(Canon HV20 camcorder) I'm unfamiliar with mini DV. What is the best route in transferring the footage to my laptop for editing? Can I actually use a multiple Gig SD card if I wish?

The specs read miniSD, is that the same thing?

What is the best way to transfer the footage in order to keep the highest quality?

Also, would this be a good first camera to test and see if this is going to turn into more than a hobby for me? Maybe a few festival entries in the future... that sort of thing?

If this post is hi-jacking this thread I can make a new one.

Thanks,

Mike

Mike, the flash cards are most likely for still photo storage only. You capture HDV the same way as DV, through FireWire and it's digital so no quality loss. Your laptop is going to need to have a FireWire/1394 port.

Yes -- the flash memory card is for still photos only. HD and SD video goes to tape.

Thanks guys! My Laptop is new so I'm pretty sure it has one.
It also has 2 gigs of RAM. Is that enough? It is flawless while editing SD in Premiere Pro 1.5

I'm sure HD footage will put it to the test...

Thanks again, Wes, and Chris!

Mike:

Will capture fine on that laptop, since DV and HDV are similar data rates. Real question is does the laptop have the horsepower to edit it. Premiere 1.51 does capture to an intermediate designed by Cineform for 1.51 use. It actually takes up 3x the file space as native hdv. That intermediate is supposed to reduce load on processor in editing, though. Going into native hdv in PPro 2.0 editing will be more processor intensive.

Hmm... I'm not sure... it is a 1.6 Ghz Centrino Duo Toshiba Laptop.

I may have to use my main PC to start editing.... it only has 512 MB of Ram though, but the processor is close to 3 Ghz.

What do you think?

Split out from "Canon HV10 / HV20 Comparison Chart" and moved to World Premiere.

Mike:

My thought is try to download some .m2t clips for various sites. There are new ones being posted in the V1U sections of this board, for instance. See if you can convert them to the the intermediate file in 1.51, and then go from there. Don't recall if it has that capability.

Adding memory to the desk top should get you let you edit in 1.5 using the intermediate files editing system available for Premiere 1.51. One thing you should know is that Cineform has been saying that the original codec it provided for 1.51 has been supplanted by better codecs. The recommend their $500.00 or so package in Aspect to work with the Premiere Products.

With Premiere 2.0, Adobe split away from Cineform and went to native hdv editing in the basic editing package. It does take more processing capability. You can get it at upgrade price form Adobe.

Cineform is still marketing its packages, indicating superior editing and color correction capabilities, coupled with reduced processor demands.

Also, editing native hdv appears to degrade the image on successive renders, and this does not occur in the the Cineform intermediate processes. There was an issue about licensing or something and conversion of Cineform back to hdv tapeout stream, I think, but I'm not sure where that is.