# Grainy Video through iMovie..



## Veej (Feb 16, 2006)

I've been transfering video through my 3CCD Panasonic Mini DV via Fire wire but the video is bloody bad, verrry grainy, I tried my freinds brand new mini DV also and the same problem, we are recording on SP mode and the 3CCD cameras are just below the true HD cameras....

I've transfered my analogue video throught Plextor Convert X and Eye TV software and that looks 10 times better, and was via a 8mm tape which would have a resolution of 250 lines and here the Mini DV which has 500 lines looks soo bad. The Analogue stuff looks amazing compared the DV format stuff.

Now I've heard that iMovie does a bad captureing and some people have done the same footage capture through Final Cut Pro and it turned out prisitine...

I have the iMac G5 (with isight built in, the one just before the intel Chip model) with 1.5 GB Ram and enough Hard drive space.

Any experiance with this kind of problem?


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## a7mc (Dec 30, 2002)

Important to note two things:

1- I have the Panasonic 3-CCD camera (though likely one model up from the one you have). The Panasonics are awesome cameras, but VERY (and I mean VERY VERY VERY) bad in low light situations. And by low light, I mean indoors with lights on. The video comes out very grainy. Go shoot some video outside in the sun and see if that helps narrow down the problem.

2- The DV file format (what iMovie uses to import the footage) does not show full resolution until you export. It will always look blocky, like it's lower resolution. BUT FEAR NOT! As soon as you do your final export (say, in H.264 for web, or on DVD) it WILL look better. Try exporting a small clip as full resolution H.264 and see if that alleviates your concerns.

A7


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## Macified (Sep 18, 2003)

I'm not sure I can offer any real help but it sounds to me like you are running a video source into the camera, not actually shooting footage. If that is the case, it doesn't matter how many CCDs the camera has since the video isn't coming in through the lense. Check your cables and your source to make sure you have the best possible input. Hopefully someone here will have some tips for getting the most out of your particular camera.

Good luck.


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## Veej (Feb 16, 2006)

a7mc said:


> Important to note two things:
> 
> 1- I have the Panasonic 3-CCD camera (though likely one model up from the one you have). The Panasonics are awesome cameras, but VERY (and I mean VERY VERY VERY) bad in low light situations. And by low light, I mean indoors with lights on. The video comes out very grainy. Go shoot some video outside in the sun and see if that helps narrow down the problem.
> *
> ...



Thanks for your help guys..

I took in the camera to Apple the guy Mac Genius hooked it up to the iMac and Powerbook and the same footage came out bad..very grainy he was shocked and said maybe the camera but I told him that this is the second Mini DV I tried it on, then he said to look into some other areas like trying it on a PC, I did that and the footage is bad so its clear that the iMovie is ok, and then I tried a new Fire wire cable and still same problem, now I'm gonna try a different brand of tape from Best Buy...maybe the guy I bought the tapes from (small independent store) has a bad batch (I hope this is the real problem)

So slowly I'm narrowing it down...

As mentioned ealier the Panasonic 3 CCD mini DV can't do worse than an 8mm in the same room, can it?


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