Problem with transferring video from HD camera

[Alwyn Anne]

Hi, I borrowed our club video camera, recently bought which is a Sony HDR-CX11 Handycam. Took the shots I wanted to but cannot get them from the camera onto my PC editing programme or even onto the computer hard drive itself. My editing programme is Pinnacle Studio Plus, Version 12. My computer is fairly new and I am running Vista. When I try to load my video it gets so far then a message comes up saying Browser has stopped working. The connection cable is a USB, it does not have a Fire wire connection. I never had problems with my own Sony handycam but it is not HD and I do have a fire wire connection.

Does anyone have any ideas what the problem is please. Could it be something to do with it being HD.

Thanks

Alwyn

[billyfromConsett]

Hi Alwyn
I can't be of much help, as I do HD but of the HDV version.

What I'm wondering is - is your computer powerful enough to cope with AVCHD. I don't know if you need real power for capturing the footage but you never know. Has the computer got 2gb of ram?

Certainly with the file type of that camcorder, you need to get the movie files into the computer - just like copying and pasting. I would guess that if you connect the cam to your computer and switch the camera on, into play mode, your computer might see it as a hard drive, then you can locate the movie files and copy them into the computer.

But the demands of AVCHD on a computer is high. I reckon that you'll need at least quad core rig to edit with it, but I'm not speaking from experience.

[Mike Shaw]

Billy's idea of 'copying' the files is an excellent way to get the videos onto your hard drive and if that works, you could be home and dry. Copy the files into the folder structure that Studio uses for its 'Album' of videos.

If it doesn't work - Studio can't handle the file even when imported - then unless you have real reasons not to, I'd suggest that you tried switching the camcorder to converting hd output to sd (if it can!), and capture as sd. As Billy says, AVCHD is incredibly demanding on a PC - and although Studio can handle it, if you check the minimum spec required (in Studio) to do so you may find that the PC is borderline.

I also have a personal view that Vista is more sluggish than XP when it comes to video editing - but that is just an opinion based on feelings garnered from the experience of others - I don't have Vista. Could well be wrong about that ...

[Alwyn Anne]

Thanks Guys, will try your suggesstions. I have 4.00 GB Billy. Mike, I did capture some footage in SD but the same thing happened.

Alwyn

[ADBest]

Hi

You’re treading a path shared by many camcorder users.

Our club, The White Rose (Thirsk) club, offers to advise newcomers on camcorder selection but if push comes to shove then we would be hard put to know what to suggest.

Those better technically informed than me are themselves at odds. You could begin to get an insight into the situation by looking at the following references:-

Thread, “Tapeless movie making” from ‘ned c’. This includes a link to an excellent review of the state of the high definition scene.

Thread, “Your next camcorder”. With 7765 views and 117 posts it is obvious that this is a question exercising the minds of many. Start at the last page and work backwards for maximum benefit.

Thread, “Editing mixed formats”. Contains possibly useful information relevant to your immediate problem, (from Dave Watterson).

If you or your club hold membership of the IAC then have a look at the articles in the ‘Film & Video Maker’ magazine by Peter Matthews entitled “More on High-definition”. My own membership only started at part three of these articles but I found them most informative, (found in Issues 3 & 4, dated June and August 2009).

Have a look at the article by Tom Hardwick in issue 4 of said magazine in which he dedicates a section to “Camcorder choice”. In it he comes to the conclusion that for a new starter looking to spend less than £300 on a camcorder there are 5 key elements to consider. He recommends mini-DV tape, a 16:9 aspect ratio and standard definition. He also considers a 10x zoom to be a max and a 1/3 inch chip to be necessary. Optical image stabilisation and a side screen that can be usefully viewed in daylight are also suggested but may well prove a bridge too far at this price level.
Bearing in mind the uncertainty surrounding high definition formats, particularly AVCHD this advice looks to be spot on.
Can anyone name any currently available camcorders which meet this spec?

Regular contributor to the magazine and this web site, Mike Shaw, is very firmly in the mini-DV tape for ever school.

I wonder if your club recognised the can of worms it was opening when it purchased the AVCHD cam.

