Intova SP1 Question

[AZRyan]

I am a complete and utter noob at videography and just bought an SP1. I installed a PNY 32GB Class 4 card and tried it out in the backyard pool at 1080p. Picture quality is good, but playback in Quicktime is jerky, i.e. there appears to be a loss of several frames every second or so. Is it the card or Quicktime or...?? Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated!

 

[iluvtheocean]

for HD video 720 or 1080 i would use a Class 10 since they have a higher throughput. this applies to SD based video whether it's underwater or above.
-- playback issue though could also be computer related

 

[andrethediver]

I am using 32GB Sandisk class 4 mSD card with SP1 with no problems. I have not used Quicktime to watch the *.mov files though - Windows Media Player plays 1080p files just fine. Either your issues are computer performance related or try using WMP (whatever version comes with Windows 7).

 

[IntovaJoe]

HiAZRyan,
ForHD videos, class 6 or 10 SD card is strongly recommended since they have higherread/write speeds while class 4 cards can significantly slow camera operation.
Regards,
Joe

 

[AZRyan]

I appreciate the responses, and have been doing some more troubleshooting. Although my TV is not HD, there is no skipping or stop motion when I play it through the TV, so I think the card is OK. My wife's notebook will play it with slight stop motion in WMP. My PC plays it with skips (as if frames are missing) about every one second in Quicktime and Realplayer. I am currently getting rid of a bunch of crap on the PC, turns out the D drive is almost full (how does that happen?) Again, thanks for the input.

 

[diversteve]

The Intova saves video in H.264 files. That requires some horsepower on the PC side. Since it plays thru the TV acceptably, that leads me to think that's your issue.

Tell us about your PC:

Processor/Processor Speed
How much RAM memory
Drive Speed
Video Card model/installed RAM.

What version of Quicktime?
What version of Windows?
Are all the Service Packs installed?
What version of WMP?

Also are you reading the SD card thru a card reader - via USB? Or directly from the Camera? Do you have other devices that are also USB? Sometimes you'll see skipping like that when another device polls the USB bus simultaneously. Try moving the files to the faster drive on your PC. Free Drive space shouldn't really be a factor unless you're running XP with limited ram as it will swap to the drive as needed.

It could also be a codec but I kind of doubt it. There are free codec upgrade packs you can download to ensure that you have the latest. I like this one: Free-Codecs.com : Download K-Lite Codec Pack 8.8.9 FULL : K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs and related tools

 

[AZRyan]

diversteve, I think processor speed/RAM is 2.3GB/3.0G, system is Vista Home Premium; I have been downloading the files to the desktop before playing.

I spent about four hours yesterday messing around and the problem appears to the .MOV format that the files download in. If I convert the format to .WMV it plays just fine in WMP, although with degraded resolution. Before I was forced to quit for the evening, I also tried .MPG (not sure I have that right) in RealPlayer with even better results. So I think it is all format/player related.

What do you guys recommend for (free) software for a file converter, player, and basic video editing?

...and thanks again for all the help!

 

[diversteve]

There really isn't a good free Windows editor besides Movie Maker.

You can get one of the top prosumer video editors - Vegas Movie Studio HD 11 for $35 currently on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Creative...DAL8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1338955026&sr=8-2

For file conversion I've used this previously - it's free. Has a lot of output options also. Free Video Converter: convert video files easily, AVI FLV WMV MP4 MKV MOV converter. It won't degrade the files during conversion afaik - if it has, I've never noticed it.

For no specific reason I'm not a big fan of Realplayer - I don't even have it installed. I use Windows Media Player with the Divx codec - or rarely Quicktime. VLC Player gets good reviews - I've tried it - and later uninstalled it since I never seemed to use it. It's free from the big download sites.

 

[AZRyan]

Just installed the DivX package and the original .MOV files run beautifully on the DivX player, so PROBLEM SOLVED!

Thanks again, Steve - I will look into your other software recommendations.