But... it's an HV20! Why does it looks like crap!

[ericslovechild]

So, for the first time ever, I plugged my Canon HV20 into my brand new iMAC with a firewire 1384 cable, taking in some footage I took during the holidays. However, when I imported the footage into iMovie, the footage was all snowy. It looked like it was taken in via A/V cables. Does anyone know why this would happen? I noticed an HDMI port underneath the firewire port. Do I need an HDMI cable to take in HD footage?

[NaziActionFigure]

What do you mean by snowy? It might be your capture settings. Was it fresh tape? Do you have an HDMI cable?

[Doctor Webley]

During the holidays, might it have been snowing?

But I think you would get better transfer of HD data through the HDMI, just a hunch.

[ericslovechild]

By snowy I mean like a bad cable connection. Lots of video noise.

[WesScog]

Yea, that wouldn't be caused by the camera, play it back IN your camera. If you don't see it it's probably some capture settings.

[KMProductions]

HDMI is a video transfer like the VGA cable aur the white, red, and yellow cables. I don't think that HDMI is a data transfer cable. I'm not sure if you can import with that. They put HDMI inputs on DVD players and the newer Xbox 360's.

[Crosius]

Could you be using the wrong pull-down settings? Doesn't the HV20 synthesize it's progressive frames from interlaced information on the tape?

I found some information here (http://hv20.com/archive/index.php?t-2035.html), here (http://hv20.com/archive/index.php?t-2391.html), that seem to suggest interlacing noise can result with the wrong pull-down settings.

This note (http://hv20.com/archive/index.php?t-4537.html) suggests using a product called JES Deinterlacer to grab HV20 footage.

[FreshMentos]

Could it be from iMovie? It's doesn't support HD. Even though it's called iMovie HD, it only supports HD pics. Try using Final Cut Express.

[NaziActionFigure]

Could it be from iMovie? It's doesn't support HD. Even though it's called iMovie HD, it only supports HD pics.
Wrong.

[BROKEN Productions]

ya u loss quality using imovie

[forkazoo]

Whenever you post with strange image problems, posting an image of the problem is almost always very helpful.

First step - play back on just the camera, or with the camera plugged into a TV. Does it look terrible, or does it look fine? This will let you decide if the problem is with the camera or the computer.

If it is something the camera recorded, you may have used a bad tape. HDV on a crappy tape can look terrible. If it is a problem with the computer, try fiddling with your capture settings, or using something else to capture and see if that helps.

[Dream_Academy]

On the "Firewire" vs "insert other here" portion of this thread, Firewire is a digital transfer medium not an analog medium. You can't lose any quality by default from using firewire.

However, your capture settings in your software program will effect the resampling of the media. Always capture\recapture in the most lossless format\codec available to you.

If you're editing it's generally good practice not to capture footage in any highly compressed format, especially audio. Uncompressed Avi and uncompressed PCM audio give the best editing accuracy and the fewest over-all problems, the trade-off being that you need a lot of drive space to hold the data.

Anyways, firewire itself isn't responsible for your loss of quality. Check your capture settings in imovie and check your record settings on your Canon 20. Those are the most likely culprits.

Additional note: All Cameras\Camcorders are light hungry. They require many times the ammount of light to capture a decent image than our own eyes do. If you're shooting a poorly lit scene\event, expect a lot of grain\noise to come through in the footage.

[dimaxx]

HV20 does NOT include firewire cable. too bad!
I got my for 15$ with golden connectors.
http://www.d-living.de/images/products/images/8000003561.jpg

[glmclainmovies]

ya u loss quality using imovie
wie u no tawk rite?