-Not sure if this is the right place to be posting this but couldn't see anywhere to post a hardware related question.

I want to get cam corder footage from my cam corder (Sharp VL-Z1) onto my PC. I have an analogue s-video cable with the cam corder with a red, white, yellow female RCA connector. I also have a DV connection on the cam corder.

Would I be right in thinking I need a 3 pin fire wire cable & software like Adobe Premiere or is it more complex than that?

Also what software would be good to edit with & add FX??



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Just connect the DV socket on the Sharp VL-Z1 to the DV (Firewire) socket on your computer if it has one. I presume the Sharp VL-Z1 has a small 4 pin DV socket and you will need a 6 pin DV socket on your computer. If you don't have a Firewire socket on your computer you can get a PCI Firewire card, usually with 3 sockets on it and you fit it internally into a spare PCI slot inside your computer. Don't use analogue sockets as the picture quality will be very low and it defeats the purpose of having a digital camcorder. If this is your first time at editing then use Windows Movie Maker 2 which is free and should be on your computer already. If you have done some editing before then download a free 30 day trial of any of the popular editors you see listed on this forum such as Adobe Premiere Elements 4, Sony Vegas, Pinnacle Studio etc and see which one you like best. I also have a list of freeware software in a thread called 'Free Stuff' in the Forum Announcements section.

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

Cheers for that, looks like it really is that simple then. Ive got 5 firewire ports & a copy of Premiere on DVD but never needed to use it untill now.

Thanks again

You have everything you need to start capturing video from your Sharp camcorder. If you haven't already defragmented your hard disk (or the hard disk you intend to use - if you have more than one) then now would be a good time to do it to prevent dropped frames. Also switch off things like screensavers, anti virus software, automatic downloads etc until after the capturing is done, they can have an adverse affect on capturing if left running or if they start up half ways through a capture session.

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

I have a custom build box with a high spec for producing music so I always defrag on a regular basis. No Anti Virus installed as I don’t have it networked. I’ve alsoturned all the unwanted services off to increase the performance so I recon I should be ok. My cable arrives today so I’ll give it a try later.


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