Need help learning about my Panasonic PV-GS16 Digital Video Camcorder.?

by Robert Galloway

Hello, please help me out. I am kinda confused and overwhelmed with my camcorder. It is a Panasonic PV-GS16 Digital Video Recorder. It has a cassette and san disk. I have captured video on the camcorder and I am ready to transfer. I don’t know the first thing about transferring video to my laptop. I tried a few things but I am still confused and unsuccessful. Yes, I have read the manuel. I would like to know how to get video from the camcorder on to my lap top. Please no dumb answers. Thank you so much!
I am using a HP laptop, HP Pavillion dv2000, and Windows Movie maker. I tried connecting with the USB from the lap top to the dv opening in the camcorder. No luck. Wmm can not find any devices. What am I doing wrong! Please help.
I am pretty sure I am using a Firewire cable, but where in the world on my lap top is a Firewire opening?

Answer by Nu’uanu
The Panasonic PV-GS16 is a miniDV tape based camcorder. Transferring video from the miniDV tape to your computer uses the DV port on the camcorder which connects to the Firewire port on your computer with a firewire cable. USB will not work.

If your computer does not have a firewire port, you need to add one. Since you did not tell us what computer you have, we have no way of knowing whether your computer already has a firewire port, or if adding one is possible. But, if your laptop has a PCMCIA slot,
http://shop1.frys.com/product/4098172;jsessionid=ERXA9yci3i0UCJoLUz-GzA**.node1?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
If your laptop has an ExpressCard slot,
http://shop1.frys.com/product/5534050?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

You will also need a firewire cable:
http://shop1.frys.com/product/4338425?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Firewire, IEEE1384a, i.Link and DV are all the same thing. When the camcorder is connected to the computer with the firewire cable, and the camcorder is plugged into the AC adapter (you don’t want to be on battery power when inporting video), and the camcorder is in “Play” or “VCR” mode, Launch your video editor and “Capture” if you are using MovieMaker (Windows) or “Import” if you are using iMovieHD (Macintosh)

USB is used ONLY for transferring stills from the memory card. USB cannot import DV from the miniDV tape.

What do you think? Answer below!

Honda Ruckus Rear Shock Mod shot with modded GH1 and 14-140 stock lens


Image by soelin
First "test" shot with the GH1 and 14-140mm kit zoom lens.

I’ve been eyeing on getting an HD camcorder for a while. I just couldn’t decide between a flash memory based consumer camcorder, like the Canon HF-S21 or the GH1 that could be modded to shoot at a higher bitrate (44 Mbps vs Canon’s 28 Mbps) and is capable of shooting with various lenses using adapters.

I ended up getting a GH1 which I immediately modded to "GH13" capable of shooting native 24p at 1080p. If I had purchased a camcorder, I’d still have to carrying around another camera to get good photos. With GH1, I have a good digital camera as well as a very capable digital video camera.

My immediate thoughts on the camera:

I like the image quality. Is it as good as the DP2s? It’s hard to tell from 1024px size images but up close at original sizes, DP2s is better–but, I plan to shoot with better, prime lenses and I suspect the quality will be as good if not surpass DP2s’ IQ. GH1 has a very quick focus, and shutter lag is much better than DP2s but slower than Canon 5DMk2 (as expected).

I really like the articulating screen. The menu is very clear and easy to follow. There are also plenty of analog buttons for quick adjustments–such as, focus mode, aperture dial, AE/AF lock, designated video button, and single/burst/timer settings, etc. The camera is about the size of the GF1 but slightly thicker because of the articulating screen and has a more protruding hand grip, which feels good. The lens is quite and long when extended to 140mm, but it doesn’t look as unbalanced as the SONY NEX and its kit zoom lens.

As for the video, I don’t really like AVCHD format which GH1 uses. I’m a Mac user and I MUCH prefer Quicktime .MOV, H.264 format Canon uses. AVCHD is a pain because I am forced to edit the movie on more expensive editing software (like Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere) or I’d have to transcode the .mts (AVCHD file) to MOV with lower nitrate.

I haven’t shot enough to write more about the camera. But, my immediate thoughts are, it seems like a really good, all around usable camera I could take with me when I travel and don’t want to carry a large DSLR.

I dont have the software to connect to my computer. were can i download some free soft ware? what exactly do i need?

Answer by corvetteflyingpilot
First you will need a “firewire’ cable that conects from your cameras mini-usb port to a firewire connection on your computer. Without that as a beginning, your pretty much dead in the water.

If you are using Windows XP, you have a program called Windows Movie Maker. This will capture your video and audio from the camera to the computer and allow some editing features.

Without WIN XP, you will need some sort of video software, such as Pinnacle, Adobe Premier or something similar to that.

GOOD LUCK

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Panasonic HDC-TM60 digital camcorder 16 GB internal memory + SD/SDHC/SDXC card slot 1/4.1″ MOS image sensor, 2.11M effective pixels 25X optical zoom, 35X “Intelligent” zoom 16:9 widescreen mode Auto white balance, backlight compensation off “Power” optical image stabilization on 1920×1080 resolution at 29.97 fps Interlaced AVCHD video compression at “HA” setting (17 Mbps) 256 kbps Dolby Digital stereo AC3 48 kHz audio
Video Rating: 5 / 5