I have a Panasonic Camcorder, with mini cassette, How to transfer the video on tape into my laptop?

Answer 1

on your camcorder you should have a firewire port, it should look like a usb but smaller,

if you have then you might have a firewire port on you laptop, if you have get a firewire cable from maplins or pc world, but bring the camcorder to show them what kind you want..

then after that you can use the windows software (movie maker) to copy it... instructions are easy to follow..

Answer 2

Do you really mean mini cassette? If so, then you are talking about an old standard, analogue camcorder. The other answerers have assumed you are using a digital one. If it is an analogue camcorder then you cannot use firewire to directly transfer the video to your laptop.

To do this, you will need a device that can take the analogue video signal and digitise it, then compress it, and finally stream it to your laptop. These devices are called PVRs and you will need an external one to work with your laptop. They aren't cheap, unfortunately.

Here are some examples of a relatively inexpensive ones:

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/11501
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/122654

You can get the same model off ebay for a fair bit cheaper, but make sure it comes with the software that you need to stream the video to your laptop.

Hope this helps

Answer 3

Generally, the process involved connecting the cam to the PC//laptop with a Firewire (1394) or USB cable, and then using a program to receive the video stream into the PC and saving it as a video file. But for it to work you need to make sure that your PC has the driver software for the ports (XP upwards should), and the video creation program (Movie maker, Ulead, Pinnacle Studio, etc.).

Answer 4

Yeah VHS-C or Mini-DV

DV is by firewire.

If you don't ahve firewire you can try Firewire to USB

If not or if VHS-C you need a USB dangle from Turtle Beach, $125