[adityapd]

Hi,

I have Sony DCR HC 40 miniDV cam corder.

I am unable to download the videos recorded successfully into my computer.

I am able to check the streaming quality correctly on the pc during testing before conversion of the video file recorded on tape however, when i actually download the video into a dat file, there is considerable frame dropping ( not smooth transition between images) also the video quality is pathetic.

Have any of you faced a similar problem ? any solutions you would recommed ?

~A

[devarshi84]

I have the trv-27 from sony. But I didnt find the quality from the videos on the computer to be good too.

[karthik247]

I have the HC 42, and the thing is...i'm not even able to start streaming. OK one i managed to start it, and does it happen in 2 or 3 sections?? i have arnd 5gb space on my HDD, and i just need to copy abt 20minz of video. The 5gb is gettin over in no time.

Guys need HELP!

[BUSA]

When you view the videos in full screen format on computer then the quality becomes pathetic. Write it on computer and watch on TV there wont be any quality issue! I am facing the same issue when i turn to full screen!

[devarshi84]

btw u need to have winxp with service pack2 to fully use the data suite for the camcorder.

[Deeps]

Transferring the video to the pc via the firewire card rather than the USB should take care of the quality issue to some extent.

[pranil]

DMA should be on in hard drive and firewire is must for full screen good quality DV. I use Panasonic NV-GS15 and find no problem at all

[bigman]

I have a Panasonic NV GS55 and transferring the video to the PC is a doddle. I use WinDV.exe to transfer the files to the PC (via firewire). It has never dropped a frame. Video is a hard drive intensive process (12 gig for 1 hour video footage). After grabbing all the avi I encode the Video using TMPG Encoder to encode the avi files into DVD format (MPEG 2) and then use this in a DVD authoring package to produce a DVD.

[adityapd]

Originally Posted by pranil

DMA should be on in hard drive and firewire is must for full screen good quality DV. I use Panasonic NV-GS15 and find no problem at all

Pranil / bigman,

Can you pls explain what's a "DMA" ? and from where / how(link) to get firwire installed on a pc ?

BUSA,

Its not a question of full screen viewing which reduces the quality of the video at all. The quality is bad even when viewed in a small window. The screen just keeps on displaying a series of images instead of continuous motion pictures, however the recorded sound is played continuously.

devarshi84,

are you sure winxp with SP2 will solve this problem ? in that case i might have to format my pc which is currently running Win 98 and install winxp.

~A

[vivekiny2k]

I use firewire for my TRV350 (tape, not DV) and i also get frame dropping occasionally. The conventional way of having a video capture card in computer(that accepts red-white-yellow connectors), and giving data thru the AV cable from cam should be the best I believe.

[ntomer]

Dude I too faced the same problem while capturing video through USB. But once I intalled a Firewire card in my PC, and captured video through Windows Media Maker (it comes with Windows XP), quality improved drastically. IMHO to utilize miniDV 's full capabilities IEEE 1394 (that's firewire's tech name) is the best way.
I bought my firewire card from Nehru Place, and it cost me 450 bucks, including a cable. Installing it is very easy, just open your PC's shell, fit the card into one of the PCI slots, and turn-on the computer it will detect the card by itself.
If you have any other queries, PM me.

\N

[satish_appasani]

To capture DV in to PC, Firewire (IEEE 1394) is the best known way. Though theoretically, USB 2.0 is faster than firewire, DV industry is yet to support USB as much as they support firewire. For starters Windows movie maker that ships with Windows XP is the best way to burn VCDs.

There could be many reasons for frame dropping

Your HDD speed is not fast enough. You system should be able to write the captured DV to HDD at the same speed as it reads from the DV tape. Try to get the fastest and largest (in terms of space) you can afford. For DV capturing, 1minute of video requires up to 100 MB of HDD. You will run out of space in no mater of time.

The faster the machine the best. I have 1 GB of RAM setup on my PC exclusively for DV editing.

You have other devices apart from the camera connected to the firewire card.

[sinner]

Guys same problem with m as well i'm using Panasonic GS-35 supplied with the software and USB cable which i mean the software helps only for image transfer and not video.. after a lots of twiching i found an alternative to trasfer the video using Movie Maker and keepiung the cam at privew more..

One question to all those people usiong Firewire.... i have a 915 chipset and i don't think i need to install a firewire.. more over my questiions are how much dose the cable costs and whats the procedure. Which application to use,, F1 F1 F1

[bigman]

Originally Posted by adityapd

Pranil / bigman,

Can you pls explain what's a "DMA" ? and from where / how(link) to get firwire installed on a pc ?

BUSA,

Its not a question of full screen viewing which reduces the quality of the video at all. The quality is bad even when viewed in a small window. The screen just keeps on displaying a series of images instead of continuous motion pictures, however the recorded sound is played continuously.

devarshi84,

are you sure winxp with SP2 will solve this problem ? in that case i might have to format my pc which is currently running Win 98 and install winxp.

~A

DMA = Direct Memory Access. It is a way of transferring data without it going via the CPU (I think).

Just buy a firewire card and cable . They are pretty cheap on ebay.

Taken from MS site :
To enable DMA mode using the Device Manager
1. Open Device Manager.
2. Double-click IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers to display the list of controllers and channels.
3. Right-click the icon for the channel to which the device is connected, select Properties, and then click the Advanced Settings tab.
4. In the Current Transfer Mode drop-down box, select DMA if Available if the current setting is "PIO Only."
If the drop-down box already shows "DMA if Available" but the current transfer mode is PIO, then the user must toggle the settings. That is:
• Change the selection from "DMA if available" to PIO only, and click OK.
• Then repeat the steps above to change the selection to DMA if Available.

I have not put SP2 on and it has not stopped me from capturing video. I learnt a lot from the guides on http://www.videohelp.com/

[adityapd]

Originally Posted by satish_appasani

To capture DV in to PC, Firewire (IEEE 1394) is the best known way. Though theoretically, USB 2.0 is faster than firewire, DV industry is yet to support USB as much as they support firewire. For starters Windows movie maker that ships with Windows XP is the best way to burn VCDs.

There could be many reasons for frame dropping

Your HDD speed is not fast enough. You system should be able to write the captured DV to HDD at the same speed as it reads from the DV tape. Try to get the fastest and largest (in terms of space) you can afford. For DV capturing, 1minute of video requires up to 100 MB of HDD. You will run out of space in no mater of time.

The faster the machine the best. I have 1 GB of RAM setup on my PC exclusively for DV editing.

You have other devices apart from the camera connected to the firewire card.

Thanks for your inputs Satish, however are all these suggestions applicable for the miniDV cam which i have ? as i mentioned i have a sony DCR HC 40 miniDV with me.

I even tried downloading the videos from the tape on the cam to my laptop thru the standard VCD maker software which comes alongwith it and faced a different problem this time.

The software asks for 2 locations:

1) the target drive ( which is the CD burner drive)
2) the temporary location on the harddisk where the avi files are copied before being converted to .dat format to be written on the CD.

However, i am not been able to proceed further since there are no options available in the target drive dropdown for me to select.

Has anyone of you here faced a similar problem ?


~A