Transferring video to my computer

15 Feb 2006 4:02 AM

bd

Hello all,

I've recently been trying to transfer video from my Sony VX2100 to my
notebook using Windows Movie Maker. When I transfer several minutes of
video (using the default 'recommended' setting in WMM) then playback
using Windows Media Player, parts are choppy as if frames have possibly
dropped. Also it seems I see a ripple in the video at times.

I'm using a generic firewire cable & a Zonet firewire card.

My notebook is not a powerhouse. It's a 4 year old HP Pavillion N5000,
30 gb HD, 640 mb ram with an AMD Athlon 4 792 mhz.

Has anyone experienced things like this? If so, how did you solve it?

I look forward to any feedback.

Thanks,
Bryce

15 Feb 2006 5:50 PM

PTRAVEL

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"bd" <bryce.doo***@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1139976132.578314.123210@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> Hello all,
>
> I've recently been trying to transfer video from my Sony VX2100 to my
> notebook using Windows Movie Maker. When I transfer several minutes of
> video (using the default 'recommended' setting in WMM) then playback
> using Windows Media Player, parts are choppy as if frames have possibly
> dropped. Also it seems I see a ripple in the video at times.
>
> I'm using a generic firewire cable & a Zonet firewire card.
>
> My notebook is not a powerhouse. It's a 4 year old HP Pavillion N5000,
> 30 gb HD, 640 mb ram with an AMD Athlon 4 792 mhz.
>
> Has anyone experienced things like this? If so, how did you solve it?
>
> I look forward to any feedback.

I used to edit video with a 500 MHz Athlon machine, but it wasn't fun.

Windows Media Player does a terrible job with DV-code AVI on slower
machines. It plays okay on my 3.1 GHz editing computer, but on my 1.7 GHz
laptop, it will exhibit the choppiness that you described.

More than likely, you're capturing okay, i.e. no dropped frames. However,
older laptops (and some less-expensive newer ones) have 4200 rpm hard
drives, instead of the 5400 or 7200 rpm drives that are preferred for video.
Couple a slow drive, a slow processor and a slow bus with Windows Media
Player and I'd expect exactly what you're describing.

Time for a new laptop.

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>
> Thanks,
> Bryce
>

16 Feb 2006 5:13 PM

Martijn van Duijn

bd wrote:
Show quoteHide quote

> Hello all,
>
> I've recently been trying to transfer video from my Sony VX2100 to my
> notebook using Windows Movie Maker. When I transfer several minutes of
> video (using the default 'recommended' setting in WMM) then playback
> using Windows Media Player, parts are choppy as if frames have possibly
> dropped. Also it seems I see a ripple in the video at times.
>
> I'm using a generic firewire cable & a Zonet firewire card.
>
> My notebook is not a powerhouse. It's a 4 year old HP Pavillion N5000,
> 30 gb HD, 640 mb ram with an AMD Athlon 4 792 mhz.
>
> Has anyone experienced things like this? If so, how did you solve it?
>
> I look forward to any feedback.
>
> Thanks,
> Bryce
>

Hi,

You may want to experiment with not using Windows movie maker. I find
converting to WMV makes you a lot less flexible.
Download e.g the free program WinDV to download to movie to your
harddisk as a DV-AVI (tend to be a bit large, hope you have space), and
then compress it to something else, e.g. an MPG file with TMPGEnc, also
free.
Tweak the setting until you get something smooth.
MPG's will play on just about any system/OS/software.

Martijn