Help needed for new camcorder user!

[RobM77]

Yesterday I tried out my new bullet cam and camcorder setup on my Caterham at Brands Hatch. The results are fantastic with superb picture and sound quality and I'm really pleased.

However, I'm having a bit of trouble transferring them to my PC. The 'video capture tool' reaches ten minutes (and just over 3Gb!) and then times out. I can restart it, but that means holding it's hand every ten minutes, which I don't fancy doing for two hours of footage. Also, the quality of the AVIs it creates is really poor, which for 60Mb for ten seconds surprises me.

The camera is a Sony HC96e, and I'm using the standard software supplied with it.

Can anyone offer any help?

thanks

[Marcellus]

Rob - I recently got the same set up as you (HC96e & software) and yes the 10 minute thing can be a right royal pain in the ****.

I *think* there are other upload packages that stream for longer but I've not investigated them.....what I now do is the 1st edit as it streams....

[RobM77]

Marcellus said:

Rob - I recently got the same set up as you (HC96e & software) and yes the 10 minute thing can be a right royal pain in the ****.

I *think* there are other upload packages that stream for longer but I've not investigated them.....what I now do is the 1st edit as it streams....

"1st edit as it streams"?

How about the quality as well? I've noticeda big drop in quality with the AVIs compared with the raw footage off the camera.

At this rate I might just plug the camcorder into my HDD recorder! I can't edit properly, but at least I'll get decent quality.

[Marcellus]

what I eman by that is that at some point you have to watch all the footage so why not as it transfers to the PC and only transfering any remotely interesting footage...eg on a track day; leaving the garage, going down the pit lane, sitting at the end waiting to go on track....all relatively boring stuff so why transfer it?

[stockhatcher]

i have just this week bought the same camera and bullet cam combo. I use a fire wire to download directly onto the pc Windows Movie maker. It's a P.o.P, no time outs or anything. I do all my editing on the pc, i can make a cup of tea etc whilst its transferring data from camera to pc.

However the colour i am getting from my bullet cam is a bit shite, one colour and a fiar bit of black and white. is there a setting i need to adjust?

[RobM77]

stockhatcher said:

i have just this week bought the same camera and bullet cam combo. I use a fire wire to download directly onto the pc Windows Movie maker. It's a P.o.P, no time outs or anything. I do all my editing on the pc, i can make a cup of tea etc whilst its transferring data from camera to pc.

However the colour i am getting from my bullet cam is a bit shite, one colour and a fiar bit of black and white. is there a setting i need to adjust?

My results have been superb on the bullet cam. Mounted on the Caterham's roll bar it performed amazingly well and exceeded expectations. I don't think that there are any adjustments on the bullet cam, but it does seem to auto adjust, which may be what you're having problems with. For example, it struggled in my Elise with the hood up, as it exposed the cabin correctly, and the track was largely whited out; also when I climb out of my Caterham and get my racing suit near the camera, the colour seems to go strange. For me though, using the bullet cam on the roll cage of the 7, it's fantastic!

[driverrob]

On the advice of my son, I use Ulead VideoStudio (ver7). It really is very good.

[cw42]

Buy this: http://estore.pinnaclesys.com/servlet/ControllerSe...
Highly recommended I've used it for years and it really is a pop

Well worth the asking price too. Don't mess around with movie maker or the software that came with your camera, get the proper thing and learn how to use it to best effect

Simple films are the best: http://www.scoobysmacs.co.uk/Videos/skid%20trainin...

Edited by cw42 on Monday 3rd September 02:27

[Viper_Larry]

Are you sure it's 3Gb and not 2Gb? If it's 2, then maybe you don't have an NTFA filing system on your hard drive and hence the largest file size possible is 2Gb. Just a thought...

[RobM77]

Viper_Larry said:

Are you sure it's 3Gb and not 2Gb? If it's 2, then maybe you don't have an NTFA filing system on your hard drive and hence the largest file size possible is 2Gb. Just a thought...

Definitely 3Gb. I'm not on my home PC now, but the files are all 3,111,111Kb or something like that.

[RobM77]

cw42 said:

Buy this: http://estore.pinnaclesys.com/servlet/ControllerSe...
Highly recommended I've used it for years and it really is a pop

Well worth the asking price too. Don't mess around with movie maker or the software that came with your camera, get the proper thing and learn how to use it to best effect

Simple films are the best: http://www.scoobysmacs.co.uk/Videos/skid%20trainin...

Edited by cw42 on Monday 3rd September 02:27

Thanks for the reccomendation. I'll look into that.

In the end I just plugged the camcorder into my HDD and recorded the footage directly!

I can understand the Sony supplied software being not as versatile, or limiting, but actually not being able to transfer more than ten minutes of footage is ridiculous - and the quality is terrible!!