Please Advise On Editing Before I Destroy My New Video Camera, Housing And Pc!

[B.Goodwill]

Hi There,

I have just purchased at great expense a Gates video camera housing and Sony PC105 camcorder. I am having great fun taking my new "baby" diving, and when i hook it up to the television afterwards to view what i have shot directly from the camcorder / digital tape, the picture quality is superb (even though what i have shot is cr@p!)

It all falls down so to speak when i try to edit the footage on my PC, the picture quality which i get on the end product ("burned" onto CD-Rom,) i pretty poor.

The editing programmes i am using are :

Image Mixer version 1.5 (supplied with my Sony Camcorder)

And :

Ulead DVD Movie Factory.

On the latter i have tried downloading the images from my camcorder onto my PC using the following formats :

1 : DVD High Quality (approx 60 mins per DVD,)
2 : SVCD- High Quality (30 mins per CD.)

When burned onto CD neither produce a quality of image anything like what i see when the camcorder is hooked up directly to the television. Can anyone tell me where i am going wrong, as i have no idea!

Many Thanks - Bob

 

[ronrosa]

Hi There,

I have just purchased at great expense a Gates video camera housing and Sony PC105 camcorder. I am having great fun taking my new "baby" diving, and when i hook it up to the television afterwards to view what i have shot directly from the camcorder / digital tape, the picture quality is superb (even though what i have shot is cr@p!)

It all falls down so to speak when i try to edit the footage on my PC, the picture quality which i get on the end product ("burned" onto CD-Rom,) i pretty poor.

The editing programmes i am using are :

Image Mixer version 1.5 (supplied with my Sony Camcorder)

And :

Ulead DVD Movie Factory.

On the latter i have tried downloading the images from my camcorder onto my PC using the following formats :

1 : DVD High Quality (approx 60 mins per DVD,)
2 : SVCD- High Quality (30 mins per CD.)

When burned onto CD neither produce a quality of image anything like what i see when the camcorder is hooked up directly to the television. Can anyone tell me where i am going wrong, as i have no idea!

Many Thanks - Bob

Couple of questions.

Are your burning to CD or DVD ?

What version of Ulead Movie Factory are you using ?

Have you tried recording your edited video back to the camcorder and then playing the edited footage ?

 

[Reeveseye]

Also, how are you downloading the images from your camera? Are you using the RCA (red, yellow, and white) cables or a direct firewire link? RCA downloads can be iffy at times. It's always best to do a direct digital transfer using the firewire cable - that way, there's no signal loss.

 

[mack50md]

It all falls down so to speak when i try to edit the footage on my PC, the picture quality which i get on the end product ("burned" onto CD-Rom,) i pretty poor.

The editing programmes i am using are :

Image Mixer version 1.5 (supplied with my Sony Camcorder)

And :

Ulead DVD Movie Factory.

On the latter i have tried downloading the images from my camcorder onto my PC using the following formats :

1 : DVD High Quality (approx 60 mins per DVD,)
2 : SVCD- High Quality (30 mins per CD.)

When burned onto CD neither produce a quality of image anything like what i see when the camcorder is hooked up directly to the television. Can anyone tell me where i am going wrong, as i have no idea!

Many Thanks - Bob

Sounds like your software settings are set too coarse when you render the tape to output for burning your disk. Good point made above. Are you burning DVDs or CDs?

Make sure your capture settings are right for a good "DV" quality when you transfer the DV tape from your cam to the PC. Frame rate should be about 29.97. Audio should be 16-bit at 48Khz. The capture file created by your PC to edit should be a good quality ".avi" or "mpeg2" file format.

The Video editor software should take your finished video and render it to any number of formats. Sounds like you are using a poor one with high compression to limit the file size like a ".wmv" file for streaming on the internet.

A good DVD compatible format would use MPEG2 compression video output set for a 720 X 480 screen at 6000 Kbits/sec video and an audio MPEG2 stereo output of 48Khz at 224Kbits/second for sound. Burning this on a DVD+R disk should produce a good result similar to the DV tape piped into your TV.

Hope this helps. Sorry to go so tech on you

 

[diversteve]

...Can anyone tell me where i am going wrong, as i have no idea!

