Help! Sony Hi8 Capture

[redvette]

I have a late model Sony HI8 camcorder. Understand it's analog but processes a digital output. Trying to burn camcorder to DVD w. Samsung dual layer burner. PC is PIII .95 Gz. WinDVD Creator by InterVideo live streams camera video flawlessly, but when I "record", video gets weak and choppy as does recording. Believe it's MPEG1. What am I doing wrong? Do I need a better capture card? Any inexpensive way to do it? Any advice appreciated. Redvette

 

[The Best Alias]

If it's a Hi8 Digital camcorder, it should have a firewire out. Get you a firewire card (IEEE1394, they're cheap as dirt) and capture that way. I would suggest working with *.avi files at first when you capture since that's w1nd0ws native video format. Render to MPEG2 since that is the DVD native format, then create your DVD.

How much RAM does your machine have?
What flavor of Windows are you running?
What sort of capture device are you using?

If you fill in your system spec under your user profile, some of the REAL smart people might come outta the word work to help.

 

[shadow_29]

hey do you have a firewire port????if you do than get your self a firewire port like alias said,it might transfer video in raw avi format which could take up to 5 gb for 3-4 minutes but if by any chance you dont have a firewire then read on....you are having problem capturing from a tv tuner card because its using your cpu to encode the video from avi to mpeg1or2,this software encoding.if you want a better capture card to do this than pickup a hauppauge pvr 150(sold ad wintv-pvr) and start recording.pvr 150 has hardware encoding i.e it has a dedicated chip that does the converting so it doesnt put any strain on your pc(aroun 10-20% only)it's sold for somewhat around 70$ and is compatible witha lot of new programs and windows mce.so there you go if you decide to do this through a firewire you'll require a cheap firewire port AND a humongous hard disk to put all the raw video in (150gb or higher) otherwise if you get a hauppauge pvr150 you'll spend only 70$ and the video would be re-encoded while its being recorded and stored in mpeg2 which takes 2-3 gb for an HOUR(see the difference)and this also happens to be the native dvd format so you'll save more time there and wouldnt need another harddisk to put your vidoe in.

 

[redvette]

Best: Thanks for reply and advice. I have 512 MEG RAM on a recently upgraded XP Op Sys. Capture device? Not sure I have one at all! HI8 Sony sends via USB (firewire?) and software receives & either saves on drive or DVD burner. I guess the capture device is built into the Sony. That help? Redvette

 

[redvette]

Shadow: Thanks. I'm looking into it & will get back to you. Redvette

 

[The Best Alias]

USB and firewire aren't the same thing but they are similar. At any rate, you're using a digital cable to interface to your PC and not a set of RCA cables so you are on the right path.

Try this: Make a short (20 seconds or so) test recording. How is the playback? Often when you are capturing, your maching is working hard to keep up so your real time monitoring may be choppy but your playback will be OK. Then again, maybe not. My audio often goes choppy during capture, but plays back fine, and my machine is powerful.

Also check your capture preferences within the software you are using. I always capture files as *.avi and after I've edited them, I render them as a MPEG2. As shadow29 mentioned, this will swallow a hard drive PDQ but it's the REAL way to do it. You shouldn't be using MPEG1. This also may be part of your problem.

I've only used Intervideo like once and found it to be less than robust enough for my needs. I can't remember for sure but I think I had some sort of problem with it too. Ulead Video Studio is quite inexpensive, very user friendly, and self contained. There's even a fully functional trial version at their website. I moved on to Media Studio, it's kinda buckish.