When I transfer video from the camcorder in the avi format the video is choppy and is slightly faster when played back. If I use the wmv format it is choppy. I think the choppiness is caused by high cpu usage so I need to close some programs that run in the background before transferring but I have no idea why it is sped up using the avi format. Is there a program (preferably free) that will do this better than the one built in to Vista or is there a way to adjust the settings for that encoder? The camcorder is a Canon ZR950 and is connected to the PC via firewire.
Thanks for any ideas.
Does the video play choppy when played from the camcorder itself? Are you transferring the file to your computer before playing it, or trying to play it directly from the camcorder?
What kind of Hard Drive/Video Card/Processor do you have?
Typically a video plays choppy due to lag in trying to read the data off the hard drive. Depending on the encoding, the Graphics processor could be the issue. If your Video Card shares cycles with the regular CPU, then it could be the actual processor.
--zig
Rocker,
There are a few things to clear up..
Transferring between the camcorder and pc happens in the native format of the camcorder. In this case the DV format, which is an excellent format for video as it has more bandwidth than the DVD camcorders and even some of the HD camcorder formats.
The second aspect is transcoding the video to a format you can use, whether that be wmv, divx, xvid, etc to play on a computer, or authoring a DVD to play in a standalone DVD player. This is probably where you are having problems. This is also were the computer "horsepower" is needed the most. Converting from a high bitrate format takes a lot of CPU power. If your CPU isn't up to snuff then you can introduce dropped frames (frames that don't get transcoded correctly to the new format). This can look like video that stutters, plays to fast, or plays to slow.
Another issue is Frames Per Second, or FPS. This is the number of frames displayed per second. TV's in the US generally use 30fps and other parts of the world use 25fps. This shouldn't make a difference on a computer, but may cause problems on older TVs.
Now, Windows Movie Maker is a very basic program. It doesn't allow you to change the dimensions or bitrate, which can affect the time, quality, and CPU resources needed to transcode. Something like Adobe Premiere Elements would give you much more control.
The final thing that can have an affect is the codecs installed on your computer. A poor codec can result in the symptoms you are experiencing, or in a complete lack of playback. A good codec pack is [url=http://www.codecguide.com/download_mega.htm:1a88wggy]K-Lite Codec Pack[/url:1a88wggy], which has very good codecs and will let your computer playback almost any video format.
hi m8, not sure if this will help. but if your doing nothing with them apart from watching the videos then can i suggest once transferred from cam to desktop etc , right click and open with vlc media player, this plays most movie files. at the bottom in extra options of the window there's an option to change the frames per sec.
hope this helps.
dodester
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