Need help!!

[Amature]

First of all tnx in advance for any help...

I am a total beginner to the world of dv cameras and the software surrounding them.
My problem is a follows......

After capturing the footage and encoding it on to my pc the playback quality is what can only be described as horrid.... It is very grainy and blocky and also seems alot darker.
At first I thought it might be the tape or dirty heads. However, after capturing footage and and conecting the camera to a tv scart for direct viewing the playback is 100% crystal quality. I think that rules out the tape and heads problems as I first thought it may be or any other problem with the camera itself. This then lead me on to believe (again only guesswork) that it might be something to do with encoding. My camera is a
JVC GR-DX25ek and the software supplied is PIXELA Image Mixer 1.1. After trying a few different softwares I am still faced with the same problem. Again tnx in advance and any help would be much appreiciated......

[Skyman]

Hmm what sort of system specs are you running on? it is possible that the blocky effect is a result of your pc not being able to handle the larger video files. does your video capture card automatically convert to mpeg or does it capture files as avi's? as for things being noticably darker, this is sometimes a problem with the settings on your capture card. if you go into the properties for your card you should be able to play around with the brightness and contrast till you get it "looking right" but beware that it could also be your monitor that is out which would result in videos that are to bright when you convert them to dvd. can your camera export colour bars? this is the best way to calibrate your system.

[Amature]

Thanks for your reply.

My PC has a 3.5 processer with 1gig ram and a 256mb graphics card. I have never had any problems viewing any other type of media before. It also save as .avi. I havent got a video capture card, I simply connect the DV camera into the usb port. Is a capture card totally nessecary for the higher quality. Is this the problem??? Please forgive my ignorance as I am total novice but very eager to capture some nice footage so i can transfer it onto DVD.

[Skyman]

sounds like you need to get a firwire port. even though usb 2 is supposed to be as fast as firewire it doesn't seem to be able to handle the data transfer fast enough for digital video. (i am sure a better mind will be able to explain why) the good news is that since you have a fairly good machine you can get one of the cheaper firewire cards (the more expensive cards will perform rendering on the card for you, speeding up your system, but unless you want to get into complex editing your machine is up to it without the card) to get you started. I have seen them for as little as $30 Australian so i am sure they are much less than that in the US. let us know how you go!

[Amature]

Thanks for you your help and information, it did turn out to be the usb being too slow. I went out today and purchased the firewire port and cable and noticed a massive difference in the playback of the capture :thumbsup: . Now with a small bit of messing and fine tuning with the software I will be able to get it exactly how I want it. Im going to keep it short and sweet because im mad to get going with my new camera. Thanks again for your help, and kind regards from Waterford, Ireland.

[MarcusK]

In reference to the difference between USB 2.0 and Firewire ---- In case you're still interested!

USB 2.0 has a speed of 240 Mbps (or 280), it is said that the speeds have been bumped to 480 Mbps, which personally i don't really believe! having tried it!

As for firewire, there are 2 types, Firewire 400 and Firewire 800, needless to say the previous is at 400 Mbps speeds, and the latter at 800 Mbps. These are some nice speeds.
Now usually, when capturing Video, you should always use Firewire...

One more tip, as you obviously have observed, these files take up alot of space, a good investment would be an external Hard disk, with firewire. You get to keep your rushes much longer! As for Editing software, Avid is great and reliable, you can test it out with Avid Express Free...just a thought!


Hope this was helpful!
Marc