[Andy1]

Hi - I'm very new to camcorder editing (this is my very first attempt, so please be gentle).

I have just bought the Sony HC27 camcorder and the software that came with my firewire card is Ulead VideoStudio8. I am using Windows XP Media addition, which is not specifically detailed within the Ulead manual.

The video pictures themself, whilst played direct from the camcorder to TV, are fine albeit I feel that the picture has come out a little dull / colourless.

I have connected everything up, but as the video transfers to the PC, the picture is very "jaggy", particularly whilst the camera is panning.The sample videos provided with the Ulead software seem very smooth, so I assume it is to do with one of my own PC settings.

I have an OK Radeon graphics card, and normal playback of, say, DVDs is fine so I do not think it is anything to do with substandard graphics cards.

Can anyone tell me if I am supposed to set / reset something to remove the jaggies ? Is there anything else you need to know to help me out ?

Many thanks to anyone who can help a complete novice.

[MarkE19]

This tends to be one of those faults that can be caused by 101 different things. Therefore it is a matter of trial & error to get around it. Here are a few things to try:

Another firewire cable - even a brand new cable can be faulty
Defragment the HDD - fragmentation slows down the write speeds and can cause dropped frames.
Clear down as much space as possible - DV AVI eats up approx 13Gb per hour and as the HDD fills up it slows down.
Make sure DMA is enabled for the HDD.
Stop all unrequired programs during capture such as firewall/antivirus etc (disconnect from internet first though ). I use a great free program called EndItAll2 to do this - do an internet search for it.

That will do for now. I'm sure I've forgotten many other things you can try, but that should be a good starting point.

Mark.

[Deanali]

Is this only when transferring? Have you tried to burn a disc then try playing it back? My video quality when transferring is not too good, but when I produce the DVD everything is fine. I think it is just a low quality prieview type thing. (I use Videostudio 9).

[Andy1]

Thanks for your replies.

I haven't tried burning a disc yet - I have 2 1/2 hours of holiday film to transfer, so I did not want to spend hours editing, adding titles etc if I was doing something fundamentally wrong.

However, now I shall have a trial run and transfer some to DVD and see how it looks.

Thanks again

[redsox_mark]

How are you playing the clips on the PC? "jaggies" most likely is caused by the PC software not deinterlacing.

[Andy1]

I am viewing the clips through the preview pane provided as part of Ulead Videostudio 8.

As the camcorder transfers onto the PC via the Firewire, the pane shows what is being recorded and here is where the jaggies appear.