Anyone else have continual problems with miniDV?

[EaZiE]

I have the JVC GRD-270. The first problems I had was just transferring it to the PC. With these things (dv cameras) selling at Wal-Mart, etc. you'd think the solution for transferring the footage would be easier by hardware and software. Now I'm pretty tech smart but could not get clean video transfers (meaning there were so many dropped frames the footage was unusable) with firewire and trying the top programs - even Premiere. I finally tried WinDV and it was much better, but still got static and such, especially at the beginning of a recording or a slight jiggle.
No one seems to know if u can reuse a dvtape or not - u google it and only forums of people's opinions show up. Is it because I'm reusing a tape only the third time that the sound is so slow and low u can't understand it? It's like the special effect u see sometimes on sitcoms in the real low voice cuz its slowed down. Maybe I'll try new tapes only.
I know it can't be the used tape that caused my viewfinder to shrink its size so you basically have to aim and hope u are squared. I used to like using the viewfinder instead of the screen to save battery, but know that seems to be going out. I got this thing almost two years ago, but I haven't used it much. Not nearly enough to wear it out. About 200 mins. of vid.
Are these things just junk?

I can't see them being usable for the average person.

[Richard_G]

It certainly sounds like your camcorder is screwed. Problems with sound and the viewfinder suggest this as they have nothing to do with the transfer. The vast majority of people shoot their footage, connect over Firewire, transfer with WinDV, all with no problems. MiniDV tapes are made to be reused. For commercial projects I only ever use a tape once and keep it as an archive, for general stuff I have 2 or 3 tapes I use continuously.

Try a different camcorder.....

[thecoalman]

I have no troubles transferring from mini-DV, plug it in and start transferring. I've even done 2+ hours transfers via firwire with my ADVC which is almost exactly the same.

(meaning there were so many dropped frames the footage was unusable)

Dropped frames is usually a system issue.

No one seems to know if u can reuse a dvtape or not

No idea ,I only use them once and the footage gets archived. I've seen it suggested you can use them multiple times and I don't see whay that wouldn't be the case. As far as your audio problems how does it sound when you play it directly on the TV?

Are these things just junk?

Yours might be but overall no, Mini-DV is even used professionally.

[gll99]

I have a Sony and the only problem I had was when I mixed tape brands. I ran a cleaner tape a couple of times and that fixed it up. I've used some of my tapes a couple of times so far and they look ok but then I usually have throwaway stuff at the beginning of every taping.

Have you tried a cleaning tape? If you do don't over do it. Run it only as specified or it will do more harm than good. You also could try to FF and rewind the tape in case it's off track a bit. Double check your camera settings. I use mine sporadically and have messed up speed and other settings.

My P4 1.6 system is slow by today's standards but a dv transfer via firewire with Windv results in no dropped frames. The only issue I see in my transfers is black levels are off a bit towards the grey (am. gray ).

[Marvingj]

I read a review at AVS about JVC GRD-270 it flaw is transfer of a record video to PC. I'm sure JVC is aware of this. I would called them to see about replacement or a fix. Shouldn't cost you anything but to mail it.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Never had any problems. Agree with thecoalman re dropped frames.

but still got static and such, especially at the beginning of a recording or a slight jiggle

For multiple recording sessions on the same tape, make sure the next recording starts at a point within the previous one - i.e., there must be a continuous sequence of valid DV frames. If you leave a gap, capture software will often misbehave for a short period since there are no valid data on the tape during the gap.

If you leave the tape in the camcorder and don't do anything with it between recording sessions, this issue shouldn't arise. However, if you take the tape out or play back a previous part of the tape, unless you stop the tape on a prerecorded part, you will get glitches. Some camcorders can seek to the end of the recording, others require you manually do it. A good way to do it is to play the tape and watch the timecode. When the timecode disappears/stops changing, that's the end of the recorded part of the tape - remember it. Rewind a little bit and play it again. When the timecode is within, say, a second of the timecode value noted before, stop the tape. (It's very rare to have important footage within the last second.)

One thing I have noticed with older recordings (e.g., 9 years) is that the first few seconds of the recording (i.e., the start of the tape) will have problems which you can see on the camcorder when you play it. This is a well known issue with analog recordings, too.

The recommendation to avoid it is to record 30 seconds (at least that's how much time I use) of black (lens cap on) or, if the camcorder has them, color bars.

If the material is irreplacable, never record it at the very start of the tape.

[CogoSWSDS]

I agree with JohnnyMalaria on this one. I never start recording immediately at the beginning of the tape. I'm not quite as conservative as he is, but I do put 5-10 seconds of black on the beginning of all my tapes. Then when I am ready to convert to DVD, I just trim the black frames off before encoding and everything is good.

Why burn to DVD? My D8 camcorder is the only way I have to playback D8 tapes. Since I don't want to shorten the life of either, after I make a video tape, make a DVD of it, then when we want to watch the footage, I just pop the DVD in my player.

CogoSWSDS

[EaZiE]

Thanks everyone for the input. It sounds like for most minidv is a reliable way to shoot.
I did try running the footage straight to the t.v. and it does sound good. So, this would have to be some sort of transfer problem. So I'll have to fix this on my pc and try a few things. As for the viewfinder image shrinking that sounds like a faulty camera.

I know 768 mb ram is on the slow side. 1.60 gz speed. Is this legit for transfers or is this the problem? Also, with windv do u use the type 1 or 2 avi setting?

Thanks

[EaZiE]

When I opened windv it asked to use ffdshow. I said yes and it seems to have fixed the problem for the sound. Must be important.
Last time I said no and I got the crappy sound.

[aedipuss]

use type 2 avi .

turn off any program running in the background of your system that could interrupt the transfer. use the task manager(control/alt/del) to watch for anything hogging the system.

i've reused tapes up to a 100 times with no problems. i'd just recommend picking one brand and sticking with it exclusively.

[gll99]

I know 768 mb ram is on the slow side. 1.60 gz speed. Is this legit for transfers or is this the problem? Also, with windv do u use the type 1 or 2 avi setting?

I only have pc2700 512mb ram although my 1.6 P4 cpu is overclocked at just above 2 ghz. I use type 2 dv avi also and like I said I get no dropped frames with Windv but I also don't do anything else while transferring to a 7200 NTFS formatted hdd.

I tried to capture to compressed formats using other apps but the amount of caching was just as much as doing it in 2 operations so it wasn't worth the risk.

My camera has an analogue to dv passthru feature which I have also used to transfer vhs tapes with no dropped frames in the same manner as straight dv transfers.

Other possible things to check:
Another possible cause of dropped frames is a fragmented drive or one that is close to full so you may want to check that too.
Another thing is that XP does not automatically turn dma on if the drive is on a secondary controller so you have to do that manually. Even if you are using a primary I'd check that anyway to make sure it's not in pio mode.
If you have a mix of slow and faster hdd on the same cable you will get the speed of the slower drive. So it's good to check your drive configuration.