Importing from a Digital Video Camera

To transfer video/audio footage from a Digital Video (DV) camera to your computer (importing):

1. Make sure that you have configured the DV camera correctly and have connected the DV camera to the FireWire port of your computer. Also ensure that the other applications are not using the same 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 VCR mode and bring it to the position from where you want to start capturing. Pause the DV camera at the required position. You can control the DV camera from within the capture tool.
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 turn off preview by pointing to the Capture menu and checking the No Preview During Capturing option. By default this option is un-checked.
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 stop capturing automatically after some time, select the Stop capture after and specify the capture duration in seconds. Otherwise select Manually Stop Capture.
10. If you do not want the Capture tool to open the Set Capture File dialog next time when you click Start Capture, check the option Do not show this box when I start capturing.
11. Start playing the DV camera's video footage.
12. Click Start to start capturing. While capturing, the capture tool displays the number of frames captured and duration captured under Output Options.
13. To stop capturing, go to the Capture menu and click Stop or click the Stop Capture button.

If you want to capture live video from a DV camera directly to your computer then refer to the section Capturing from a Digital Video Camera.

Note

Video Edit Magic imports 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.