Trying to figure out what to call these symptoms

[jamesnearn]

Hi all,

I purchased a Canon Vixia HF S100 vidcam a while back. The MTS files generated are playing decently for the recent videos, however some of the earlier videos are very blocky and have green splotches in them. I uploaded a video to youtube for sharing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK0U7Z94vHY

I don't know what to call the symptoms, so finding a solution has been quite challenging. Any ideas?

Thanks,

James
Michigan, USA

[wrathofbod]

maybe bad media? could be the flash card is faulty, i have not come across this camera before does it only record to card or does it have a built in flash drive/hard drive or is it recording to sd card?.
did you try another card.
hope you get it sorted, it looks like a nice camera

[edDV]

Was the flash card Class 4 or better?

24 Mbps mode may require Class 6 flash.

[jamesnearn]

Thanks for the replies

Flash card's label says Kingston 32GB SDHC Class 4. I bought it from a local camera shop.

It took me a while to put things together, but the first hint was when reviewing video from when my daughter was born. I pulled the video to my laptop and it played totally fine. A few months later after transfering it to a network shared folder, I tried to play it on my wife's laptop and it stuttered. I figured it was bandwidth, copied it local to her laptop, and it still stuttered. Must be the laptop wasn't able to handle 1080p video? All this time I'm able to play on my own laptop just fine across a wired gigabit connection. A couple years go by and now last week with a new desktop machine the video stutters while playing from a local hard drive. Odd. So my gut instinct was that there's a codec difference.

So... I tried recording again in 24Mbps, no stuttering. My VERY amateur understanding of video makes me wonder if maybe the camera was just not configured properly... like in 60i or 30p or... I don't remember what other settings there are but I'm sure I must have messed with something.

Anyhow... What words would you use to describe the video? I've been trying to google, but I think my lack of video vocabulary is causing the search results to be diluted.

[edDV]

AVCHD video uses the h.264 codec which is difficult to play on older computers. Newer machines have enough CPU or use display chipset assist to play h.264. NVidia calls this Purevideo HD, ATI calls it AVIVO HD. Tech term is DXVA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX_Video_Acceleration

The player app needs to support DXVA. MPCHC self configures.

If the video plays ok on your newer machine, there is nothing wrong with the camera. Best to use a Class 6-10 flash card for 1920x1080 at 24 Mbps. The issue is bit rate more than resolution.

The camera you have shoots 1080 60i.

[jamesnearn]

Update: I tried MPCHC and also tried installing the K-Lite codecs. The codec pack seemed to help some but still looked blocky. So then I had an ah-ha moment and tried copying a video back to the card to see if the camera would play it. Unfortunately it looks the same on the camera! I'm so confused tho b/c I *KNOW* I've viewed these videos before. I guess I'll have to keep tinkering as chances arise. Thank you for your time.

[edDV]

Update: I tried MPCHC and also tried installing the K-Lite codecs. The codec pack seemed to help some but still looked blocky. So then I had an ah-ha moment and tried copying a video back to the card to see if the camera would play it. Unfortunately it looks the same on the camera! I'm so confused tho b/c I *KNOW* I've viewed these videos before. I guess I'll have to keep tinkering as chances arise. Thank you for your time.

What happens if you record fresh video? Does it play smoothly?

I suspect the Class 4 flash card. An additional issue is when any flash card gets near full, RAM fragmentation can cause lost frames. Best practice is to fully empty a flash card before starting a shoot.

[jamesnearn]

Fresh videos seems to record fine on the same flash card. I've been poking around and thought to check other videos. It seems that now there is approx a year of random videos that have the same effect. The highest and lowest bit rates seem to have the same symptoms. I still have the very first video recorded out of the box and it plays wrong also. It feels like a codec issue as I've been able to change settings and make the video worse, just not much for improvements.

The busyness of life is making it stay on task until this is figured out, but with a little research daily I'll hopefully find the right tidbit. Thanks for your reply, I truly do appreciate it.

[jamesnearn]

I finally have recovered my home videos... While researching another issue on my network, I was reviewing the external USB drive that backs up my server's file shares. I found on the drive copies of all the movies that I had made and they all played in perfect condition. I immediately copied them to another drive and compared some MD5 sums. The live files on my network had different hashes compared to the backup drive... must be there was an error in file copies or some external factor modified them... ODD?!?! Anyhow, I've got the movies back and in good shape. Thanks for your help again!