Expecting too much??? Sony TRV340, Video Capture, Poor Quali

[carrbrioll]

I've had a VHS-C camera for about 10 years and my wife has been hounding me to get a new camera AND get our old tapes into a digital format.

After doing some research (maybe not enough), I bought the Sony TRV340, a 1394 firewire card, and Dazzle DVD Creation Station 200 (got this before the camera...probably don't need it). I thought this would be some fun stuff to play with during my Christmas vacation. (My gift to her, of course! )

I taped the kids opening their gifts yesterday and was disappointed at the quality of the video. I first reviewed the tape through the LCD display and it looked great. I then plugged in the firewire card and downloaded the "movie" to my PC using MS Movie Maker 2.

Boy, was I disappointed when I played it back. The movie was very grainy.

I wasn't happy with that result, so I then hooked up the S-Video cable to the Dazzle box and captured the video that way. It looked the same.

Still not happy, I hooked the camera up to my TV and played the video. It was also grainy - definitely nowhere near DVD quality as I had expected. My old VHS-C tapes look better!

My expectations may have been too high, but I expected a lot better quality than this. Please let me know if I need to fine tune something - either expectations or equipment. I've done nothing more than take the stuff out of the box and hook it up. I figured it should work it's best like that - before I have a chance to screw anything up.

Can someone send me a short clip or a screen shot showing the quality I should be expecting? I was taping indoors with decent lighting.

Thanks for all of your help!

Brian Carroll
bc_ng@oasissoftware.com

[Innershield]

Take it back to the store and get another one! I bought two Sony cams in a row that were terribly grainy. It wasn't till I got the 3rd one that I got one that worked right.

[Bic]

Did you fix the grainy problem?

[Innershield]

The 3rd one worked properly and was not grainy.

[FulciLives]

I've had a VHS-C camera for about 10 years and my wife has been hounding me to get a new camera AND get our old tapes into a digital format.

After doing some research (maybe not enough), I bought the Sony TRV340, a 1394 firewire card, and Dazzle DVD Creation Station 200 (got this before the camera...probably don't need it). I thought this would be some fun stuff to play with during my Christmas vacation. (My gift to her, of course! )

I taped the kids opening their gifts yesterday and was disappointed at the quality of the video. I first reviewed the tape through the LCD display and it looked great. I then plugged in the firewire card and downloaded the "movie" to my PC using MS Movie Maker 2.

Boy, was I disappointed when I played it back. The movie was very grainy.

I wasn't happy with that result, so I then hooked up the S-Video cable to the Dazzle box and captured the video that way. It looked the same.

Still not happy, I hooked the camera up to my TV and played the video. It was also grainy - definitely nowhere near DVD quality as I had expected. My old VHS-C tapes look better!

My expectations may have been too high, but I expected a lot better quality than this. Please let me know if I need to fine tune something - either expectations or equipment. I've done nothing more than take the stuff out of the box and hook it up. I figured it should work it's best like that - before I have a chance to screw anything up.

Can someone send me a short clip or a screen shot showing the quality I should be expecting? I was taping indoors with decent lighting.

Thanks for all of your help!

Brian Carroll
bc_ng@oasissoftware.com

No consumer grade camcorder handles low light situations well but DV seems worse at it than analog camcorders. So it is possible your footage was grainy because the light was too low when shooting.

I have a Hi8 camcorder (very high end model from back in the day) and with enough light the image is astounding ... but without it too can look "grainy" and all around ugly.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Tommyknocker]

The thing about it, FulciLives, is that the third camera worked they way he expected a good camera should. Looks like it was the camera, and not the technology in this case.