So the MiniDV tapes arrived today. That means I could actually start using the camcorder to make movies. It’s been kinda fun to play around with it a bit (even Beth did it), but I’ve yet to really do any video that’s truly worthwhile to keep or put on DVD. This is experiment time. 🙂

I installed the software and whatnot last night, so this afternoon I was able to play around with getting stuff from camcorder to computer. I was a little skeptical that I could really get good video bandwidth across the standard USB connection, and I was right. If I were capturing Internet-quality video, it would suffice. That’s not the case if I want to capture higher quality video for editing and burning on DVD. So I ordered a FireWire cable just a few minutes ago. This will allow me to capture video in high-bandwidth mode, so I can get quality and still not sacrifice frames (e.g. jerky video stream).

I found a hell of a deal on the cable — less than $10 with shipping from a place I randomly found. Sweet. Compared to the next comparable places where the cable itself was $29.95 or higher, if it works even for a little while I’ll be happy. 🙂

So in the meantime, if I want to capture high-quality video for DVD purposes, I’ll just use the standard A/V cables and do it much like I currently capture TV or VHS items. Not a big deal at all.

I cleaned up in the basement a bit tonight, which was a bit on the necessary order. There’s been some water coming in (fortunately, it’s been pretty good so far this spring), and the basement was getting to smell a little funky (since the floor hadn’t really been cleaned since fall) anyway. So I mopped the floor and then used the mighty shop-vac to get things cleaner than they used to be. At the same time, I set up the box fan and started up the dehumidifier to help keep it from getting too dank down there. So we’ll see how that goes.

One nice thing is that I’ve been able to confirm that the dehumidifier works properly again. Hooray! Hopefully it lasts a season; only time will tell for sure. So I’m happy about that.

The weather has been fantastic the last few days, and it looks to keep on that way. I’d wished I could have spent more time outside this afternoon, but this morning I did something strange to my back (I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but it started when I closed the shower curtain this morning at which point something in my mid-back gave way or got out of whack). I’m guessing that I probably slept funny last night and that started it, but it’s really made me uncomfortable today. It gets better and then worse, depending upon what I’m doing.

That makes for a bit of a long day, but it will likely get better if I sleep well tonight without aggravating it.

Anyway, seeing as how I’m trying to get to bed a little earlier than last night (which was after midnight), I’m going to wrap this up and call it a night!

Until next time…

–MZ