Is your videotape/Camera Analog or Digital ?

The first thing you want to do is to determine if your video is om a digital format tape (Digital-8, Mini-DV) or analog format (Hi-8, VHS, S-VHS).
If it is in a digital form , what is now more common, you will be easely able to transfer your videoclip to your computer through a firewire cable strait form your camera.
Firewire is also known as IEEE-1394, iLink or DVport.
If your tapes are in a analog format you will have to transfer your clips through a analog-to-digital conversion device.

Your Tape/Camera is Digital

Most new computers and laptops already have a Firewire connector available as does your digital videocamera.
In this case you will just have to connect your camera to your computer through the use of a Firewire cable, play your clip and store it on your computer using some capture software.

Most cameras will have a 4-pin connector as do most Laptops.
Your PC or Adapter card might have a 6-pin connector. Cables are available to accomodate your combination : 4p-4p; 4p-6p and 6p-6p.

My PC or laptop does not have Firewire connectors.

PC: You will need to install one but  might have to ask a technician to do this in order not to loose your waranty.

Laptop: You will need to buy a PCMCIA type of card that will fit in one of the slots avalable one your laptop

Your Tape/Camera is Analog.

This makes it a little more complicated as you will need now a Analog-to-Digital conversion device.
You will have to check your local store for available converters.

Some digital videocameras actually do accept the playback of analog tapes especially those that use the Hi-8 tapes of cassettes. Check your manual of your camera for this possibility.

Getting the clip on the PC/laptop

Now that we have our Camera connected to our computer we need some software to actually capture the clip on to your computer.
Many software packages are available from  very basic to very high end editing packages.

For our purpose the very basic will be more then adequate.
Most computers actually already have software installed for this especially if you are working on a Windows based system.
Windows  already comes with its own video capture and editing program called Moviemaker ( you can find it in the list when you click on Start - All Programs - Accessories

Other free software is also available for download : WinDV - DVapp -  AMcap - Stoik Capturer to name a few very simple to use ones.

Whichever one you will use , set your camera in playback position ( VCR mode) and save the clips in a Uncompressed format . This will make it easyer to trim (cut away unwanted parts) your clips before compressing ( make the files suitable for transfer to us) them.

Because uncompressed videoclips strait from your camera are very big in filessize ( around 200MB/minute of footage ) you will have to compress them in a for us desired way before sending them to us.
Please contact us for advice on correct compression so we can receive your clip with a good quality/filesize ratio in order to analyse the clips appropriatly.

At this stage we can not accomodate for sending tapes or clips on CD/DVD to us.