Posted by a l l y on 09/10/07 22:52

"Frank" <frank@nojunkmail.humanvalues.net> wrote in message
news:p249e3t60uvnicl4im5jkrnukc0t0925rr@4ax.com...

>
> So which is it, a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) or an HDD (hard disk
> drive) based camcorder?

Both. It's one of those hybrid things with a hard disk, plus it takes mini
DVDs.

>
> What is the file extension on the files that it creates - .mpg, or
> something else?

When it comes off the camera it's got a VRO extension. Now how did I convert
that to mpg?

> What software are you using to transfer the video to your computer,
> and what file extension do the files have once they're on your
> computer's hard disk drive?

Can't remember - I did it a few weeks ago, and then got too busy to do any
more. It was probably the rather crappy software that came with the camera.
I'll have a better look at this tomorrow. (I'm in the UK and it's nearly
midnight.)

>
>>So far so good. I can play them back, on a variety of players.
>
> Just curious, but does "a variety of players" include the VideoLAN VLC
> media player program? If you don't have a copy and wish to get it,
> it's a free download from http://www.videolan.org/

Yes, I've got VideoLan but I'd forgotten I had it. It does play the files,
but stretches them horizontally for some reason. They're already in wide
screen format, but VideoLan seems to make them even wider. Very strange.
Apart from that they play all right - the audio is fine too. When I try mpgs
from other sources that I've got saved on my hard drive, they play
perfectly, so maybe it's something to do with the wide screen format?

>
> Also, does "a variety of players" include Windows Media Player?

Yes, they play perfectly on that, and on Real Player.

I've just tried a file on WinAmp, and what happens there is that the
soundtrack works fine, but all I can see is the first image which stays
frozen.

QuickTime gives me an "Error -2048 Not a movie file"

>
> It could be a codec issue, but without having access to one of your
> files, I can't really answer that question definitively.

I couldn't really ask you to go to the trouble of looking at one of my
files, could I?

>
> Go to http://fcchandler.home.comcast.net/ and download and install
> both VirtualDub-MPEG2 1.6.19 and AC-3 ACM Codec and see what happens
> when you try to open and play these files in the VirtualDub-MPEG2
> program. If you can successfully open and play them in
> VirtualDub-MPEG2, then you can probably edit them in VirtualDub-MPEG2
> and if you really prefer Windows Movie Maker (WMM) for editing, you
> could save the files out of VirtualDub-MPEG2 as uncompressed AVIs and
> open the .avi files in WMM for editing.

OK, I've tried this. What happens is the opposite of the result in
VideoLan - the image is compressed horizontally, rather than stretched. Not
only this, but the audio becomes jerky. Saving it as an avi file works but
the resulting file is the same - horizontally squashed and jerky sound.

Could any of this be to do with the fact that it has been recorded in this
wide screen format? Maybe the software doesn't like it?


>
> Well, if it's not a codec issue, it might be a TS (Transport Stream)
> versus PS (Program Stream) issue, although there are other
> possibilities as well.

OK, you are now getting too technical for me!

>
> I can't envision camera-original footage as being DRM-protected in any
> way, although the files that came off of the camcorder and which now
> reside on your system's HDD might have been marked read-only by
> whatever software you used to transfer them. If that's the case, you
> would be able to open and play them and even possibly even edit them,
> but you couldn't rename them, move them, delete them, or overwrite
> them without first flipping the "R" bit in the directory entry. (This
> can be easily done in Windows Explorer, if necessary.)
>

If I've got time tomorrow I'll do some experimenting with the camera - I'll
try filming something in the 'normal' rather than wide-screen format, for a
start, and see if that works any better. And I'll try to remember how I got
the files off the camera on to my computer! I seem to remember having some
trouble with that as well.....

Thanks for all your advice so far. You've given me a lot of food for
thought.

ally

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