Part II. Import Video Clips, Pictures and Sound Files

Capture Video From Camcorder into Movie Maker

This tutorial shows you step-by-step how to capture video from your camcorder to your computer hard drive and into Movie Maker.

Before you watch this video tutorial, please watch the video tutorial just before this one. You can only capture video from your camcorder into Movie Maker after you have connected your camcorder to your PC. If you missed the video or want to review it, click this link: Connect Camcorder to PC .

Help

NOTES

When you click Capture Video on the Tasks list in Movie Maker, the Video Capture Wizard should pop up as shown in the video tutorial above. If instead, you get this error screen:

then check these possible reasons:

camcorder is not on
camcorder is on but not on Playback mode
camcorder is on, and on Playback mode but not rewound
camcorder is on but not connected to the PC
firewire or usb cable is loose and not plugged into the camcorder and the PC completely.

Those are easy to fix. If none of those are the reasons, then you may not have the video camera "device driver" on your PC. A "device driver" is just a small piece of software that tells the PC what kind of device it is. Most camcorder device drivers are already preinstalled on your PC when you purchase the PC. There must be an organization out there where camcorder manufacturers register their 'device drivers' so PC manufacturers can include them on their PCs.

If you have an old PC or a very new camcorder, the 'driver' may not be on the PC. In that case, you need to install the camcorder device driver. This simply involves installing the CD that comes with your camcorder.

Good luck. Don't give up. This is the step that usually snags new beginners. Watch the video tutorial repeatedly if you have to. Once you do this once, you can do it again and again with your eyes closed. It's worth the reward.

You can do it, I know you can!

Homework

Connect your camcorder to your PC as shown in the previous tutorial
The Movie Maker Capture wizard will pop up automatically if you have connected your camcorder to your PC correctly as shown in the previous tutorial,
If the wizard does not pop up automatically, on the Movie Maker Tasks List, click "Capture from video device"
Enter a descriptive file name for your video file and choose a location to save your file to.
Choose Digital device format (DV-AVI) and enter a time limit of 2 minutes. Also make sure you check off the Create Clips option box.
Click the Start Capture button.
If you see the Video Captured counter goes up, you are successfully capturing video. Congratulations.
Click the Finish button when the counter reaches 2 minutes.
Movie Maker automatically creates a new Collection for your captured video. The collection has the same name as the file name you gave in the Wizard.

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