Pinnacle Video Capture for Mac?
I recently made the switch from PC to Mac. I just bought an iMac. One of the things I used my old PC for was transferring home movies to DVD. I also have some old VHS tapes that I'd like to put on DVD. I had a capture card (an HP external DVD writer w/ capture card included) for the PC, and the sales rep talked me into buying Pinnacle Video Capture for Mac. My Camcorder is a Panasonic GS150 Mini-DV.
So here are my questions/problems.
1- Can I capture video directly from my Camera to the iMac without any 3rd party interference? I've searched around on the board and it seems like I might be able to buy a firewire cable and then use that to capture video directly into iMovie. I'm not a professional movie maker, so iMovie is probably good enough for anything I'll be doing. I just wanted some confirmation that this is possible since the sale rep I spoke with didn't seem to know. I do not have any other software, on the iMac or with the camera, so I'm hoping that after I buy this cable tomorrow it will work as is.
2- I tried to transfer video from the camera via the Pinnacle, and the Audio lagged by about a second which made my home movie look like a dubbed Japanese monster movie. I used an S-Video and regular RCA cables with no change in results. I checked with Pinnacle for some help, and the guy first gave me PC only answers, and when I explained I had a Mac he just said "update your audio and video card." Can anyone offer me any helpful advice? Or should I take the Pinnacle back and buy a different, better capture device? Suggestions on what to look for are more than welcome.
Thanks for your help!
iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.1)