Transferring Video to Computer problem

[bonvol]

Can anyone help me with this?

I have a P4 3.0 mhz machine with a fast video card, 1 gig of RAM and win XP pro.

I transfer digital video from my sony video camera to the PC using Pixela and the USB conx. Pixela gives me the option of converting to MPEG 1 or AVI in various levels of quality.

My problem is that no matter what format I use, MPEG1 or AVI the resulting image is very ordinary even when set at "Highest Quality".

Its not too bad if I run it in the default window size in media player ( a couple of inches square) but when I go full screen it is very poor, like an extremely low res photo.

How can the image be so great on a whopping big TV but so crap on the computer? Do I need better software?

Any help gratefully received!

[spannersatcx]

Is the Sony camcorder DV, if so when you are viewing it on the tv you are viewing it in DV quality.

If you want the best quality then you will need to capture to the pc in DV and go from there.

mpeg and avi are lossy types of file, by that I mean that to make the files smaller then the quality is reduced.

[bonvol]

Thanks Spanners. The camera has a DV in/out that according to the manual is for connecting with an i.link cable to a VCR.

I gather from what you say it can be connected to a PC with this also? Do you need a special DV capture card for the computer? The fitting that would connect to the computer looks somewhat proprietary?

Thanks again!

[Bern Oulli]

I also have a Sony DV camera . The DV in/out port connects to the PC via a Firewire, so you need a firewire card in your PC. PC world is where I got mine - Belkin IEEE1394 PCI card. Comes with software on a CD. Mind you, that was three years ago.

[goates]

Firewire, IEEE1394 and i.Link are all the same thing. Firewire cards shouldn't cost too much and many sound cards have them now too.

Computer screens quite often have a higher resolution than what you can get off of video or TV. When you try to watch it full screen, the computer just makes each pixel bigger, which is what makes it blocky. I don't know what resolution your camcorder uses though.

goates