Captured AVI files play with poor image quality.

[GLWiseman]

I have been capturing video from a Panasonic PV-GS200 digital camcorder via firewire to my video hard drive. I have used both Ulead VideoStudio 10+ and Nero Vision Express to capture the Video and the problem is the same. I am capturing to AVI Type 1, 29.95fps, 720x480.

During capture, the video preview is smooth with no jumping or flickering and the sound is good. The image, however, looks as if you are viewing it through a white wedding veil. The colors are wrong and washed out.

Playing back the captured AVI file from the hard drive with Windows Media Player is great. It looks like the original camcorder video ¡V sharp and bright. The same AVI files played back with WinDVD, QuickTime, Classic Video Player, Nero Show Time, or VideoStudio looks the same as it did in the preview screen during capture ¡V crapy.

I truly hope someone out there will read this and say ¡§that¡¦s easy ¡V I know what the problem is!¡¨ If I have left out any necessary information needed to asses this problem, my apologies. Just let me know.

Thanks, Greg

[skier-hughes]

As the files play back fine in one app and not others it's not a capture problem, so nothing to do with ulead or nero.

Playback of interlaced files from camcorders is never great on pc's which don't show interlaced files.

I'd start by checking you have the latest version of directx, graphics card drivers, and versions of other software. You may need to colour calibrate your monitor, but I suspect not as wmp plays it fine.

[GLWiseman]

I did forget to mention that even the sample avi videos included with VideoStudio play back with bad image quality.

Could this posible have anything to do with a codec? Do I need a specific codec to play avi files?

[skier-hughes]

As CODEC stands for COmpression DECompression, yes you need a codec to pay back any video.
If you didn't have the right codec you wouldn't be able to play it at all.
You must have the codec installed.

It might be a codec problem in that you may have installed a codec pack and the wrong codec is being used, or some conflict between codecs is happening, though as WMP can play it ok it may not be.

Have you installed any codec packs?

Have you done the other things I suggested?

[GLWiseman]

Thank you for your help. Video playback on my desktop looks great!

The DirectX was up to date but my graphics card driver must not have been. All is working fine after I installed nVidia's latest Geforce driver.

I had installed one coded pack during early attempts to fix the problem. It did not make a change and further digging on the internet persuaded me to uninstall the codec pack.

Someday I hope to know enough about this stuff to help others . . .