Last month, my dad bought me a Sony DCR-SX43 Handycam camera. I recorded footages and when I imported one footage to iMovie, the resolution looks quite low. Is there a way I could play around with the settings to make the resolution better?
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Sony DCR-SX43 video quality
- Thread starter Samuel91
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According to this (Sony has no DCR-SX43 listed), the resolution is 720x480, thus it is already a "low" resolution.
The camcorder records in Standard Definition (SD) and not in HD and it uses an older compression algorithm, called the MPEG-2 codec.
There is not much you can get out of it. Maybe you can sell it and get a similar priced miniDV camcorder, as the image will not be as compressed as with the SX-43.
DV is short for Digital Video, and every frame gets recorded with DV capable cameras, which results in a "high" data rate of 3.125MB/s (128KB per frame with 25fps).
MPEG-2 compresses the image so much, that only every 15th frame is recorded and the rest is interpolated, thus you lose quality and information.
MPEG-4 camcorders are better at this, thus many HD camcorders use a variant of it for storing the video, for example AVCHD camcorders.
The camcorder records in Standard Definition (SD) and not in HD and it uses an older compression algorithm, called the MPEG-2 codec.
There is not much you can get out of it. Maybe you can sell it and get a similar priced miniDV camcorder, as the image will not be as compressed as with the SX-43.
DV is short for Digital Video, and every frame gets recorded with DV capable cameras, which results in a "high" data rate of 3.125MB/s (128KB per frame with 25fps).
MPEG-2 compresses the image so much, that only every 15th frame is recorded and the rest is interpolated, thus you lose quality and information.
MPEG-4 camcorders are better at this, thus many HD camcorders use a variant of it for storing the video, for example AVCHD camcorders.
Last month, my dad bought me a Sony DCR-SX43 Handycam camera. I recorded footages and when I imported one footage to iMovie, the resolution looks quite low. Is there a way I could play around with the settings to make the resolution better?
Keep the camera. Your dad bought it for you.
To get the best images from it,
- Shoot in good light (smaller the camera, the more light it likes. Natural, not indoor, lighting is best.)
- Use the exposure settings appropriate to the lighting; there's a setting for backlit subjects too
- Use a tripod where possible.
- Don't ever use "digital zoom"; for that matter, use optical zoom sparingly, too. Move closer.
- Set the REC MODE to HQ to get the highest bit rate video
- Use the touch screen to set the exposure and focus for the areas of interest
While it may not look flash on a 65" plasma, it will do a great job for online videos and DVDs. Just keeping the camera steady, having lottsa light and paying attention to audio is more than half the secret to getting good video.