Correctly captureing Video footage

Can you talk me through or point me in the direction of a tutorial that will tell me the best way to capture video, from both DV tape and hard drive based camcorders that will allow me to use the captured material in what ever editing software i choose i.e iMovie, Final Cut express or final Cut pro X ( I realisse that projects can not be imported between FCE and FCPX)
What file type should the captured material be.
Looking back over my previosly captured material it seems that it is all over the place, sometimes captured in FCE and at time in iMovie. Some of the files have been saved as QuickTime Movies and some as DV Movies (dont know why) so I m trying to organise myself in readiness for a new mac.
All footage is saved on to a external drive.
Thank you for any help.

DV is best for iMovie, firewire is best for transfer.
iMovie tutorials:
http://www.apple.com/ilife/tutorials/#imovie
and also this:
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/imovie_09_stone.html

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Message was edited by: DVX100Shooter
Message was edited by: DVX100Shooter

Storing captured video footage

I am still learning FCE and MAC environment after years of using Pinnacle software in a Microsoft world.
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What is the best way to store your captured video for editing in FCE?
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-DH

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How do I capture video game footage?

Hi,
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Inside the computer ALL source is digital... The key here is the subject matter
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In general, LR doesn't know how to read video metadata. It uses the file's date-modified (as set by the operating system) for filtering, sorting, and pre-populating the Metadata > Edit Capture Time dialog, but it uses the file's date-created (as set by the operating system) to display in the grid view.
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http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/inconsistent_dates_for_files_missing _date_time_metadata
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Boulder

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FCP 5.1.2 Mac OS X (10.4.8) Dual 1.8GHz Power PC G5, 3GB ram

I thought I had tried that. Thanks, that was the answer.
I am aware of the danger of not having tape backup. Having worked with the new Panasonic AG-HVX200 it is a chore to free up the P2 cards fast enough to keep from starving the camera crew. Copying the P2 contents to a single hard drive is the practice but leaves the whole shoot at the mercy of a single point of failure.
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Faulty firewire port on DV7-3080ca: can't capture video

I have a Pavilion DV7-3080ca laptop, and I cannot properly capture video from my (Canon HV20) video camera, which I connect to the laptop's firewire (1394) port. Regular video can be captured but not without many dropped frames, and HD Video cannot be captured at all. When I connect the camera to the firewire port, the camera says "HDMI Out" on the camera screen, instead of "DV Out" as it should say, so there seems to also be a recognition problem.
Searching on the Internet, I've learned that the problem is likely the Ricoh chipset that this firewire port uses, which is apparently more problematic than the preferred Texas Instruments (TI) chipset that some other laptops use for their firewire port.
Does anyone know if there's a fix for this? Is it something that HP could fix with a future BIOS update? I was hoping that it may have been corrected in the last BIOS, but I just flashed my DV7 BIOS with the latest version from the HP web site (F.13), and it didn't help. I've also updated the graphics driver and the Intel chipset drivers; that didn't fix the problem either.
My other alternative, if there is no fix, is to purchase an Expresscard with firewire ports that uses the TI chipset. Does anyone know if that would solve my problem? I don't want to spend the extra $50 if it won't.
Some people speculate that the problem with the DV7 firewire ports is also partly because it shares IRQ16 with several other functions, in which case the Expresscard solution won't work, because I think it's on IRQ16 too.
Any tips would be most appreciated. I've tried contacting HP via Help chat and email, but neither response even acknowledged that the firewire port's Ricoh chipset is faulty, even though that seems to be common knowledge on the web.

Has anyone tried to capture video with a firewire Expresscard rather than with the faulty Ricoh-chipset-based firewire port that's built in (but faulty) on the DV7 laptop?
It's my last hope, but I'm not optimistic. Some say it won't help because it shares IRQ16 with lots of other functions. Don't really want to spend another $50 to work around a firewire port that should work properly in the first place, but I really need to be able to capture DV footage with this laptop.
Have tried to contact someone at HP who's familiar with this problem, but no luck.

