Project Playback: choppy video and audio

[EMM386]

Hi, I'm new to the whole video editing thing. Just got a MiniDV camcorder and have captured some clips into VideoStudio. I have gotten everything to edit together, but when I select "Project" mode and press play, my video is a little choppy and the audio has little clicks / pops in it. This does not happen if I slect "Clip" and playback an individual clip. It only happens when I am in Project playback mode.

System:
AMD Athlon XP 2600+
1 GB DDR PC3200 RAM
40 GB free hard drive space on ATA/133 IDE
ATI Xpert 2000 32 MB AGP Video Card
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz PCI Sound Card

Software:
Windows 2000 Pro SP4
VideoStudio 7

Thanks very much for your help. Let me know if you need me to provide more info.

-Brian

[Ken Berry]

How did you capture the clips? What are their properties? And what editing have you done?

[rwindeyer]

Also, previewing a project is misleading. The computer has to pull data from lots of sources simultaneously to give you an idea about what it will look like. A preview is often choppy, and I have never got the album transitions to work in preview mode, althoughthey work well once rendered.

If you render the project (Create Video File) you will see the final result. In all probability the choppiness will be gone.

[EMM386]

The source file is Windows Media Video (.WMV)
Bit Rate: 31 kbps
Resolution: 320 x 240
Audio: 10 kbps / 11 KHz / Mono / CBR

When I go to Create Video File, it renders but the end result is a very "blocky" looking video and the frames freeze for a few seconds, then they update to be in synch with the audio, the video freezes again but audio continues to play. This happens all throughout the video and happens in both AVI and MPG video file creation. Could this be because the quality of the WMV file is too low? The WMV file itself plays fine. Maybe there's a way to upsample the video?

[Ken Berry]

If you have a mini DV camera, why on earth are you capturing in WMV format? You should first be capturing in DV/AVI format, which will give you exactly the same (high) quality of the video in the camera and in a much larger frame format than the WMV you have captured. You do your editing in DV format, and then, if you want to, you can render the edited project into WMV format. But the end format depends on what you intend doing with it. If you want to produce a DVD, you capture in DV, edit, and then convert to DVD-compatible mpeg-2 format.

You also don't say how you are capturing in the first place, and I suspect you may be using a USB connection. If your camera is equipped with a Firewire port (called an i-Link port on Sony and some other cameras), and most likely it is, this should be used for capture of high quality digital video. The USB port, except in very recent, very high end video cameras, is only used to transfer low quality streaming video that you would get from a cheap webcam. It may also, on some cameras be used to transfer still images taken with the video camera.

The problem is that no camera manufacturer of which I am aware ever includes a Firewire cable, but always includes a USB cable if the camera also has a USB port. That gives the owner the idea that it is the USB cable which has to be used, when this is not the case. If you don't have one, you will need to buy a Firewire cable, and make sure you get one that has the correct size plugs at each end. Normally they would be a small 4-pin plug for the camera end and a larger 6-pin plug for the computer end. Of course, you will also need to have a Firewire port on your computer, but if you don't have one, a Firewire card is not very expensive these days and usually comes with a cable too.

[EMM386]

OK, I'm sorry I didn't clearify how I got the WMV. This is a file I downloaded off the internet. It's a 2 hour streaming WMV that I used WM VCR Recorder to save the stream to a file. I want to edit and re-arrange it and then burn to DVD. I realize the quality won't be very good, but the downloads are free. In order to get the DVD set, I would have to pay $200 (it's 20 DVDs). The quality of the WMV is better than the rendered AVI file I get. The AVI looks blocky/distorted with video freezing every few seconds while the audio continues... then video will update back in synch with audio and play for a few seconds then freeze again.

Does VideoStudio not work very will with WMV files?

[EMM386]

One other thing:
I have a Firewire interface for my DV camcorder. My video from the camera captures fine and I am also able to edit and export to Mpeg2 and burn DVDs. It is only with this WMV project that I'm having trouble with the rendered result. That's way I was wondering if there was a way to play an unrendered version of the WMV into my camera, then play it back from my camera and capture in DV format, then edit, then burn to DVD. If possible, it would still be very time consuming.

Thanks for your help.

[Hennessy]

Just wanted to thank you for your comments about the firewire - I was about to give up hope when I read your posting - now everything works as expected.

Thanks!!!!