n00bie - Spec me video transfer software?

[Draeger]

I've got an old Canon MV750i camcorder which despite being pretty ancient is still in excellent working order. I would like to transfer the footage I've got on about a dozen miniDV tapes so I can rescue it before the tapes degrade over the years or the camera refuses to work. Lots of family footage including our little fella when he was a baby so naturally its quite precious and I don't want to risk loosing it. Now, I'm a complete novice at this, the last time I attempted to transfer one of the tapes I was using an old Vista based PC and Windows Movie Maker. It worked, kinda. But the quality of the footage once it was transferred to the PC wasn't anywhere sharp or as good as it was when played directly off the camcorder to the TV via a cable. If memory serves me, the Canon uses a Firewire cable to transfer data.

Essentially I'm looking for suggestions on what software to use to grab the footage at the best quality possible and some pointers on how to do it.

Ta.

 

[SickAsAParrot]

Strange, I used to have a JVC miniDV camera which had both USB and Firewire interfaces. Capturing via the USB used to be fuzzy and obviously low bandwidth, but the Firewire capture was perfect.

Don't know about software nowadays, I'm still using an old copy of Premiere Pro, but every video editor should have capture.

 

[Draeger]

Was thinking of picking up one of the packages available on a '30 Day Trial' basis and then blitzing all the miniDV tapes in an afternoon.

Just not sure what one to pick. Cyberlink PowerDirector gets some good reviews?

 

[Draeger]

I downloaded CyberLink Power Director 13 Ultra on a 30 day free trial. Fully functional although it does watermark your videos for the first 5 seconds but its transferred everything I needed to quickly and in very good quality.