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I've tried with ULead V8.0 and 12 to pull videos from my Sony digital camcorder. When I see it in the preview window and on play back, the picture is grainy, choppy and very distorted, looks like alot of little squares coming/going in the screen.

I'm able to play AVIs etc created by other people on my machine and they look fine.

I"m running XP, just upped my page file, disabled caching, shut down unnecessary programs, and nothing makes a difference. I have 3.5 G RAM. I'm using a USB cable.

I'm not sure what else to look at or try. This is my first attempt at this, so I'm sure I have not provided all the required information. I searched for similar errors and tried to make the recommended changes.

What else can I try?

Thanks!

Hmmm... In general, a digital "capture" should just be a data transfer, and the quality should not be degraded.

...Sony digital camcorder.

Can you tell us a little more about your camcorder? Does it record to MiniDV tape, internal hard drive? Is it a combination still/movie camera? Model Number?

I'm using a USB cable.

Is that the only digital connection on the camera? Is there also a Firewire connector?

What format are you capturing to?

It's a Sony DCR-HC26 model. It uses a MiniDV tape to record.

I've tried AVI and DVD formats, same result.

I'm sure it's something stupid I'm not doing...

There is a firewire connection on the camera, but I don't have the correct cable to connect it to my laptop.

My husband is able to bring the videos over to his laptop using the USB cable and Ulead 8.0 and they work fine. Unfortunately he's not here right now, so I can 't do a comparison of the two systems.

This seems like the video is being captured to a lower resolution, than that of it's original. Depending on where you're located it should be either 720 x 480 (NTSC), or 720 x 576 (PAL).

Using firewire and transferring DV, you would not have to worry about the frame sizes, as it only allows that of the original source video. You would have to manually change it to some other format, such as MPEG to alter that.

Yes, I think the resolution is too low....the recorded video shows a resolution of 320x240, but I cannot find anywhere that will allow me to specify a different resolution.

Where / how do I change this?

You have a digital camera. DO NOT USE USB! It's not fast enough to transfer the video signal. Go to Staples, Office Max, Radio Shack, etc. and buy yourself a firewire cable. They are inexpensive and will most likely solve your problem. Please see http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?p=65780#65780