Copying videos from camcorder to pc?

Why I loose my video quality when I transfer videos from mini DV camcorder to PC?

• I am transferring my videos from Canon Z60 mini DV camcorder using FIREWIRE 1394 port and Windows Movie Maker. When I watch the same video by connecting the camcorder directly to TV via AV port, the quality of videos is very good. But when I transfer the videos to my PC, using firewire port and windows movie maker, I just receive a resolution of 320x240 pixels. This is very poor resolution. Is their any other form of transferring the Videos from mini DV cassettes to PC, keeping the QUALITY of the videos? Will using any other professional Video software while transferring will help? Do somebody know which FORMAT windows movie maker save the video in? Is is MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 for anyother format?

• Answer:

  Movie Maker is for VCD quality video and not DVD or Mini DV quality. It automatically reduces the frame sizes for VCD and not even sVCD. MPEG1 is used for VCDs. Everytime you save a clip in WMM you loose quality since all its video compression methods are lossy. I use Cyberlink Power Director for capture and editing. I have tried many and I like Adobe Premier best but it is expensive and a takes time to learn. PowerDirector is smaller an a lot more user friendly. The learning curve is much lower, quality is the same for the videos. Editing is easy. Not great in the special effects or if you want to make some complex edits (zooms, frame rotation, P&S).