ok just bought the Sony DCR-HC42. the problem are these little white color blocks that appear on in the video for a frame and dissapear. when recording looks perfect - when playing back on LCD looks perfect - when playing on tv through cables looks perfect - but the same video once captured to computer has these blocks in them. reminds me of watching an old vhs, its like the quality has been run down or something, but its a fresh tape. its got to be a capture problem, so i tried pinnacle, and the sony program that came with...both have issue. any ideas, im hitting rock bottom with this one. thanks
Are you usinge a Firewire transfer and are you not doing any compression while capturing? I suggest to test a tranfer using one of the free capturing utilities listed here http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/downloads/freedownloads.php (preferably WinDV). It does not mess with the signal coming in, it takes hardly any resource on your machine and it will report if frames are dropped during capture.
yeah im using a firewire cable, and no compression, 10 min of video is 2.5 gigs......WOW im going to try windv in min
ok i think i might have figured this thing out.. windv tells me no frames where dropped, but the blocks still appear, so i unplugged my firewire and used a usb cable just to test the cable... BAM not the best quality and a few frames where dropped, but the blocks dissapeared... i think the cable might just be a dud, i did buy it from wal-mart, cuz it was cheap... does this sound like it could be a possibility??
Update on the situation... purchased a new firewire cable. and it still does it...now im confused...what should i do??? please any suggestions
You could have saved you the money for the new cable: A Firewire connection either works or it doesn't work. I suspect that it either in the recording (even if it shows OK when played through an analog connection) or in the tape drive. Another suggestion: try to capture one segment twice and see if the blocks appear at the same position.
the blocks appear in different places. i am boxing the camara up tonight and returning for a replacement seeing as i have tried everything else...replaced...computer, cable, tapes (for the 30 dollar HD quality), firewire ports, software. the only thing i can thing of now is that it is the firewire port on the dock. guess i'll see. thanks, i post up what the outcome is once i get the replacement.
Mmm, well, one of the causes for blocks can be an bad balance in the drum. If they can correct that you're lucky. If the can't and need to repalce the drum, you're up for major cost...
drum, whats the drum?? itll be free, iv only had it for 12 days or something like that, im returning it as a deffective unit to get a replacement.
The drum of a camcorder is the device that houses the recording head. It spins at a high speed while scanning your tape. Switch on your camcorder in recording mode and put your ear against it: you will hear the sound of the rotating drum. Anyway, it is one of the most vulnerable parts of the cam.
