unexplainable problem PLEASE HELP ME! (film becomes pixelated)

[atavener]

I have had this unexplainable problem with my camera for some time. As I put the film that I have recorded into windows movie maker the film becomes pixelated and the colours are very bad. All the settings on my camera and the movie maker program are fine and I have 50% of my memory free. It has occured on two computers now yet there seems to be no problem with the camera as the preview screen for the video I have recorded is fine. A friend of mine suggests that it could be the USB digitising going haywire. Please help me solve this problem I can't figure out a way to sort it! Thank you.

[redAPPLE]

what kind of camera are you using?

[cdarlington1]

I have had this unexplainable problem with my camera for some time. As I put the film that I have recorded into windows movie maker the film becomes pixelated and the colours are very bad. All the settings on my camera and the movie maker program are fine and I have 50% of my memory free. It has occured on two computers now yet there seems to be no problem with the camera as the preview screen for the video I have recorded is fine. A friend of mine suggests that it could be the USB digitising going haywire. Please help me solve this problem I can't figure out a way to sort it! Thank you.

USB is notoriously bad for digitizing...Firewire is really your best bet. Not sure if this could be the cause of your problems but if you have a firewire cable maybe try it...

[Much Ado]

Does it look bad on export? The pixellation might just be for real-time playback.

Not that i have much experience with WMM.

[atavener]

I have a sony canon, tape camera and I have always USB. It has never given me any trouble and my firewire doesn't work at all. The pixelated video is still pixelated when I exported it into clips or an mpeg. PLEASE HELP!

[Applespider]

You do know this is a Mac-focused forum where most users will have most experience with iMovie, FCE and FCP?

Have you had a look on places like avforums or more Windows-centric ones for an answer?

I'm guessing though it's got something to do with the preview screen in WMM. Even iMovie shows a slightly fudged image initially until you properly export it and encode it.

[atavener]

I know its a mac forum but I can't find anyone else who can help me. Plus I am hopefully getting a mac so I don't want this to be happening on my mac to. I fear its a problem with the camera and I am sure mac users will also have alot of expierience with cameras. Please please can you help??!

[CanadaRAM]

Please be as accurate as possible when posting. You do not have a sony canon. You have a Sony, or a Canon, camera which has a specific model number which may (or may not) be helpful in troubleshooting the problem.

[atavener]

My camera is sony carl zeiss tape, mini DV camera. If that helps. Please help!

[FF_productions]

Does the video convert itself when capturing?

When I used Movie Maker it used to convert/compress the video to WMV so it wouldn't take up much space.

That could explain it right there.

[atavener]

Yes it could be that. Its something thats changing when I put the video into movie maker becoz the preview is fine on the camera. What do you suggest I do about it?

[atavener]

Here is a youtube video of the problem I hope it helps. It starts explaining the process but be patient their is an example of the pixelated footage. Thank you very much.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=L-3kdWLT3sk

[FF_productions]

You need to tell Movie Maker to capture it as raw footage.

I haven't used Movie Maker in 3 years so I can't tell you exactly how to do it.

[ppc_michael]

Your video is being heavily compressed during capture. A couple of suggestions:

1: Are you really capturing from USB or do you mean Firewire? If you're capturing from USB, that probably has a lot to do with the problem. USB cannot sustain the data rates required for full-quality NTSC or PAL. Your camera should really have a 4-pin firewire (here's what the port looks like (http://akamaipix.crutchfield.com/lifestyle/2001/h4PinFirewireJack.jpeg), and here's the cable you need: 4-pin to 6-pin firewire (http://www.originalhorizon.com/shop/images/SMALLTOLARGEFWIRE.jpg)).

2: Make sure the video you're capturing (not "digitizing," it's already digital on the tape) is being compressed using a full-quality DV codec. You would change that in the settings in MovieMaker. I don't know MovieMaker so I can't tell you how, but maybe Google it or something.

3: Also make sure you're not using some kind of "web" preset or something. Just some ideas.

4: Just for your info, Carl Zeiss is the kind of lens your camera has. It should say on the bottom what kind of camera you have, something like "Sony HDR-HC1."

[atavener]

I just found out that I was using a tape that had been recorded over once
b4. The tape is a rerecordable one though so I am not sure whether its the source of the problem. What do you guys think?

[atavener]

Problem solved! Unfortunately I had uninstalled a package that came with the camera. It was a video editing program that I didn't really need, I just used movie maker. Somehow it relied off this package and so after a few weeks (also weird, why didn't it happen immediately) it started bringing up pixelated footage. Thank you so much for your help, I've reinstalled the program and it's all fine.