Getting footage off a camera....

S

spendalifetime

If i put the footage from a camera on a usb stick to transfer it to another computer, will be the quality be affected?

Just ive filmed it in HD, yet when i look at the footage on my computer, its pretty bad!
 
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I'm probably not going to be the guy to answer your question, but I can at least get the ball rolling -- we're going to need specifics. What camera? What editing software?

And what do you mean by "usb stick"? Are you talking about putting a file on a USB flash drive, to copy from one computer to another? If so, shouldn't be any problems there.
 
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Well putting it on a flash drive will not deteriorate the quality, but compressing it or changing the file type to make it smaller will.

Also, what are you viewing the video in? Your editor? Whenever I view footage in After Effects or Vegas, it looks choppy in the preview window. I'd suggest rendering the video to see if there's a difference.
 
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I dont know the name of the camera im afraid, but yeah i mean, once ive got the footage from the camera on to my computer...if i put it onto a USB Flash drive to transfer it to another computer, will it lose quality?

And no i dont think it had to compress it to fit on. Ive put it into windows movie maker as its all ive got on this computer and the quality is terrible! is that just the rubbish programme though?

Ill be using final cut when i get it onto the other computer
 
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Why do you have to use this intermediary computer? Why can't you capture it directly onto the computer you want to edit on?

Your camera's model can be found on the bottom. This info is crucial to helping us answer your question.
 
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spendalifetime said:
I havnt got the camera to hand as its a friends camera (from uni)...And thats why its hard for me to get the footage directly onto the computer ill be editing it on....which is at college, if that makes sense?
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Sure, that makes sense. Okay, so I was trying to figure out why you would need to go through Movie Maker. And that makes me think that you're probably using a camcorder that requires you capture the footage, from within the editing software. To capture footage, did you connect your camera to your computer via firewire cable?

If that's the case, then the problem could be caused at two potential places. You need to make sure that your capture settings are at the best quality.

After you've captured the footage, are you exporting it? Or are you just using the original file that was captured by your editing software? If you're exporting it, there could be an issue there.

I've never used Movie Maker, but the fact that it's free (and designed for the masses) makes me wary of it. Considering your issue, having to capture footage on one computer, then transfer it to another, I'd be inclined to recommend that you download a free trial of Sony Vegas. It's good for 30 days. Eventually you'll probably want to purchase it, but 30 days should be enough time to complete this one project, right?

EDIT: I saw your edit. Yeah, miniDV is captured via firewire.
 
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When i say im using windows movie maker, i dont mean ive used that as part of capturing the footage, im purely using that at the minute just to see what the footage looks like

After wed filmed, we plugged the camera directly into the computer using a fire wire cable yeah, but we didn't go through any programme when getting it off as far as i remember

So the footage is on the computer, but im not sure how to go about moving it to another computer
 
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spendalifetime said:
After wed filmed, we plugged the camera directly into the computer using a fire wire cable yeah, but we didn't go through any programme when getting it off as far as i remember
Click to expand...

You would have to use video editing software to get the footage onto your computer. With miniDV, the only way to do it is to have your camera play the footage, while your computer records it. This is called "capturing", and it's the only way to get miniDV footage onto your computer.
 
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ah rite my mistake then, yeah must have used windows movie maker then as its the only programme ive got

Would i have any trouble capturing the footage in vegas for example, then transfering it over to final cut then?

Im as assuming thats my best bet!
 
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I don't see any reason why you couldn't capture with Vegas, and transfer the files to a Mac to be used in FCP.

Have you viewed the files outside of Movie Maker? Have you viewed them in Windows Media? It's possible that they only look bad within Movie Maker -- maybe it's downgrading the image or making it jumpy because of RAM issues? Maybe.
 
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Yeah they look slightly better outside of windows movie maker, but not much. It still defiantly doesnt look as good as it should be

Ill have to try re-capturing it i think, cheers for the advice!
 
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