Bob,

Everything everyone else suggested...I just noticed that some of this was covered far more excellently than I did in the previous reply while I was writing this diatribe, but I'm too lazy to edit it....

How are you capturing the video? There are probably different settings for both capture and output in the program you're using.

What processor speed, harddrive speed/size, ram memory is on the computer you're using? Do you have a drive dedicated to video capture - you should. It should also be a 7200RPM drive and have been cleared of everything else and defragged prior to capturing any video to it.

Do you know for a fact that your hardware supports 30fps non-linear editing. If your computer isn't at least a P4 with 256-512MB of memory, a good video card, 7200RPM hard drives and a 4-8X DVD burner, you're probably not going to be happy with the results.

Most NLE's profile your computer on installation to ensure that you meet the minimum standards, otherwise you'll be forced to output to a lower quality standard like AVI or VHS tape.

Are you doing a firewire capture or analog capture? You should be doing firewire. Also turn off any other running programs while capturing, including internet connection. Anything that writes to your drive during your captures can cause the s/w to drop frames which causes the video to be jerky.

Are you burning to DVD, not CD. If you're burning to CD, you're probably making VCD's or some lesser format, like WindowsMedia or AVI, these are compressed formats and will inherently look worse, especially on a NTSC TV/Monitor.

Try playing the output from your computer full screen on your monitor. If it looks good try recording it back to the camera and playing it on your tv/video monitor. You can also play the output directly to a TV/Monitor - it's what I do - to make sure the quality is what you're looking for. If this all works, then I'm guessing the problem is with your CD/DVD recorder.

I'd also suggest using a better NLE (non-linear editor) Ulead sells VideoStudio which is their video editing program. Or try Pinnacle Studio 9 or Adobe Premiere Elements or Pro - steep learning curve though with Pro. Or Sony Vegas. My guess it that the s/w you're using lacks the tools to do what you're wanting it to do.

Personally I use Pinnacle Studio 9 and am working towards Premiere Pro.

This just scratches the surface of what could be your potential problems. If you could post more detailed info on your h/w, capture setup and process and output format, we could probably help you figure this out.

Steve

 

[B.Goodwill]

Thanks everyone for the replies :

I'm afraid I’m not very technically minded but I will try and explain as best I can. I am recording the images themselves on my Sony PC105 camcorder which has a digital tape. I then "transfer" the movies or video clips from the camcorder to my PC via a USB cable. I do not have a DVD burner (though I am thinking of buying one,) so I am burning the edited movies onto CD-Rom's (V-CD format I think.) Interestingly in either “Image Mixer Version 1.5 For Sony,” or the other editing program I am using (Ulead DVD Movie Factory 3,) I can hook my camcorder up to the PC via the USB cable, and watch what I have filmed on my computer and the quality is fine. It is only when the process of “capturing” or “downloading” the images / movie from the camcorder to the PC begins, that the images deteriorate significantly. The computer I am using was only bought (brand new,) in May, it is a Dell “Inspiron 1100” laptop, with “Intel Inside Celeron,” with Windows XP (if that means anything to anyone!) It has a CPU with 2.4 OGHZ, with 27.8 GB of memory on the C-Drive, of which 9 have been used up. It has a Samsung CDRW – DVD Drive ( I believe you can only watch DVD’s on it not make them,) an Intel R Graphics controller, and digital flat panel monitor screen (1024 times 768.) It has a WDM Video for Windows capture driver

Q : “Have you tried recording your edited video back to the camcorder and then playing the edited footage?”
A : Ronrosa - I did not know that this could be done, however as I have said I can hook the camera up to the PC, press “play” on the camera, and watch the movie on the PC and the quality is fine, it inly seems to be when I get to “capturing” or “downloading” the video that the quality goes downhill.

Q : “How are you downloading the images from your camera? Are you using the RCA (red, yellow, and white) cables or a direct firewire link? RCA downloads can be iffy at times. It's always best to do a direct digital transfer using the firewire cable - that way, there's no signal loss.”
A : John – the images are being downloaded through the USB cable, I hook the camera up to my television to watch the movie I have recorded and connect a red, yellow and white cable (supplied with the camera,) to the TV itself, but like I say when I do this the quality is fine.

