Camcorder to make mpg files

Hi,

It is rather dumb question. Video that we make from a regular
Camcorder , what format is it? Is it in mpg, format? or if not is it possible to easily convert it into mpg format?

Thanks

What do you consider a regular camcorder? My Sony 8mm outputs composite video, which would require a capture device to get into the computer.

thanks, what is capture device ? so you need the capture device to convert it into mpg file? how much roughly capture device costs?

thanks

That depends on how much you are willing to spend. I've seen them for as little as $125 going up into the thousands. A lot of the price difference is the software package that somes with the device.

For an external device, you'll want to have an open USB2 port. In any case you want to have some drive space, like 10GB for small productions.

I am little confusesd. Once I made a video using my camprecorder, then to hook up my camprecorder to my computer I need USP port , right? not capture device ? . capture device is to convert it into mpg file right? or I have it all wrong?

thanks

The capture device, which plugs into the USB port (there are also internal devices but they are more expensive), takes the analog video output form the camera, VCR, what have you and digitizes it into a form the computer can work with, then the capture software will save it to disk in some format, generally MPEG-4, IIRC.

got it, thanks again

If I buy a digital camera with movie mode, that will do the job for me too as well right? instead of buying camrecorder. Since my goal is to make mpeg files only, not to put it on dvd or VHS