Capturing from a Digital Video Camera

To capture live video from a Digital Video (DV) camera:

1. Ensure that you have connected the DV camera to the FireWire port of your computer and also have configured the DV camera correctly. Also make sure that other applications are not using the capture device.

2. Switch on the DV camera.
3. Make sure that you select the DV Camera as the device you want to capture from. If the selected device is different then change the capture device.
4. Switch the DV camera to Camera mode.
5. Select the folder where you want to save the captured file. The capture tool sequences file names by appending a number if the file with the same name already exists in the selected Capture To folder.
6. If you do not want to preview footage while capturing, you can switch the  preview off by going to the Capture menu and un-checking the Preview option.
7. On the Capture menu, click Start or click the Start Capture button.
8. Confirm the capture file name and folder. If required you can choose to change them now by clicking the Browse button.
9. If you want to capture entire tape, select the Capture Entire Tape option. Otherwise select Manually Stop Capture.
10. Click Start to start capturing. While capturing, the capture tool displays the number of frames captured and duration captured under Output Options.
11. To stop capturing, point to the Capture menu and click Stop or click the Stop Capture button.

If you want to import already captured footage from the DV camera to your computer then refer to the section Importing from a Digital Video Camera.

Note

Video Edit Magic captures from a DV camera and saves the output as high-quality DV AVI format. This format takes up a lot of disc space. Depending on the output size, a typical 15 minute can take over 150 MB of disc space. The Capture tool therefore displays updated information about the drive's available disc space and used disc space.