When “downloading” or “capturing” I have the settings on the highest possible, in “Ulead Movie factory 3” I have used the following settings :

1 : DVD High Quality (approx 60 mins per DVD,)
2 : SVCD- High Quality (30 mins per CD.)

And when using Image Mixer for Sony I used the “highest” quality setting (I think it was capturing it as an MPEG.)

Mack, I’m afraid I do not have a clue what all the technical jargon means! I’m not too sure if on the editing programmes I have mentioned you have an option for example, to change the k-bits per second and so on (or at least I have not seen this option.)

Q : How are you capturing the video? There are probably different settings for both capture and output in the program you're using.”
A : Steve – like I say in terms of the “capture” I am always selecting the “highest quality” option, in terms of output I am selecting the SVCD option.

Q : What processor speed, hard drive speed/size, ram memory is on the computer you're using? Do you have a drive dedicated to video capture - you should. It should also be a 7200RPM drive and have been cleared of everything else and defragged prior to capturing any video to it.
A : Steve – I answered this question as best I could at the top of my reply, it is my partners laptop so I do not have an extra drive dedicated for video capture unfortunately. I will however re-frag the hard drive tonight now that you mention it.

Not really too sure what other info to give you to try and sort this one out. I really appreciate your replies, and if you have any other suggestions they will be very grateful received.

Cheers - Bob

 

[ronrosa]

Thanks everyone for the replies :

I do not have a DVD burner (though I am thinking of buying one,) so I am burning the edited movies onto CD-Rom's (V-CD format I think.)

CD will never look as good as DVD. If you want to play something in a TV DVD player at a resolution equal to what you see w/ the camcorder you need a DVD burner/recorder.

I can hook my camcorder up to the PC via the USB cable, and watch what I have filmed on my computer and the quality is fine.

USB connection for video is not as good as a firewire connection. Does your computer have a firewire port ? Firewire is also known as i.Link or IEEE1394.

Q : “Have you tried recording your edited video back to the camcorder and then playing the edited footage?”
A : Ronrosa - I did not know that this could be done, however as I have said I can hook the camera up to the PC, press “play” on the camera, and watch the movie on the PC and the quality is fine, it inly seems to be when I get to “capturing” or “downloading” the video that the quality goes downhill.

Yes, this can be done and it's the best solution to get your edited video viewable on a TV if you don't have a DVD burner. However, I can only do this with a firewire connection. Using my USB, camcorder to PC worked fine, but PC back to camcorder tape didn't.


IMHO, to get your edited video at full resolution viewed on a TV you have 2 choices:

Get a DVD burner and burn the video at full resolution DVD, not VCD.

or

Get a firewire port/connection on your computer and record the edited video back to tape on your camcorder. Connect the camcorder to your TV and watch the edited video the same way you watched the raw footage.

 

[diversteve]

Bob,

Problem #1 is that you're sharing the laptop's only hard drive with all the other applications/system files. Optimally, you should have a dedicated drive to capture edit video on, but since this isn't possible with a laptop, I'd at defrag the disk often. Since you mentioned that your problems seem to start during image capture, I'd say this could be a source of your problems.

Also turn off anything running in the XP system tray while you're capturing video, if you have any scanner, anti-virus, Internet connection utilities, or anything like that, shut them off. You don't really want anything else running except the XP required programs and your capture program. You can do this with XP's msconfig utility or programs like Startup Cop Pro, in case you're not comfortable with doing it manually.

The laptop itself seems powerful enough for what you're trying to do. It appears from looking at specs for the 1150 - they don't sell 1100's anymore, that your system probably has 256MB of ram that's shared with the "R" video subsystem. That's the most basic video subsystem that Dell offers, so it could be a contributing factor. Although I kind of doubt it, I've seen video captured on machines with as little as 16MB of VRAM, yours is probably comparable.

Your camcorder has Firewire port on it, but Dell's website says the Inspiron 1100 series doesn't, so that rules out the best way of capturing video for editing.

