Is there a camcorder out there that you can set up with USB or firewire and film directly to your computer's external harddrive?

If so, are there software's out there that will allow you to tag certain scenes/frames as you are doing the recording?

Is there a camcorder out there that you can set up with USB or firewire and film directly to your computer's external hard drive?


I don't have a laptop so I don't know. I suspect this won't work because most computers have all they can do just handling one external video device at a time. I suspect that two devices requiring huge amounts of processing power would be too much for it. You should be able to capture firewire video to your internal hard drive if you have a newer powerful laptop.

If so, are there software's out there that will allow you to tag certain scenes/frames as you are doing the recording?

Again...I doubt it. My computer's video capture software is old but I have not heard of any capture software that allowed you to anything while it is capturing. Perhaps others will have better news for you? Good Luck.

Dave

I have been able to capture HDV footage from my HV20 through firewire, directly to another firewire drive (daisy-chained to my laptop's one firewire port) without frame drop, and not recording to tape.

The program I used was HDVSplit. It names the files based on the time recorded. You would have to stop and start the recording when you wanted multiple files.

I have been able to capture HDV footage from my HV20 through firewire, directly to another firewire drive (daisy-chained to my laptop's one firewire port) without frame drop, and not recording to tape.

The program I used was HDVSplit. It names the files based on the time recorded. You would have to stop and start the recording when you wanted multiple files.

I was watching a recent episode of dl.tv and Morgan Webb was the guest host. She uses a HV20 and captures directly to her Apple laptop when she films her video podcast Webbalert. She said previously she tried a hard drive based Panasonic HD camcorder but had problems, so she switched to the Canon.

I did this with my HV20, no problem. I used HDVSplit and captured directly to my laptop through firewire when I did not have a tape. A bonus is that the recorded sound is much better since there is no noise from the tape mechanism.

I don't know about the tagging scenes thing...

firewire yes. usb no

Can't you use an HDMI capture card as well?

I thought this was the only way to get 1920x1080i out of the camera before it gets downrez'd to 1440x1080...but I may be talking out of my ass though...;)

Can't you use an HDMI capture card as well?

I thought this was the only way to get 1920x1080i out of the camera before it gets downrez'd to 1440x1080...but I may be talking out of my ass though...;)

Yes.