

Forgive my ignorance plz as I have never worked with stuff like this before. Just make clear to me what exactly I need after I buy and plug a video capture card into my pc, and name a good program that is user-friendly and easy to use. (hmm, maybe the capture card will come with some software?)

thanks ;)

You need three things:

1) A firewire card top get the video into your machine. A capture card is not necessary with MiniDV, Firewire is more than quick enough.

2) Fast enough hard drives to play back the stream without skipping. I am not familiar with IDE solutions as I use SCSI exclusively.

3) Software, find a firewire card that includes this.