HV40 Importing problems (windows movie maker)

[Jason Boggs]

Ok, first of all, forgive me for the ignorant questions here. I'm not too great at technical stuff.

I'm trying to import my video onto the computer using Windows Movie Maker. I know, I know...I don't have the super software like Vegas Pro or some of those other video editing packages.

The problem is this. I hook the video camera up via firewire, go into windows movie maker, and set up to import the video. I name the file, I think I chose avi interlaced and choose only import parts of the video. When I click on start, the video won't show up in the preview box. When I click stop, it says an error has occurred and can't import the video. Make sure a blank tape is not being used. Do I need to install some type of video codec?

Any help at all would be much appreciated here. Thank you!!!

 

[brandongreen]

im about to solve all your problems.

download this.

HDVsplit

http://strony.aster.pl/paviko/hdvsplit.htm

hv20.com has all the answers u need regarding hv cams

 

[Jason Boggs]

Ok Brandon, thanks! I got it to capture a file with HDV Split, but it saves the video file as an M2T file. This won't play in windows movie maker. Any ideas on how to go around this?

 

[brandongreen]

buy good software. i have pinnacle studio 14 if you want to try that out. i switched to adobe premiere a couple of weeks ago. the premiere i got came with photo shop from best buy for $150. the pinnacle was $100. let me know if u want to try pinnacle.

 

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

I had a similar problem when I had bought a new (cheap) 4-4 pin firewire for my laptop to connect my HV-20. It would just show black like you described, but my would show a file when I stopped it, it would be all black though. I went back to BHphoto and bought a better firewire. Fixed it. You may want to try that before you drop $100. I will passing through Ama on Friday if you want to borrow one that have to see if that is the problem. Just pm me.

 

[Jason Boggs]

Ok, just bought Pinnacle Studio 14 at Best Buy and have been messing around with it. I'm still having trouble importing video from the Canon HV40 camera. Sometimes it imports a clip, and sometimes it doesn't. Some clips I can't even get it to import.

I tried my older Panasonic camcorder with Pinnacle and it worked just fine. This is getting really frustrating really quick!

 

[brandongreen]

dont use pinnacle to import. use the hdvsplit.

 

[Jason Boggs]

I just don't see why it won't play in Pinnacle. I'm having trouble getting it to play in HDV Split also. I'll get it figured out one of these days...hopefully before the end of the season!

I might have a bad firewire, so I'm going to Best Buy today to get another one just to make sure. If that's not the solution, I can always take it back.

 

[Shane Adams]

It might be the camcorder. I've been using Pinnacle 14 HD with an 11-year-old camcorder and have had no issues. Maybe a product conflict?

 

[Jason Boggs]

It might be the camcorder. I've been using Pinnacle 14 HD with an 11-year-old camcorder and have had no issues. Maybe a product conflict?

Yeah, that might be the case. Whatever it is, it's frickin driving me insane! I've been trying to figure it out for about 8 hours now. I'm determined!!!

 

[Scott Weberpal]

try http://www.hv20.com - easily the best forum on the web for the HV series camcorders. You're almost certain to find someone on there who has had the same problem.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Ok Brandon, thanks! I got it to capture a file with HDV Split, but it saves the video file as an M2T file. This won't play in windows movie maker. Any ideas on how to go around this?

Try naming it with the same extension windows movie maker uses. I could only capture with windows movie maker for something, probably before I used HDV split to do it. Premiere wanted to automatically converter to HD cineform. But to get premiere to play the windows movie maker file I had to strip the mpeg file from windows dvr container. Guessing windows movie maker wants that same extension on the hdv split mpeg file. So try changing the extension to .dvr-ms or whatever it is.

I thought I was doing something smart by getting the mpeg stream exactly like it was on the camera tape and saving storage space by not letting premiere pro automatically convert to cineform HD avi. So I went the HDV split route and got everything as mpeg files. What a bad move that turned out to be. Premiere Pro does not like to edit those and play those back. It would MUCH rather have an avi file than an mpeg one. Also I got a bunch of banding on some storms, like resaving a jpg. Stuff I was not getting if I captured with premiere and let it automatically convert to cineform.

fwiw

 

[Jason Boggs]

Well, I tried a brand new firewire cable, and that wasn't the problem.

Ok, Mike thanks for the tips. I'll have to try that.

 

[Mark Blue]

Hey Jason,

What operating system are you working on? You've probably posted that somewhere here in the past but I cannot remember. I'm hoping it isn't that 64 bit Windows 7 Firewire issue Dave Drummond experienced 4 or 5 months ago.

Thanks.

 

[Jason Boggs]

Vista 64 bit. I've been doing a lot of reading and there are a number of people having these problems. The problem is, there isn't one simple solution. I've read countless ways that people have fixed the problem I'm having. Believe it or not, one way was to go and disable the onboard sound in BIOS. I tried that and it did cause the preview screen in Pinnacle to turn gray. I've tried other ideas such as updating the driver for the firewire. Also a few have had it work by hitting the reset button on the video camera. I tried that and it was a no go.I'm about ready to go to Best Buy and see if another software program will work with it. I guess I wasted $50 on Pinnacle. I like the program pretty well, but it just won't work. I sure hope other programs won't have similar results. It always pisses me off when a simple problem doesn't have a simple fix.