Since you're using the USB 2.0 connection, if you have any other USB devices hooked up to it - i.e. printer, mouse, scanner etc. I would unplug them while you're doing the capture. USB does device polling on the line periodically which will interfere with the video capture.

You could also consider getting an external Firewire adapter card for the laptop, they use the PCMCIA slot, which your laptop has, they're typically under $50, some of them come bundled with ULead VideoStudio, which is a better NLE than you're currently using. Google Laptop Firewire Card for some examples. Although I'm not quite sure how much better this would be than the current USB 2.0 transfer you're doing now. I don't know enough about the performance differences between firewire and USB 2.0.

Problem #2 - You don't have a DVD burner. Making VCD's and burning them onto CD-Rom will result in jittery playback generally - mine are. A CD-Rom is just not big enough to hold all the video data needed for a broadcast quality output so everything is seriously compressed to fit resulting in jittery/blocky output quality.

One thing to note, you may not see as quality an image in the editor window on the PC, on mine it's marginally worse, slightly more jerky. However when I output it back out, it's very clear. I think this has something to do with slightly different standards used for broadcast vs. PC graphics.

You may not be seeing how good it really is though if you're writing VCD's on CD-ROM for playback. If the laptop has a Video out jack, try hooking it to your TV to see the quality of the output, if it's fine then you'll know it's the quality of the output media that's a problem. You can output to VHS tape(still use them?) this way too.

Having fun yet? I went through the same stuff last year...

Steve

 

[Groundhog246]

I'd have to recommend picking up a desktop. With a laptop vs a desktop with the same specs (processor type, speed, video and memory), the laptop will be measurably slower. Many compromises are made in order to reduce power consumption and heat. Laptop hard drives are generally a little slower than desktop drives and so on. You are also probably losing right of the bat downloading via USB (my camcorder doesn't even allow video d/l via usb, have to use firewire).
How big are the raw video files when you get them on your PC? Normally raw digital video will be about 1 gig every 5 minutes. Ijust replaced my 80GB drive with a 160GB, due to lack of space. (did not have enough room to d/l, edit and create an hour long DVD. And as others have said, the quality on a CD, even on SVCD, sucks.
After having invested the $$ you have in the camera and housing, a decent desktop PC, with sufficient power and hard drive space would be the rational choice.

 

[B.Goodwill]

Guys,

Thanks for all your help, so from what you are saying it sounds like i need to buy :

1 : An external DVD burner.
2 : A firewire port.

Do you think if i buy the DVD burner, it will make any difference in terms of quality if i do not go ahead with the firewire port? If i have to get it i will, however i "broke the bank" buying the camera and housing, and kind of thought after that expense that would be the end of it! Obviousley not, as i also need to buy some of those Nightrider lights at some stage (minimum purchase $900!)

Funily eneaugh i am enjoying it all. I am used to diving in Scotland, which with water of 3 degrees centigrade, an average of three to four meter vis, and strong currents was challenging, which i enjoyed. I have since moved to the Cayman's where the diving is great, but the conditions are so good there is no challenge. That's why i got the camera, to try and make the diving interesting / challenging again, which it certainly has. I have found that things like buoyancy, checking NDL, depth, dive time, navigation and air were almost instinctive before, but now i am having to concentrate on the camera i am almost having to remind myself to check these other things. So i suppose the new challenge comes in the form of muti-tasking.

Two final questions, on my Sony PC105 camera there is a button on the side to switch to manual focusing, but to focus the camera itself you have to twist a ring around the lense of the camera itself. On the Gates housing there is a button which can be pressed to in turn press the button on the camcorder, to turn the focusing to manual. However, there is no way you can twist the the ring around the lense of the camcorder itslef to adjust the focusing itself, because the housing is in the way. I can only assume that there must be another way of adjusting the focus once it has been turned to manual, or there would not be a "focus" button on the housing in the first place. Do you know how to do it?

Finally (i promise!) Does anyone know where to buy cheap external DVD burners and firewire ports over the internet which would deliver to Cayman? Also, how do you know if the leads that come witht he goodies would fit into your camcorder and PC?

Cheers - Bob