Color: now it is/ oops now its not

[jmorgie]

using VS9. Captured from Sony camcorder via firewire, just as I have done now 8 or 10 times. captured to mpeg.

the clips, if I review them are in black/white. but still shots are in color. but if I play the loop they play in B/W. I did Share | create video file and again the individual frames are in color, but if I playback video its B/W

so: If I burn a DVD, will this come out in BW? or in Color ?

what is going on???

[Ken Berry]

Apart from capturing to mpeg (which you are, of course, at perfect liberty to do) can you tell us what the exactly properties of your mpeg files are, please? Right click on one of the files within Video Studio and copy down the properties. Can you also tell us what model Sony camcorder you have and also tell us the specifications of your computer.

I am otherwise at a loss to know what might have happened. The preview window of the program is not wonderful, but not normally that bad. Do you have an RW disc you can burn your project to? That at least would let you know if it burned in colour or B/W and you would not be wasting a disc.

I also think you should try the alternative -- and some would argue, better -- procedure, and capture in DV format. It is not a lossy format like mpeg, and capturing in it places no stress on your computer. The files are much larger, however. But you can do lots of edits to DV without any loss in quality. Then when you have finished your editing, you go to Share > Create Video File > DVD, and that should hopefully produce a DVD-compatible mpeg-2 file which not only looks to be in colour, but IS in colour and burns in colour...

[jmorgie]

here is the properties of the mpeg file:

NTSC drop frame (29.97 fps)
MPEG files
24 Bits, 720 x 480, 29.97 fps
Frame-based
(MPEG-1), 4:3
Video data rate: Variable
Audio data rate: 224 kbps
MPEG audio layer 2, 44.1 KHz, Stereo

as I said, I have successfully burned over a dozen dvds from my sony and using VS9 so I too am at a loss.

only thing that strikes me is that this time I went with VARIABLE bit rate on the video. I think that I did capture as DV; I need to make better notes.

ok -- just looked at all the files in windows media viewer -- they're all BW. so clearly something went amiss during transfer from camcorder to VS9. is it the variable bit rate?

[Ken Berry]

It is, in fact, because you are not only capturing to mpeg, but it is moreovr to mpeg-1 (which is a lower quality format) AND mpeg-1 in full-frame format, when normally it would be half-frame (360 x 240)...

Try capturing in DV format as I suggested (if indeed it is a digital Sony camcorder).