V. poor video quality in Movie maker

[pfgpowell]

Hi, I have been usign Macs but recently bought a secondhand Dell
(Optiflex GX260) for various reasons, but mainly so my children could
play a few PC games they had acquired. Because XP comes with Movie
Maker, I hitched up my camcorder (Sony TRV460) and downloaded a minute
or two of footage. And the quality once it is acquired by my PC is
TERRIBLE. Now why should that be? Would it have something to do with
the graphics card which came with the Dell? When I have previously
edited video on a Mac, the quality of ther footage is almost as good as

that when played on the camcorder. So why is Windows footage so much
worse?To see just how bad the quality is, take a lookl at

where I have uploaded it to
Youtube. Please someone tell me. Patrick.

 

[DanS]

Hi, I have been usign Macs but recently bought a secondhand Dell
(Optiflex GX260) for various reasons, but mainly so my children could
play a few PC games they had acquired. Because XP comes with Movie
Maker, I hitched up my camcorder (Sony TRV460) and downloaded a minute
or two of footage. And the quality once it is acquired by my PC is
TERRIBLE. Now why should that be? Would it have something to do with
the graphics card which came with the Dell? When I have previously
edited video on a Mac, the quality of ther footage is almost as good as

that when played on the camcorder. So why is Windows footage so much
worse?To see just how bad the quality is, take a lookl at

where I have uploaded it to
Youtube. Please someone tell me. Patrick.

Personally I have never used MS MovieMaker, as I tend to not use those
programs Windows installs by default.

The framerate on the clip looked OK. It was just the resolution that was
low. I'm sure there are import/export settings to adjust, as well as
different compression codecs to choose from. I assume you d/l'd from the
camera with FireWire.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/getstarted/possibilitie
s.mspx

The few sample clips throughout that section looked fine.

 

[Elmo]

Hi, I have been usign Macs but recently bought a secondhand Dell
(Optiflex GX260) for various reasons, but mainly so my children could
play a few PC games they had acquired. Because XP comes with Movie
Maker, I hitched up my camcorder (Sony TRV460) and downloaded a minute
or two of footage. And the quality once it is acquired by my PC is
TERRIBLE. Now why should that be? Would it have something to do with
the graphics card which came with the Dell? When I have previously
edited video on a Mac, the quality of ther footage is almost as good as

that when played on the camcorder. So why is Windows footage so much
worse?To see just how bad the quality is, take a lookl at

where I have uploaded it to
Youtube. Please someone tell me. Patrick.

There may be a setting within the software to increase to resolution, or
the like. Here's a Google Groups search post:

"If your original clips were digital video and you want to keep the same
quality, when you save the movie use the pull down menu and select
V-avi 25mbs, anything else is compressed and will not look as good as
the original. Of course the file size will be quite large. "

After you have it stored, try editing the size, etc..

More from Google:

http://groups.google.com/groups/search?q="movie+maker"+resolution&qt_s=Search

 

[Guest]

I checked your video and see what you mean about the poor quality. Do you use
a USB connection or the firewire 1394 for download and is the TRV460 an
analog camcorder? What video capture program did you use on the Mac. Final
Cut Pro? The best I am told? YOu are saying that you are using the same
camcorder. I use a new Sony Handicam and edit video using both Pinnacle
Studio 9 and Vegas Movie Studio. The analog is known for poor quality
compared to taping using miniDV tapes. But your quality is much worse than
the slight difference I notice between digital and analog. You must have some
thing else going on. I have not tried MovieMaker but perhaps there is a
quality setting you have missed. Perhaps you are rendering in a draft mode.

I am curious about what file type you sent to YouTube. I am designing a web
site right now to take instructional video and display or make videos
available for download to the public. I would be interested in talking to
you further about mutual interests.

My Dell is a Dell Dimension 8200 and is 3 1/2 years old. My internal specs
are 2.25 mghz processing speed and 256 mgs of ram (which is minimal for video
work)

I am not sure I am helping. I have not heard many comments from people who
have used MovieMaker. I am wondering if it is very popular. There is a forum
here called Windows XP Video which you might check out and post to.

 

[pfgpowell]

I checked your video . . .

256 mgs of ram (which is minimal for video

work)

I am not sure I am helping. I have not heard many comments from people who
have used MovieMaker. I am wondering if it is very popular. There is a forum
here called Windows XP Video which you might check out and post to.

Yes, I did use a USB connection because the Dell,whoch seems to me
otherwise to be a decent machine, doesn't have a Firewire port. On my
Mac I have always used Firewire, so that could very well be a reason
for the poor quality on the Dell.
Also despite all the Mac-addict bullshit about Microsoft and Windows
being bad etc, I really can't imagine that Windows would supply
software which obviosuyl gave such very poor results. Having said that
(and it woudl be worth trying Movie maker again with a Firewire
connection) using Pinnacle (i.e. dedicated software) would be the
choice.
Thanks for the contribution. It has helped. Patrick.