Camcorder to ipod help

thedougster

I am giving a friend an ipod for there birthday and would like to record a birthday video message on it before i give it to them.

I have been able to convert video files to put on my ipod before using Super converter (great software) but i have never downloaded video from my Sony camcorder to my PC before. Can anyone help?

The camcorder is digital and has a firewire connection to link it to the PC but i don't know what software i would need to download it from camcorder to PC. Any ideas? Also what format will it then be on my PC as i need to know if Super converter will be able to convert it to the ipod format.

I am hoping that any of the ideas are free software as i don't really want to go out and buy something like Corel or adobe Video.

Cheers
The Dougster

thedougster

bump before i give up. Maybe a card will do.

millypede

As long aas you can get the video clip off the camcorder and save it as movie file that Quicktime can play, drop it into iTunes and iTunes will do the rest and then it will send it to the iPod, but you might have to do more than that on a PC, I know its that easy on a Mac, see if that helps.

thedougster

Cheers for that. I can get it from my PC to the Ipod easy enough. However I don't know how to download video footage from a camcorder to my PC.

There must be loads of people that download camcorder footage so they can burn it to DVD or something.

Neiliboy

get yourself a firewire cable

thedougster

I havent tried yet as i havent been at my computer as im working away until the weekend. However when i plug the camcorder in to the computer using the firewire cable how do i then get it to the computer and in what format will it be. I presume i will need some sort of software to 'extract' it from the camcorder. Is this right?

thedougster

Thanks for that Alex. All is clear now. I think I will just put the video on her ipod so when she gets it on the day she can play the message. After that if she wants to keep it I will just emial it to her or give her a disk with it on it so she can always have it on her ipod (if she wants it that is....lol)