I have tried to get imovie to recognize as a camera with no success (to record direct from camera to computer hard drive). has anyone else figured it out?

ONE BIG PROBLEM.

When recording longer video in HD, the camera splits the video into separate .mts files. The problem is that when it switches to a new file, it DROPS FRAMES!

Now, video can be forgiving and 5-10 frames is not a big deal….. But, when recording classical music concerts, for example, the audio has a clear POP – if you look at the audio wave forms, it’s blatantly clear that data was lost.

I record external audio to mix with my video – for my first concert recording, I synced fine for the first .mts file, but by the end of the video, the audio was off by nearly 2 seconds (about 1/3 of a second of dropped recording between each .mts).

Would love to find a workd around or fix – Cannon support doesn’t seem to understand the proglem.

to my e-mail to test it out in Sony Vegas
Please
My e-mail is
foradobeprograms@gmail.com

Any footage is fine –
Thank You

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=177&modelid=17993#SNAModelSuppliesAct

Thanks

How are you playing the video back? As a Flash file on the web?

If you’re just playing the file back on your computer, or within video editing software, it’s pretty common to have synch issues because your computer is straining with the HD footage (because the footage hasn’t been compressed yet)…but the actual footage is fine.

I bought the HF S10 the other day, nice Camera.

I just did a presentation of 10 minutes long, and to my shock, my sound is out of sync.

I purchased the DM100 Directional Stereo Microphone Accessory too that cost $220.00, I figured this would help produce better sound, and it seems to be ok, but do you know what is causing the audio to be out of sync by a half of a second or so?

Thanks

Loz

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=177&modelid=17993

Darla

With any video camera, the more you spend, the better quality you get. Don’t worry though, you still have an excellent camera.

BTW just signed up for your program and I am REALLY looking forward to it.

Darla

Terrie

Head to head, the HF S10 will shoot slightly better footage. It has a better lens. It has more lines of resolution.

Beyond that, it’s a matter of tape vs. solid state.

With tape, if you shoot an hour of footage, it takes an hour to transfer to your computer.

With Flash, you instantly drag the footage from the camera to your computer.

But like I said in the comment above, only Sony Vegas Pro handles AVCHD footage quickly. Other software can choke on it…or it has to transcode it which takes forever.

With tape, any video editing software will work.

So either the HV30 or HF S10 are your best bet if you want premium quality footage. It’s just that the HV30 is no longer available through retail (though you can find it on Ebay, etc.).

And in all honesty, probably six months from now (or maybe even sooner), there will be a camera that beats them both.

Sony Vegas Pro is about the only video editing software that can handle AVCHD with zero issues (usually). In fact, for this video, I just dragged the footage directly from the camera into the Vegas timeline and started editing.

Final Cut still struggles with AVCHD footage…but they improve with every release.

I shot this video in full program mode, to give everyone a true idea of how it shoots “out of the box”.

I did use a circular polarizing filter on the lens…which tweaks the color a bit…an effect people either love or hate.

I had the filter on there because I planned to shoot around water (and the polarizing reduces the glare)…but I was getting attacked by mosquitoes and horsefly’s so bad I just pulled the camera out, shot everything as fast as I could and got out of there.

The playback of this video doesn’t have anything to do with the camera. The camera only records the video and it’s job is done. From there, many things happen to get the video on the web.

I encoded this video at a bit rate 3 times higher than I do normal videos. I did this to help demonstrate the quality of the footage the camera produces.

If you’re having playback issues, this means two things:

1. You need to have a computer with a fast processor and plenty of RAM. If you have less than 4GB of RAM, less than a dual-core processor or have multiple applications running while trying to watch the video, you will get jerky playback.

This is because your computer is straining to play the video (it’s running out of juice). If the audio doesn’t match the video, that means your computer is being strained so much that it can’t keep the two in synch.

2. You need to have a fast Internet connection. While all Internet Service Providers claim certain speeds, that doesn’t mean you always get that. Particularly if you are running a wireless network. Wireless networks are not good for HD video (there is a large difference in speed between wired and wireless networks). To find out what your download speed is, at any given time, test it at this link:

http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

If your Internet Service Provider claims 8MPS download speeds, you should see 8,000kbps in the results.

For this particular video to download smoothly, you’ll need a minimum consistent download speed of 4,000kbps.

And again, you’ll need the processing power and RAM available to play it back while it’s simultaneously downloading.

This video was tested, without any playback issues, on a Mac with an Intel 3.06 Ghz dual core processor, 4GB RAM, Windows XP with an Intel 2.67 dual core processor, 3GB RAM and Windows Vista Home Premium, 64 bit, 2.5 Ghz dual core processor with 4GB RAM.

The “specs” above are typically found on any desktop computer, bought off the shelf, in the past 12 months.

The bottom line is this…HD video is both computer and memory intensive. That means if you plan on shooting and editing HD video, you need a computer with the processing power and memory to handle it.

If you have trouble watching this video, that means you’re going to have A LOT of trouble trying to produce HD video…so an HD camera is probably not the best option for you.

But if you’d like to see a different video, shot with this same camera, yet encoded at a much lower bit rate (so more people can watch it without issues), you can go here:

http://www.webvideouniversity.com/wvu_faq.html

Hope this helps.

Dave

However, like a few others, even after I let the video completely load, then played it, the video was jerky and not at all in sync with the audio. The audio was perfect but this quality didn’t impress me.

I have very high speed access (probably more than my clients will) so I’m wondering if this really is the camera for online work even though I’ll probably still get it?

Terrie

No matter how many formats I try,
for web video (I shoot with a Canon
HV20 and Sony FX1 and use Sony Vegas
to render it) .. I still can’t get
the kickbutt quality and clarity you
get once uploaded to the web.

I videotape in very small spaces and
my arri 650 fresnels are too hot to
use in the summer. Have you ever
experimented with florescents?
And I wonder if you can get the
great skin tones you achieve using
a cooler light source.

Is your newly released webuniversity
program an update of your previous
course or is it a complete reworking /
revision. Thanks Dave, and yes, the
location is beautiful in the video but
stalls on my laptop too.

I’m on a fast, wireless, cable tv home
connection.

http://webvideouniversity.com/podcast/video/2009/01/09/wvu-20-the-equipment-i-use/

@gary – see my answer to @gad above

Basically, this all means that if you don’t have a fast connection and computer, you’ll likely experience playback issues.

To see how to solve the most common video playback issues, you can go here:

http://www.webvideouniversity.com/videohelp.html

I wonder if it
has to do with the flash format, size
or your webserver company.

BTW: Where is this filmed .. absolutely
gorgeous. I was hoping to get to the
part in the video to find if the
camera had a mic input.