HDV capture/import pixelating every 2-3 secs

[IanR]

I am a newbie to the forum but have been using EMC8 for about 9 months. I have a Sony HDV camcorder (HC3) which has the ability to downconvert from HD to DVD quality and I have been successfully capturing/importing video over Firewire to a 2.4 GHz 1.5 GB PC running XP SP2 and the latest EMC8.

However, I just tried capturing HD content for the first time and although EMC8 recognizes the camcorder and starts to display the video correctly in the preview window, after about 2-3 seconds it pixelates badly and seems to drop frames... then recovers and runs ok for another 2-3 seconds before pixelating again. It does this even though I haven't tried to capture/import the video yet. I also tried capturing but the result is the same as what appears in the preview window. I have shut down all other programs and disabled antivirus. Any suggestions on what to try next?

[IanR]

Tks very much for your suggestions sknis. I never thought to look for a supported list of devices and I'm shocked to see that my HDR-HC3 isn't even listed. It was the followon to the HC1 which is listed...and one of the very few HD camcorders available so when EMC8 said it supported HD, I assumed that meant the HC3 as well. As I indicated, I have used the Firewire connection successfully many times for downconverted content so I presumed that meant it was supported.

Anyway, I went back to Media Import tonight to play with it more and tonight when I click on "Select a device or source to import from", it recognizes the camera as an HC3 but then I get a pop-up error msg saying that it "Failed to build a preview graph - Operation "Build"on Capture Manager failed". It doesn't seem to matter if I turn the camcorder on and then start Media Import or whether I power it on after Media Import is running. It didn't do this the other night .. I got video in the preview window.

So, maybe the software isn't properly supporting the device. I checked the Roxio knowledgebase and there's only one hit on that error msg and it's for MCE which I don't have. BTW, to answer your other question, the camera is outputting HDV1080i format and Media Import sees it as 1440x1080.

[sknis]

I am a newbie to the forum but have been using EMC8 for about 9 months. I have a Sony HDV camcorder (HC3) which has the ability to downconvert from HD to DVD quality and I have been successfully capturing/importing video over Firewire to a 2.4 GHz 1.5 GB PC running XP SP2 and the latest EMC8.

However, I just tried capturing HD content for the first time and although EMC8 recognizes the camcorder and starts to display the video correctly in the preview window, after about 2-3 seconds it pixelates badly and seems to drop frames... then recovers and runs ok for another 2-3 seconds before pixelating again. It does this even though I haven't tried to capture/import the video yet. I also tried capturing but the result is the same as what appears in the preview window. I have shut down all other programs and disabled antivirus. Any suggestions on what to try next?

 

Couldn't find that as a supported device. Doesn't mean that it doesn't work; just that it wasn't tested and worked properly. Dropped frames usually means that the computer can't keep up with the information being fed it. What format are you capturing? Perhaps the combination of computer speed/camera/EMC 8 just won't do it. Did the camera come with software to capture HDV? Have you tried that?

 

Are there any new drivers for your camera? Have you tried a different ILink port, or cable? What video card do you have and is it up to date? I went to the Sony page but simply HC3 doesn't seem to register.

 

I really don't know so I'm throwing out things to consider based posts for other capture problems.