Best software to save mini dv tapes on computer

[Suzi]

Hi,
I hope someone might be able to come up with a solution for me here.
We use a Canon MVXX250i camcorder to record family occasions, holidays, etc. We are now acquiring quite a collection of tapes and would like to be able to save the contents and reuse the tapes.
Is there a piece of software that we can use to save the tape contents to computer in their original MPEG format?
I have saved some of the tapes by playing them directly on to our DVD recorder using rewritable DVDs which I have then edited on the computer, using DVD Shrink, before making a permanent DVD. This is fine, except if I later want to use a program like Pinnacle to create my own "fun" edit at a later date - like making a "hollywood-style" title screen and cast list with music, (to embarrass my children) etc.
Pinnacle will not recognise the finalised DVD and I cannot split the files anymore, so if I could save it on the computer as an MPEG file, by connecting the camcorder by firewire, I might be able to use Pinnacle to manipulate it at a later date.
Does anyone know if this is possible please?
Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Suzi

[atifsh]

new versions of pinnacle, videostudio, power director all support importing dvd.

[Suzi]

Thanks for that information atifsh. I'm not familiar with videostudio or power director so I'll check them out before deciding which program to choose. I know I can use Pinnacle to save tapes directly on to my harddrive, but I don't have enough space to do that - perhaps I need to upgrade my machine now as well!
Thanks again for your help.
Suzi

[atifsh]

i say try video studio first ver 9, ull like it.
what specs ur computer have?
u need lot space if u capture dv-avi file format, but if u can do realtime mpeg2 then u dont need that much space

[Suzi]

My machine is several years old now and I'm still running Win 98SE because I like it. I have an AMD Athlon XP 2400 with a 60 gb master harddrive and 40gb slave. I also have 512 ddr memory. It's not particularly fast or flashy but it's done what I've needed up till now. Maybe the time is coming when I'll have to upgrade, so I'll get saving now
So far I've only saved the tapes in AVI format, but if it'll help me save some space, I'll see if I can use the realtime mpeg2 as you suggested.
Thanks for your help.

[atifsh]

AMD Athlon XP 2400 with a 60 gb master harddrive and 40gb slave. I also have 512 ddr memory

u may do realtime with pinnacle studio, but with video studio / power director u have to do non- realtime, but that still saves a lot of ur space.

means u dont have to capture dv-avi file, ull get a mpeg2 file at the end, it just takes little while, but still faster then avi -> mpeg2 later conversion.

ur computer is still good enough, there r many ppl here that uses same or slower speeds and do their work fine., perhaps a bigger harddisk is what u should get , unless ur bored with ur old system.

[Suzi]

No I like my old system but I've heard of people having problems getting their machines to recognise the large harddrives. Do you happen to know, or know where I can find out the maximum harddrive size for Windows 98se?
I've read all sorts of conflicting advice - much of which I don't really understand - but I think it sometimes depends on the BIOS on the motherboard being able to recognise the true size of the drive. That may be wrong, but I think it is something like that.
Anyway, that's what makes me worry about buying a bigger harddrive, incase I can't get Windows to see its true size.
Suzi

[moonrocks]

With Windows 98SE, and any PC bought in the last 6-7 years, for drive size I'm pretty sure you'd be safe with a 120 GB drive. The official drive size limitation for 98SE is 137 GB, but in practical terms you'll end up with around 130 GB.

Also, even with a very old BIOS, the installation software with your hard drive should be able to get around limitations and bring you up to 130 GB.

In my bedroom I've got an old (maybe 6 years old?) Emachine running Windows 98 SE, 64 meg of memory, a Celeron CPU at 400 MHz. The motherboard is a TriGem Florida COMO3 1.00. This is a very old PC that I only use as a fileserver. It's got a bunch of hard drives in it. One of the drives I installed is a 160 GB Maxtor. With Maxtor's installation software the PC's BIOS (American Megatrend Inc. 04/19/99) can see roughly 130 GB of this drive.

[Suzi]

Thanks for that information Moonrocks. I'll definitely give that a try: 130 gb is better than I have already and I'm sure it will make editing our family collection of movies much easier - I have 14 years' worth to do already! I'd better make a start soon!
Suzi