Transfer MiniDV video to DVD

[chris83]

Hello all. I am purchasing a MiniDV camcorder and need some help regarding transferring the MiniDV video to a DVD.

Is an "All in One" program such as "DVDSanta" best for someone such as myself who is new to video and doesn't want/need to get into a bunch of editing? Basically, I want to shoot video with my MiniDV camcorder, download it to my PC via the Firewire port and then burn the video on a DVD for use in a player hooked up to my HDTV. If there is something critical here I'm missing, please let me know.

Again, I don't really want to do anything fancy or high end with my video, at least not at the present time. I'd just like to shoot, transfer to my PC and transfer to a DVD which I can watch on my DVD player.

Thank you in advance for your help!

[Chewy]

windows moviemaker will do the capture, there are better programs but they can be expensive

A friend uses dvdflick(free) to convert after that and nero to burn, but imgburn will also work

He likes nero vision also, he's a retired law enforcement officer and belongs to biker club and records their rides, he adds a lot of music to it.

[paglamon]

Transfer via Firewire using WinDV.
Then convert DV to DVD using DVDFlick (as Chewy suggested).

[rdkapp]

windows moviemaker will do the capture, there are better programs but they can be expensive. . . . .

I own Pinnacle Studio Version 11 and it will do the capturing, editing, and ready the resulting file for burning. I found it to be a very easy and user friendly program. Version 12 is out now with the basic version being very affordable.

Some of the editing features include adding music and title pages, as well as some cool transitions that come free with the program. There are even more transitions that you can get with purchasing add-ons. As Chewy said, Windows Movie Maker (WMM) is a very similar program, but I haven't actually used WMM, except to look at it and compare it to Pinnacle. What I found was that Pinnacle (version 11) had quite a few more and better transitions than WMM, but WMM is free with Win XP. I've never used WinDV (suggested by Paglamon), but I'm sure it will also do the job, and it's also free.

If I were you and you have WMM on your computer, I would give WMM a try. I received Pinnacle Studio version 8 as a gift long before I had Win XP and WMM, so I just upgraded to version 11 when I decided that Pinnacle was my preferred choice. Good luck.

[NightTran]

can a regular burner read the mini DVD ?