Video camera to PC

[Heater]

Ok so im having a little bit of issues getting video from my 8mm tape to my pc. I successfully did this a couple weeks ago, and now when I try to extra just parts of the tape instead of the whole tape whenever i capture the video it plays like its in fast forward. so a minute of video only gives me like a 15 second video. i cant figure out why this worked before and not anymore, im using windows movie maker because i have little to no experience with video cameras and transferring them to PC.

If you have any ideas let me know please!

 

[MenOpaws]

Heater,

What model/brandt camera do you use, and by what means (firewire, USB) have you connected it to your PC? I have used windows movie maker succesfully myself, and I am sure we can resolve this issue.

 

[Heater]

im using firewire and i have a sony handycam dcr-trv120

i bought this camera over 5 years ago but never got much use out of it.

im also using exabyte 8mm tapes if that helps

 

[MenOpaws]

I see absolutely no problem with your hardware. I am using a Sony DCR-TVR30, which is an older model (about 6 years) and does do the job just fine. My guess is when you do the initial setup of Movie Maker, that you have "Capture time limit" set. This is a checkmark when you go through the initial setup prior downloading the tape. I assume you already (and the software will do this too) verified that you have plenty of HD space available. Typically I download the whole tape (recorded image) and edit the parts I don't need out of it. But for sure check the, on the 4th screen during setup, check mark for "Capture time limit" this is by default set @ 2 min.

I hope this helps, good luck!

 

[Heater]

Hmm i tried that, clicked the box, and i hit start capture, 20 seconds of tape went by and only 7 seconds got recorded, but its like a fastforwarded version.

i really have no clue of whats going on and why it worked fine when i did the whole tape a few weeks ago, maybe i just need to do the whole tape, but this is kind of a pain when im trying to get new short clips of my daughter growing up

 

[MenOpaws]

Now just to make sure from what I understand you saying here, you only get this when you try to capture a part of the tape, but when you capture the tape in whole it records just fine? Not sure, but it sounds something is screwy with the software (this based on the fact that you get a "fast forwarded" version), it must be missing a bunch of frames at the time during recording. Have you tried reinstalling moviemaker? I also would check the driver for your firewire connection. If you have a second PC available, try it with that, just to rule out the camera being at fault. Another thing I could think of is that when you start somewhere in the middle of the tape, the software is getting confussed with the datastream it gets. I am experimenting on my end to see if I can duplicate the problem you are seeing, just to see if it is also doing it when recording parts of the tape. I'll keep you posted on what I find. I hear you about you wanting to record your little girl growing up, I have 2 myself

 

[Heater]

ya ill try some of these things and let you know if anything works, right now i have about an hour of tape so when i can find time ill try streaming the whole tape playblack option to see if that works.
thanks

 

[MenOpaws]

I tried parts of the tape, and it works fine for me. Check the following link: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/create/faq.mspx Click on "capturing video", and the click on "How can I prevent dropped frames in a captured video file?". To me it looks this scenario applies to what you are experiencing. Didn't you reload you drive lately because of a videocard issues you had in late March? Maybe also look into this to see if anything there had an impact. Keep me posted, Good luck.

 

[CabbagePatch]

very very cool