Video Capture Issues

[Dominator]

Hi,
I am currently using a Sony DCR-HC42 camera, and I love it, but I am having trouble getting good video into the computer and burned on a DVD.
I am capturing the video using the USB port (My computer is a laptop with 1GB of memory) and am wondering if that is the reason why my video is poor.

I have tried several different programs
Nero
Intervideo WinDVD
Pinnacle 9.X
Sony's Software with Camera

Would it be worth it to purchase a PCMCIA Firewire card? Would the video look any better or would it just have quicker upload speed to the computer?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Dom

[Jason Dunn]

Well, can you define what you mean by "poor video"?

Also, I read about your camera here:

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-Start?ProductSKU=DCRHC42&Dept=cameras&CategoryName=dcc_DICamcorders_MiniDVHandycamCamcorders

...and I can find no mention that it transfers video over USB. Firewire is the normal mechanism to transfer footage off the MiniDV tape, USB 2.0 is for transferring photos and MPEG4 video footage. Maybe I'm missing something here. :-)

[Dominator]

I guess by "poor quality" I mean it doesn't look as good as hooking up the camcorder to the TV directly. The video seems choppy and slightly grainy.

If I was to go the firewire route, do you have a PCMCIA card you would recommend?

If the USB is not intended for video capture, and I am just streaming the video as MPEG4, how could I tell? I am creating AVI files if that tells you anything.

As always, thanks for the help

Dom

[Jason Dunn]

I guess by "poor quality" I mean it doesn't look as good as hooking up the camcorder to the TV directly. The video seems choppy and slightly grainy. If I was to go the firewire route, do you have a PCMCIA card you would recommend?

Choppy video can mean dropped frames, which comes from capturing to a slow or heavily fragmented hard drive. Are you capturing to the same partition as your main OS? That's generally a bad idea. In terms of Firewire, something like this would do the trick:

http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/product/proddetail.html?sess=no&language=English+US&prodkey=AFW-1430&cat=%2fTechnology%2fFireWire%2fFireWire+1394+Adaptors

If the USB is not intended for video capture, and I am just streaming the video as MPEG4, how could I tell? I am creating AVI files if that tells you anything

How big are the AVI files if you're capturing, say, 30 minutes worth? If it's an AVI file, it must be a DV-AVI file, which is a bit perplexing - Sony must have enabled DV-AVI capture over USB...which is something I've never seen, but I haven't been camera shopping in about two years now.

[Dominator]

As far as a slow or fragmented drive:
I am using a new 80 GB Samsung drive with around 50 GB free. I find it hard to believe that would be the issue.

As far as Partitions:
I did set the drive up to only have a single partition. Sounds like that was not a good idea. I will try to setup another partition and give that a shot.

I will check the size of the files tonight (different computer) and let you know the size.

Thanks for the help. I think my best bet is to get a PCMCIA firewire card and see how that works. The one question I have on that card you pointed out is under specs it says
Data Transfer Rate
up to 50 MB/sec
I thought firewire was suppose to be around 400 MB/sec? Is this a limitation of the PCMCIA slot? Would it still give me the same performance as an internal firewire card (If IBM included one on the laptop)?

[Jason Dunn]

I thought firewire was suppose to be around 400 MB/sec? Is this a limitation of the PCMCIA slot? Would it still give me the same performance as an internal firewire card (If IBM included one on the laptop)?

50 MB/s is plenty - the video stream coming off your camera is no more than 15 MB/s, tops.

[ihatesonydcrhc42]

usb should work without the picture package software. try using windows movie maker. Although USB 2 and firewire are listed as having equal speeds this camera only transfers LOW QUALITY video through USB. Not sure if it is because it uses usb 1 technology. doubtful, but i have prowled the internet and found out that this camera requires firewire connection for FULL quality transfer.

as far as the camera not being recognized when using firewire, you have to use a genuine, original Sony i-link/firewire cable.

for the longest time i couldn't figure out what was wrong with the camera. i tried two different cables and two different computers. finally i took it to a sony service center and had them check it out. when i went to pickup the camera they said there was no problem. i didn't believe them and asked to talk to the technician that worked on the camera.

I told him to show me it worked and was recognized. He did indeed, but using a sony cable. when i gave him my cable to try, it didn't work. luckily they were nice enough to let me go without paying the $80 minimum charge for any work, including the diagnostic "plugging in sony cable" check.

I then bought an overpriced sony firewire cable for $25 and everything works. Damn sony's proprietary ******** (all the sony people i related this story to blamed the bad quality of the cables i had been using)

[srcampbell00]

I have an Adaptec two port firewire PCMCIA card for my laptop.
I am getting a choppy feed as well does someone have a better card that does not cause the choppy feed.

[Jason Dunn]

I have an Adaptec two port firewire PCMCIA card for my laptop. I am getting a choppy feed as well does someone have a better card that does not cause the choppy feed.

I need some more information - what are the specs on your laptop? CPU? RAM? Hard drive?

Are you capturing to the same drive that the software is running on? Are there any other programs running, such as anti-virus programs? Have you defragged the hard drive lately?