The Energon Pub

Maybe someone can help me understand what's going on. I'm new to movie cameras, so is this normal?

My wife and I recently bought a Sony Handycam DCR-SR200 camera and we're having a lot of problems with it. First of all, we can record (file format is mpeg) and take pictures (file format is jpeg) fine. Downloading to the computer is not a problem, either.

However, the first problem is that we can't view the video files in all software. We tried the files in Windows Media Player, which works fine. But we tried them in Winamp, and the files will play for two seconds (no audio), then freeze the software. I tried other mpegs on Winamp to see if Winamp was the problem, and those others work fine. It's just files from the SR200 that won't work. I use Winamp for pretty much all audio/video doin's on my computer (save for DVDs and maybe a couple of things here and there), so Winamp problem is irksome. My worry is that the files won't work in just about anything except for Windows Media Player, and maybe eventually be fussy about that.


The second problem is that I'm playing around with editing videos,
making montages and whatnot. A new hobby. I'm a newbie, so please bear with me as I may sound totally out-to-lunch here. Anyway, I tried to make a video slideshow in Windows Movie Maker. I know that WMM isn't great--as I said, I'm a newbie, so I'm trying out my new hobby in low-cost or free software at the moment--but it's what I've got right now. When I tried to import an mpeg, WMM couldn't read it; I got an error message. So I used some software to convert it to an avi. I got the same problems with the avi (won't work in Winamp though Winamp never had a problem with avi's before), but now the new avi won't work in Media Player either. I tried it out in Movie Maker, which read it... with problems: suddenly Movie Maker thinks a 4-minute video is 8 hours long. This 8-hour video plays fine for video (4 minutes is 4 minutes), however the audio is so out-of-sync that stuff at the beginning of the video starts playing at about 4:15. Also, when I compiled my movie, the video was grainy and jumpy, no matter what aspect ratio, size, or frames-per-second I converted it from mpeg to avi with. I wasn't using the audio for this particular project, but I'm sure the audio would still be out-of-sync in the compiled version. WMM never had this problem before.

Has anybody had these problems with the camcorder? This is my first camcorder purchase, so maybe this is a problem with the whole technology. But it just seems like such an expensive product shouldn't come with so many limitations and problems. We can still view the videos and pictures, but with such an expensive piece of equipment, all the problems I mentioned above are huge deal breakers. To top it all off, I don't even know which codecs would cause this or fix this. I know I have ffshow on my computer, but that's all I know.

Any ideas?

Wow, if that happened to me I'd be so royally pissed.

Well unfortunately I can't be as helpful as you'd hope, but I can suggest a couple things. It's most likely a problem with your computer, since the camera itself is obviously transfering actual video and photos, as it should. I would guess at maybe a video card issue, or maybe even RAM... but those are guesses.

All I can say though, is Movie Maker hates Codecs. It hates them like crazy. It eats baby codecs for fun. The more codecs you have, the more Movie Maker becomes weighed down, becoming unresponsive and virtually unusable... Sorry I don't have much better to say. Although, if you're running XP Pro or.. I THINK, the Service Pack 2 for it, there's an option to turn on and turn off individual codecs since the problem comes from them conflicting.

I'm still a fair novice though, so if some one wants to correct me/flame my noobishness, that's cool.

I'd look around for help topics online about WinAmp, your Handycam and maybe the formats themselves (wiki them).

First off did the cam come with any PC software? If it did its always worth checking that out,i would have thought that an decent/expensive cam would come with its own software.

There is a player called VLC that will play any video/sound format, a good way to test if a file is broken/corrupted is to try and play it in VLC, if it doesn't play in VLC then you know the file is buggered, and it doesn't get flustered with codexs either (and its free).

I've only used WMM a few times, I'm sure WMM can (or will) only save a finished video as a WMV file.

I know WMP has problems with AVI files anyway, but that can be fixed with a codex.

if you want some free (i mean opensource or freeware, not shareware) programs you can always try Source Forge.

I have found the Sony USA info page on your cam here, it has links to help pages and such.

Yeah, it came with software, and I've been using it. Unfortunately the software only uploads the stuff to my computer. It doesn't help me edit or change formats.

I've been playing with the codecs on my computer and some software, and I think I've got it mostly figured out... minus a few kinks. Never knew using video could be so complicated.

Me, Grimlock! wrote:.....Never knew using video could be so complicated.

Yeah i know a bit about the troubles video conversion and other video related tasks can bring, I have a Mobile, and MP4 player that i put video on, they both came with video conversion software, but they didn't always work, there is a program I've used with a lot of success, its called Mediacoder, its fine for a first time user, but also offers more advanced controls (like audio/video bit rate, file type and file container) and of course its free

it copes with a lot of different files and screen sizes, it even has a extension setting that can convert video for certain devices, like mobiles, Ipods and the like.