I have only just started video editing on my laptop and have encountered some problems. I have gone through all the stuff for beginners but i'm still not clear on some things.

I have a Sony Digital cam using mini dv tapes and my laptop is an Acer aspire 5612WLMi. I have been capturing video using the USB cable supplied by Sony and i'm using Microsoft Movie Maker. The video i capture is not as crisp as the image i get when i connect to the TV or watch it on the cam itself. The image looks very blurred.

I've read that firewire is better for capturing and that perhaps a different video editing program would do. I am going to try pinnacle to see the difference, but is the software going to be enough or will i need to capture with firewire?

Also my laptop doesn't have firewire but has a PC card slot type II. Would i be able to connect a firewire card on this slot?

Do you think the graphics card has anything to do with it?
Any other info you might have which might be of use is very welcome.

ONLY FIREWIRE, Period. USB is crap forget about it. A PCMCIA card for firewire will cost you a tenner, twenty max. Never used pinnacle myself, only Vegas. Graphics card will do you diddly squat, most NLEs use CPU and RAM.

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ggmabaapbnebtrbatst

thanks for your info, most useful.

I might sound dumb by asking but i assume there will be no problem connecting a firewire card to the PC card slot on my laptop (i mean compatability)?

Don't wanna fork out on a firewire card only to find out later that it won't work.

Thanks for any info available.

How much memory has your laptop got? How much hard disk space has it got and what is the processor name and it's speed? Pinnacle will offer you more options compared to WMM, especially in the output of finished movies. It will run a test everytime you go to capture and if your laptop isn't up to 'cutting the mustard' - more than likely it either won't allow you to capture full stop or it will give you dropped frames in your captures, and that's not what you want. Personally a desktop PC is much better for video work, more muscle under the hood/bonnet.

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Better than a poke in the eye with a pointy stick any day...

I have an acer aspire 5612WLMi with intel core duo processor on 1.66ghz. It has 80GB hard drive and 1GB DDR2.

I haven't had any problems capturing with WMM or using USB, only that the final product is crap. The image is very blurry.

That is why i'm asking about firewire and other software.

Thanks for your info.

I have no experience capturing using a 1.66Ghz cpu but it is way below the speed needed to capture video and the bus speed of the motherboard is probably 400 or 500Mhz, whereas a desktop PC has a bus speed of 800Mhz and newer models have a 1GB bus speed or Front Side Bus as it is called. USB will never give you the results you are looking for, it's fine for still images and web streaming but video needs Firewire, if you can get a PCMCIA card for firewire to fit your laptop you can try it, but you will probably get dropped frames during capture.

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Better than a poke in the eye with a pointy stick any day...

Thanks all for the info provided, it proved to be most useful.

I managed to get myself a firewire card which i plugged to the PC card slot on my laptop and i'm now using pinnacle instead of WMM. To my delight the outcome has been most succesful as i have captured the video i required without any major problems. These images i have now edited and played back on my DVD and they are fantastic.

The only problem is that every now and then pinnacle crashes whilst i'm capturing but after a restart everything starts working fine again.

As i said, most pleased with the info provided and more so with the results.

Thanks a million.