Can anyone recomend software that will automatically split a video into
separate video files. An example would be if I record a birthday, turn
off the camcorder, then later record a baseball game etc... I'd like
each event to be it's own video file (with little effort). I believe DV
camcorders offer this pretty redily, but I have a Sony Mini-DV recorder
(DCR-HC21 NTSC), with data transfer through USB.

Thanks a lot!

Hey Fred,

Next to the USB port on a Sony DCR-HC21 is the DV out port (or i-link),
which you can use to make a firewire connection to your computer.

You will need a 'firewire' lead, which normally comes with the
camcorder and a firewire (i-link) port on your computer. Most new
computers have these as standard, but if not, a firewire card is cheap
to buy and easy to install.

Just connect the camcorder to your PC and if you have Windows XP, click
on 'Movie Maker' (the free editing software than comes with XP)

It will automatically detect you want to capture video. Select the
manual option and click start. When you get to the end of the scene you
want a separate file for, click stop and save.

Do the same for all the other scenes you want from the same miniDV
tape.

Job done.

Hope that has been of some help to you,

Pete

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Fred wrote:

There is a well-known, stand-alone video capturing and scene-detection
application called Scenarist which is written for this very purpose. See
<http://www.scenalyzer.com/>.

Proper video editing applications, such as Premiere Pro or Sony Vegas,
usually come with a similar capability as well.

I don't know what kind of a USB implementation the DCR-HC21 has.
Generally speaking, the USB implementations on MiniDV camcorders are
often restricted. For example, they may not let you use the camcorder
with all editing programs, or with the full video quality. Some
camcorders may only provide webcam-alike reduced video resolutions (such
as 320×240 or 640×480) through the USB port whereas the true digital
"NTSC" resolution is 720×480. If you have any doubts about the USB
functionality on your camcorder, and if you don't already have a
Firewire (IEEE-1394) port on your computer, I'd recommend getting a
cheap Firewire card and connecting the camcorder to computer via that.
(If you do it this way, you will be using the "DV" port on your
camcorder, instead of the USB port. The "DV" port is located right next
to the USB port on the DCR-HC21.)

See <http://www.dvworkshop.co.uk/Computer/Adding_Drives___Car
ds/Firewire_Card/firewire_card.html> for more information.

Scenealyzer Live -- it's inexpensive and works great.  If you want something
free, use the shareware Scenealyzer program which works with video captured
to the hard drive.


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