Just returned from South Africa with 21 hours of Pal Mini DV recordings. Unfortunately it was not my camera. If I buy a Pal Mini DV camcorder will I be able to download the mini dv's directly to my PC? I have editing software that will take my PAL digital info and convert to NTSC. Just trying to find the best, easiest and cheapest way to get the tapes on my computer.

Thank you.

Monde

You will be able to use a PAL camera to transfer your footage to your PC using capture software supplied with the camera, supplied with your editing software or sourced elsewhere.

(The process of transferring from tape is called capturing. It happens in real time and required a nice fast defragmented hard disk to avoid dropped frames or other trouble. Downloading implies (at least to me) copying digital information one bit at a time and speed does not affect accuracy)

I presume the point of this post is you want the resultant footage in NTSC.

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Tim

One hour of uncompressed AVI will take up just over 13Gb of hard drive space, assuming you actually capture all the footage from each tape.

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Just to be pedantic, one hour of uncompressed AVI will take a LOT more than that.

What's captured from MiniDV IS compressed using the DV codec which gives you the 13GB/hour.

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Tim

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you all. I have over a terabyte of 'free' hard drive space available... so I am not so concerned about how large the files will be. I know it will take a long time to do each hour but that goes with the territory.

What I should try to confirm is whether or not I should just transfer straight PAL and then take it into Final Cut to convert to NTSC. I am told that since I filmed on PAL 16:9 widescreen - if I try to convert immediately to NTSC it will automatically convert to 4:3. So how is the best way to transfer from the camcorder?

Thoughts anyone??? You have been very helpful.

Monde

Thanks I did post a new comment and question. Appreciate your feedback!

Converting between PAL and NTSC is way beyond me - never had the need to do it. However...
I'd be extremely surprised if converting 16:9 PAL to NTSC also converted or cropped the picture to 4:3.

The important difference here between the two is the number of pixels in the vertical. PAL is 720 x 576 whereas NTSC is 720 x 480 IRRESPECTIVE of whether they are widescreen or not - that issue is decided by telling the player the shape of the individual pixels (Pixel Aspect Ratio)

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Tim