I have a panasonic camcorder model:pv-gs35, whats the quickest way for me to download videos to my computer?

I lost the drive installation disk, and i've only uploaded videos to my computer with my digital camera suing an sd card so i have no idea how to with a camcorder.

that camcorder is a miniDV - although the recording is digital the tape is still recorded sequentially on the magnetic tape much like a VHS would be.
when you use a memory card or connect something w/ storage using USB, the computer reads that device and generally creates a master slave interface with it (or a copy/paste interface as I prefer to call it).
Since I'm sure you know that you cannot copy and paste data off of a VHS tape, its not possible to get the video off of this type of medium by using USB. What you would need is a DV cable, or 1394/firewire cable. This creates a P2P interface w/ the camera and will allow you to stream your video back to the computer.

In this case, the camcorder has a 4pin connection and your computer generally would have either a 4pin as well or a 6pin connection. The 4-pin will look just like the one on the camcorder and the 6pin will actually look like the USB but is wider and has one side that is somewhat rounded off looking.

Either one may be labelled on your computer as 1394 or will have a Y looking symbol next to it.
You will need a 4-pin to x-pin DV interface/IEEE 1394/firewire/iLink (a lot of different names) cable and your firewire adapter in the computer should be OHCI compliant. Plug the camera into the wall outlet and the computer, power it on and put it in PLAYBACK mode before starting the import software (movie maker works well) or the software will not recognize the camera.

Hope this helps. good luck.


IRT the girl below:

Great answers, but there are just a couple of things I'd like to clarify.

Numer one, the camcorder mentioned in the question is, in fact, a miniDV. Also, it is quite possible to transfer the video via USB from a miniDV on certain models w/ a special driver, but the quality is reduced in comparision to 1394.

Number two, the method you described for miniDVD camcorders works in many cases - but what if there is no DVD drive or the drive is not compatible? The other way is to connect the DVD camcorder via USB. 99% of the time there is no need to convert the files to another format. Just browse the drive and find the DVD_RTAV (DVD-RAM) or VIDEO_TS (everything but DVD-RAM) folders. Then, copy and paste the .VRO or .VOB file respectively to the hard drive and rename it to .MPG.

This is generally much simpler than using a converter program.

If you have a mini dv (cassette) camcorder鈥?
Your dv camcorder needs a firewire connection (ieee 1394) in order to download video, your PC probably did not come with a firewire port, so you will have to buy one and install it, since most computers (except possibly brand new) don't come with a firewire port, your camcorder did not come with a firewire cord so you have to purchase a cord too. Your camcorder did come with a USB cord and that is used for downloading stills from your camcorder.

If you have a mini dvd camcorder鈥?
You will have to finalize your dvd in the camera and then put the dvd in your computer 's DVD burner (top loading only) and then you will have to convert the files (i downloaded handbrake file converter free) and import them into your editing program. Use the HELP feature in your editing program to learn about editing. Once you are ready to burn, your project will be burned to a different DVD and you can file the original away.