Help with improving some old digital camcorder footage

[IFM]

Hi all

I'm after some help please with some old video I have I hope I have come to the right place.

I'm currently trying to find / catalogue / upload all the family video footage I have. Not an easy task

When my kids were 1st born I bought a nice MiniDV Sony camcorder. Happy days. Lots of good footage. Had to just buy a firewire PCI card for my PC to upload it using Firewire. But all good.

But, back in 2009 I made the stupid decision to buy an early Sony all digital (SD) camcorder. On the positive side I took a lot more video as I had virtually stopped using the MIniDV. The bad news is the quality. It. Is. Awful. I was watching some of last night and it was depressing. SO much for 'progress'.

Anyway, my query is, what are my options (if any ) to try and improve somehow, the quality of this footage. (Think really crap SD digital footage). Now of course I understand 'Garbage In Garbage out' and that ultimately it is poor quality and miracles can't happen. But are there options? Both cheap/expensive in terms of software etc?? I have read a bit about 'upscaling' footage but I dont think that would do anything for quality (??). I wondering if anything can be done to smooth the awful pixilation that my footage has.

All I have at the moment is Adobe Premier Elements but I don't really know how to use it properly, could it help?

sorry, I should also say feel free to point me towards a thread if its been covered before, I did find some stuff but got lost in the techinical aspects!!

cheers!!
Greg

[OldMan64]

Since the model number of the Sony is not given, I have to ask what type media is used to record the images and then how did you get the footage in the computer? Some movie cameras have a USB port but using that to get the video off the camera results in poor images vs using a card reader or the higher definition ports to bring the video into the computer.
So what method was used to bring these digital images into the computer?

[IFM]

Since the model number of the Sony is not given, I have to ask what type media is used to record the images and then how did you get the footage in the computer? Some movie cameras have a USB port but using that to get the video off the camera results in poor images vs using a card reader or the higher definition ports to bring the video into the computer.
So what method was used to bring these digital images into the computer?

hmm, the media would be microSD cards (probably not high spec ones) but I suspect I would have got them onto the computer mostly using a card reader rather than the USB port. Could easliy be a mix though.

I think it was a Sony Handycam DCR-SX40

[OldMan64]

I notice the Sony site says the specs for that camera are SD and 4:3 or 16:9 and it can use Memory cards or SD. They then list more than one recording Times: Standard Definition: HQ = up to 55 min., SP = up to
85 min., LP = up to 175 min
So assuming the card reader was used, it might be the "speed" that was used to make the recording. Why they would resort to what "was" a tape speed for digital recording is questionable, as that would have to change the resolution in order to allow more video to be recorded. If you look at the video footage with something similar to MediaInfo or even VLC media player to obtain the resolution, it might be a start as to the reason the footage is "poor". That camera is not the best but should be comparable to a DV camera using tape, as far as quality of video.