First off I would like to say I am new to this forum and have been reading posts the better part of the night and am impressed with what I have seen. Keep up the good work.

Now for my problem.

I have been editing video using pinnacle studio 9 capturing with either the pinnicle moviebox or ati all in wonder card. It is important that I capture the timestamp from the camera (sony handycams models dc 21 and 32) so I use an a/v cord from the camera to the pc or a/v cord from camera to moviebox and usb from moviebox to laptop.

I have been given a mac g5 but the only thing Imovie will take in is firewire. I can't pull the timestamp off the camera using firewire.

The g5 has a dual core processor and pcix card in it so I would like to use it over my amd 3200 pc but the timestamp is essential for my video's.

Also to my knowledge all of the higher class editing software only takes firewire. So am I stuck with pinnacle studio and an a/v cord?

I have searched high and low for software and hardward solutions to no avail. I am open to anything as long as it doesn't add more time on to the editing process. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advace

Taking the video via firewire will maximise your video quality and the ease with which you edit your video. Ideally your work flow would be capture via firewire on MAC > Edit and Output on the MAC.

That means you'll have to find another way to put a timestamp on your video in post production. I know that there are various ways you can do this on a PC, but not sure about a mac. What is the reason for the timestamp?

Take a look at these links:
http://www.skydiver.de/stef/datecode_en.htm

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http://video2dv.com/
Will probably solve your problem.

thank you for your suggestions.

marc,

I need the timestamp becouse my clients need to know the date and time of the various events shot on video. Those programs look good. I am trying cut down on capture/edit/dvd
time. Right now I capture with a/v cord (play camera into pinnacle studio) so capture time is the length of the video (1 hour tape 1 hour to capture). I capture in mpeg ntsc 4:3 then I edit using pinnacle and burn dvd in pinnacle setting it to highest quality. With the timestamp programs would I have to capture in avi format and are they bigger is size than mpeg and how is the quality?

I appoligize for the long question. I am pretty tech savy but new to video editing.
Basically I want to speed up the whole process with the best quality. Is it possible to capture faster (will firewire speed up the transfer or give me better quality than a/v)?
After I edit I would like to speed up the Movie making process (render and encode). Is there a better way to do this then build a duel core or duel processor 2 gig ram 10k rpm os hd and 10k rpm video hd. It starts to get expensive so I don't know if I can raid 0 both so which would be better to raid, the os hd or the video hd. I'm thinking the video hd but like I said I'm new to editing.

svhs,

Thanks for your suggestion but I don't think that will work for me

Unfortunately capturing DV is a realtime process. The only way to speed things up is to record to solid state media using something like the firestore.

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@ TiltedKilt
"Is it possible to capture faster (will firewire speed up the transfer or give me better quality than a/v)? "

Since capturing is a realtime procedure, it will take the same time in firewire and A/V.
Regarding quality, if your camera is a digital one then capturing through firewire will enable better quality. For analog cameras a/v transfer is sufficient.