Any suggestions would be appreciated, or anyone with similar problem: After capturing from the camera, the resultant .AVI file plays back jerky. Almost like a random freeze-frame, as if it jumps or drops frames. It is very hard to watch, as the eye seems to jump with the video. It is not a smooth movement, and is particularly evident when doing say, a long pan from left to right. The video if fine when played on the TV from the camera's analog video out jack. It only happens when I use the IEEE 1394 and create an AVI file. I have a Canon Elura 50 Mini DV camcorder and I'm playing the tape back through the built-in Firewire/IEEE 1394 port, through a cable to my computer. I have some fair horsepower (P4 2.8Ghz. 512MB. RAM, 200GB. Drive, etc.), so I doubt it to be a slow computer. I use a 4-port IEEE 1394 PCI board with VIA chipset. It's very annoying, as I've not been able to burn any video from tape. Even when I recode to a DVD and play it on the TV, the DVD is jerky too - almost impossible to watch. It's not all the time, but every 10-30 seconds or so, and very random, almost like a buffer is filling up somewhere. I've used several capture programs, such as Nero and Scenealyzer, which tells me I have no dropped frames, but makes no difference. I've poked around the different forums, and haven't really seen a similar problem. Everyone says, you just plug the cable in and copy the tape straight onto an AVI - no problem. Well, I've always had this problem, and I'm beginning to wonder if it's the camera - perhaps a faulty IEEE 1394 card? Suggestions welcome. Thanks in advance, Duncan McAllister
Try Pinancle's Studio 9 software - I believe there's a free version. Also, try turning off internet activity while you capture.
These are the options: First of all, it could be that the capture itself is OK, but that it is a play back issue. DV-AVI files are not ideal to play on your PC and your monitor (takes a lot of bandwith and becasue of the interlacing). However, it should go away if you encode it. I would suggest to do the following test: encode to mpeg-1 using standard settings (use the freeware version of TMPGEnc) and play back the mpeg-file. If the same issues appear at the same positions, the problem is in the file and it is not a play back issue. It could be dropped frames. here are a number of measures that you can take to avoid dropped frames: 1. Make sure should have the least number of other processes running on the back ground. 2. Reboot your PC before the capture. 3. Turn off your background virus checker 4. Defragment your hard drive 5. If you have one, use a separate hard drive (which does not contain your OS and your programs) for your capture. 6. Use a very simple program for capturing (one of the free utilities found here http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/downloads/freedownloads.php If it is neither a playback problem or dropped frames, you have a hardware problem in either your camcorder or your Firewire card.
Further to description above: a clue is that the video is jerky in the preview window as it comes off the camera, as opposed to just being jerky when playing back the AVI file. This might tend to rule out slow disk, fragmented files, etc. I'll try Pinnacle as suggested, and possibly another computer. The camera is going back to the factory for service, so I'd like to test it before then.
Thanks TPFKAS. I've encoded to MPEG-2 and burned DVDs, and as I mentioned, the DVD exhibits the same problem on the TV. I think it's coming out of the camera that way, or the IEEE 1394 card is blown. I'll know when I try a test on another computer today. Also, I'll try all your tips first. I wouldn't be surprised if it is yet another design flaw with the Canon Elura 50. Beware of these units - they have a bad rep.
