I own a Sony DCR-HC24 Handycam, which is a mini DV camcorder. I have purchased an iLink cable to upload my videos onto my PC using the 'Import from Handycam' program.

However, it is not uploading properly and there is a time lag of about 5 seconds, so when you play the video back it is very patchy and judders from frame to frame missing out most of the actual video, making it useless!

The iLink cable I purchased is not an official Sony one and stated that it was for the DCR-HC24E - is this the problem or could it be something else? I have looked in all the upload program settings and can't see anything untoward and have exited all other programs whilst doing the import, but nothing has helped.

Any advice for a beginner? I don't want to pay for a Sony iLink if it's not the problem... Thanks

[senu]

It may be the cable ( might be dodgy)
but
Any old Firewire cable will do if you ned to replace it. I have 4 Sony Camcorders and never set eyes on an " official" Sony ilink cable, but any can be faulty
Equally likely is that you are having dropped frames
could be that the HDD you are capturing to needs to be defragmented
Other tips would be to be offthe interne and turn of memory hugging background programs lke Anti virus whist capturing , and also avoid multitasking during capture