Upload video to your computer.
Uploading video from a video camera to a computer can be a tedious task, but may be necessary. Once on your computer you can edit the video footage then burn it to a disc, or upload it to the Internet. There are many different types of video cameras that record video in different ways, and the method of uploading or "capturing" video to your computer depends on the type of camera you have.
Instructions
Identify Your Camera and Upload Footage
1. Determine if your camera records to SD cards or an internal hard drive. If you plug a small card into the body of your camera like one you would use in a still image camera, you are using an SD card-based video camera. If you never put anything into the camera body, it is probably hard drive-based. Check your video camera's manual if you're unsure about its storage method. If neither of the above scenarios applies to your camera, skip to Section 2.
2. Remove the SD card from your camera if it is SD-based and connect it to your computer by either plugging it into your computer's card reader or plugging it into an external card reader that connects to your computer via a USB cable. If your camera is hard drive-based, connect it to your computer with either a FireWire or a USB cable, depending on the ports you have on the back of your computer. FireWire transfers data at a faster rate and is preferable.
3. Double-click "My Computer," then open your camera device. The files will typically be .mts files. Drag and drop them into a destination folder on your computer. Usually these files are compressed by your video camera into a format that retains quality and takes up the least possible amount of space. Most video editing software recognizes these file types. But if you receive an error message when you try to import the clips to your video editing program, you must convert the files to a more common format. There are many free video conversion programs to use for this task (see the Resource section below for links).
Capture Footage to Your Computer
4. Look at your camera to see if it records to miniDV tapes. If so, you must capture the video footage to your computer. Connect your camera to your computer using a FireWire or USB cable. Turn your camera on and set it to "Play" mode. Make sure it is connected to a power outlet because you don't want the camera's battery to die while capturing.
5. Open your preferred video-editing software, then click the "Capture Video" button. This is usually located under the "File" menu, as is the case in Windows Movie Maker. Select the quality for your capture and a choose a save location for the video. Click "Capture," then wait for your video footage to be uploaded to your computer.
6. Once captured, your video footage has been saved to the destination you selected, completely uncompressed. If you want to make sure you have the footage saved as a certain file type, simply add it all to the timeline in your video editing program, click "File," click "Export," then select the destination and your desired file format.
Tags: your camera, your computer, your computer, your video, video camera, video footage