Capturing video from DAC 100 to FCE - HD

For the life of me I can not get this to work!! I can capture video through the DAC100 to iMovie no problem... But when I go to FCE-HD it does not even recognize the device?! I click on the FCE - HD in the dock and the EXTERNAL A/V window pops up Apple Firewire NTS (720 x 480) and states Your system configuration may have changed, or your deck/camera may be disconnected or turned off (which it is not). Please check your connections and click "Check Again" (nothing happens), or click "Continue" to set external device selection to None (not sure what this means but I can not find the external device selection in order to change it to none.
So I get into the project and click "Easy Set Up" and Setup For: DV-NTSC DV Converter and that EXTERNAL A/V window pops up again, I click on "Check Again" and get nothing, I click on "Continue" and then go top FILE -> Capture and it the Capture screen pops up but it reads PREVIEW DISABLED - NO COMMUNICATION. I then click the NOW button and a pop up comes up reading : Attempt to capture video without device selected. Please select a video device in your capture presets and try again. Well I can not find the "capture presets"??? Any help on this would be awesome!
Thanks in Advance.
Sean

Hey guys - Thanks for answering so quick...
Al - G'Day -
"When you start FCE this way the firewire connection is disabled.
Make sure View>Video>Firewire is active before capturing.
You may even have to have the Converter attached and powered on before opening FCE to get the Firewire connection active."
I went to VIEW (on FCE-HD) but do not see VIDEO>FIREWIRE? Am I looking in the wrong place? I have the converter attached and powered on and also have already tried what Tom suggested and shutdown the computer - disconnected everything (including my two Lacie ext. harddrives), powered back up and still no recognition? The DAC 100 doesn't have a DV out mode - I have the 3 input audio video plugged in and attached to my VCR...
Tom,
If this is the case where do I find the correct DV Converter settings? Also, I have never seen this device on my desk top or anywhere for that matter (which I thought was odd) but yet like I mentioned before, iMovies recognizes it with know problem and the video transfer to an iMovie Project. The problem with this is if there's any curruption on the videos they skip frames (audio & video) for split seconds, and I'm left without complete footage.
I had Final Cut Express 2 previously and at one point was able to capture footage, but somewhere along the line, this process got disabled. I recently Upgraded to Tiger and bought the FCE- HD update. I thought I had checked all the updates... What do you guys suggest?
Thanks again.
Sean

Problem capturing video

I recently contacted Canopus, who manufactures my video capture device (ADVC-100), but they said I have a software issue.
Here is the issue I'm having, if anyone can help:
Every time I attempt to capture video the image (which shows the footage it is capturing) freezes after a few minutes or even sometimes after 30 seconds or so.
I then escape the capture to find that the footage has now eaten up the 40 gigs of my hard drive (leaving only 1.95 left each time), which is not possible considering it's only, at most, a few minutes of video. My computer slows down immensely after this and I have to force quit Final Cut (which takes a very long time) and delete this 40 gig video file from my captured footage folder (which also takes a very long time, I guess because there's so little space left on the
computer and this is a very large file). The file is unreadable; it's supposed to be a video file but I can't actually play it back.
This happens the same way every time:attempt to capture, image freezes after a few minutes or so, have to force quit, then I find an unreadable 40 GIG file in my capture folder.
It did not used to do this. I cannot think of anything I am doing differently now that would have caused this to happen. I definitely have not changed any settings. Maybe an update to FCP caused this??
It used to do this intermittently, say if I converted 20 separate times, it might do it once or twice. Now it does it every time, and at shorter intervals (after a few minutes, whereas before, it used to be maybe after thirty minutes or so).
I recently added an external hard drive to my computer, but I do not write to it. I write directly to my main internal drive. Still, I disconnected the external one and it produced the same results in the same manner.
I've tried simple measures, like restarting the drive, the ADVC-100, etc...but it consistently produces the same problems.
Thanks to anyone that can help.
Sean

Your problem is most likely because you are capturing to your main drive. This is a definite no-no. Capture to the external drive - providing that it is has a firewire port and not a USB port.
How are you capturing? Capture now? That's my guess since you said that 40gigs of space are taken up on the crash. It is pretty standard for FCP on a Capture Now to reserve some space for itself. And it is quite correct that if it crashes, the file will not be usable because FCP was unable to close the file.
Capture to an external firewire drive. I'll be your problem goes away.

Correctly captureing Video footage

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