I have a Mac and a PC. Up until now I've used the Mac exclusively for video but I have a client who only has a PC and wants me to capture his old home movies to an external hard drive so he can edit them. So I decided to capture them using my PC with Premiere since he has it too. Two questions:

1) In what format does Premiere capture DV footage? I know the Mac uses Quicktime, which combines the video and audio in one file. Is the format compatible with Windows Movie Maker, Avid, etc? Its not crucial I just want to get a better understanding of the best practices on the PC side.

2) Will he be able to edit the captured video on an USB external hard drive? I always use Firewire but he only has USB. I'm also capturing to my internal then copying it to his external. I know its an extra step but I wanted to avoid any problems like out of sync audio. Am I making more work for myself or am I doing the right thing?

1. Capture to DV-AVI format. (a standard format) Yes it is compatible with other editing software.

2. For DV you should be able to edit using external USB drives with no problems. I do this all the time myself. For HDV, firewire would probably be better.

1. Capture to DV-AVI format. (a standard format) Yes it is compatible with other editing software.

2. For DV you should be able to edit using external USB drives with no problems. I do this all the time myself. For HDV, firewire would probably be better.

thx. good to hear. I've captured 2 tapes, 38 more to go.