High definition summary

Solid state recording has no moving parts therefore should be more reliable. I think you need about 4GB for 28 minutes of high quality high definition footage and you will pay between £5 to £10 for such a card, as opposed to £1.50 for 1 hour on a mini-DV tape. As a consequence archiving on solid state cards is not viable and it will be necessary to archive to (2) external hard drives.

Mini-DV recording mechanisms are amazingly complicated but on the other hand they have many years of application behind them and are probably at the peak of their development.

Video editing software has generally kept pace with high definition development and has, for once, outpaced the processing power of the computer. To edit in high definition you really need a quad core processor. My own hardware philosophy has been to stay about two years behind the state of the art kit and let others pioneer the way. If I wish to edit in high definition my two year old Pentium 4, 3GH, 2GB processor will have to go

One final point. Once you have produced a video in high definition what do you do with it? I don’t have a Blu ray player and only one of my friends currently has one.
My ‘wedding video’ producing friends say that they are rarely asked for a 16:9 format video and never for high definition. (With the help of people on this forum I have settled for a Canon HV40 cam which captures in HD but can output standard DV to my editing programme).

Hope this helps rather than confuses.

Arthur

[Alwyn Anne]

Thanks Arthur, will read your reply with great interest.

Alwyn

[billyfromConsett]

I think we need to find out if you can capture any footage with that computer.

Can you capture footage from any camera - either standard or high def?
Does Pinnacle 12 work in this computer for any of your footage?
Will the firewire cable capture long runs of standard DV material?
Can you get one of club friends to capture from the new Sony cam?

And finally is the programme the latest version ie v12.1?
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/u ... &Display=1

Pinnacle were devils for releasing half finished apps you know...

[Alwyn Anne]

Hi Billy,

I have never had a problem capuring footage from my own Sony DCR-HC35 Camera onto Pinnacle. As I said before I do have a firewire connection and even my standard camera would not capture with a USB lead so I wondered if that could be the problem although the Club HD camera does not have a firewire connection so not sure what I could do about that if that was the problem.

Yes my Pinnacle 12 does capture long runs of standard DV material.

We have tried capturing it on the club computer but had the same problem.

I am going to take it back to PC World where we bought it and see if they have a solution.

Thanks

Alwyn

[billyfromConsett]

DV cameras use firewire connections and not USB. AVCHD cameras use USB to transfer the files as files, rather than a stream of AVI movie in real movie time. If no-one in the club can capture with it, maybe there is a problem.

[Alwyn Anne]

Hi all, thank you for your advice for the above problem. I have sorted it at last. I went into the Pinaccle support for help. What they suggested didn't exactly work but it gave me a clue. I ignored all the advice from the camera, browser window etc. closed them all down. Opened Pinaccle studio 12 in the Editing mode, selected the video camera icon, file, import media from device, selected the souce of the device and hey presto there the files were. All I had to do then, once files highlighted, was import. I am sure I tried that before but I did it in the capture and not the editing mode.

I made the mistake of thinking that the video would capture the same way it does for my standard camera but of course it wouldn't otherwise I would have looked at the Pinnacle website sooner.

Thanks for all your suggestions, now I have got the film on my edditing programme I probably won't be able to get it off..............well that's another problem....

Alwyn

[billyfromConsett]

Good luck with the editing of AVCHD. Hope you'll put the movie online so can look at it

[Dave Watterson]

Alwyn - that answer you worked out may well help all sorts of other people having a similar problem. Thanks.
Dave

[Mike Shaw]

Darn it, I should have know that was the answer !! In fact, in Studio 14, the 'input' is no longer a 'Capture' option per se, but an Import option! Of course one can still capture from a camcorder the 'old comventional ' way, but the developers have cottoned onto the fact that these days, most often, capturing is simply a matter of transferring files. Of course, when the film is on tape, the only way to 'import' is to play the tape - hence 'capture' - but with the movies on hard drives and solid state, the files can be simply transferred by 'conventional' PC methods.

The times they are a-changin'. But I'll stick with slow old miniDV...