I own a Sony HandyCam DCR-TRV260 and when I transfer the footage to my computer it sends it in as really bad quality, reglardless of my program. This wasn't happening a few weeks ago.

Are you saying you haven't changed a thing about how you do it today? You are still using the firewire port to transfer and the video still looks perfect on the camcorders LCD? How about some details on what you are doing, programs you are using and some details about just what you mean by "Bad Quality". How do previously good quality tapes transfer today (good,bad?). You don't have "streaming video" menu item set on the 260?

Dave

If I was to record something you could barely see what was going on.

Everything is fine on the camer'as screen but on the computer it turns to crap. I am using both Windows Movie Maker and Camtasia. This wasn't a problem a few weeks ago

There is no way anyone else can help unless you do some trouble shooting. Try a different computer, would be my first suggestion. The most likely thing that might have happen is that you did some kind of computer upgrade in software and that ruined some software you were using. Through swapping you will have to isolate the problem down to the camcorder, cable or computer.

Dave

I know this is an old thread but I have the same problem and wonder if anyone figured this out. its like the preview is super pixilated and it does it in all my editing software I tred it in Vegas Movie studio, Windows movie Maker and the cheap program that came with the camcorder here is a picture of what it looks like.

Are you using Firewire or USB?

To transfer best quality video from your camcorder to computer you need to use Firewire.


Read this thread: USB vs Firewire (For MiniDV and Digital8 Camcorders)



Rich

I did it with USB it used to work I tried it with all 3 of the cables that fit the camera and all of them look like that. I just orderd a AV cable to USB converter and see if that works.

Ok I found a fairly cheap card I could buy to have a firewire input but the thing is I only have 2 card slots in my tower and they are both full with the nework card and video card is there serial or parallel port adapter to make a firewire work?

An AV cable to USB converter is not going to work.

You need a standard Fire connection on your computer.

I have never seen a desktop style computer with only two slots.




Rich

__________________
FireWire Survey

yea its a low profile Dell

Ask Dell if there is a solution, like perhaps your USB terminals, is there an option to go Firewire IEEE1394 with USB in that area? There are PCI cards which have Firewire and USB. There are some motherboards which have Firewire on them (I doubt this is your case).

Other than that, I guess you are out of luck.



Rich

__________________
FireWire Survey

I can do without the network card I ordered a combination 3 port 2.0 USB and 2 port firewire card. I can hook my DSL modem to one of the new 2.0 USB instead of the network card. Another bonus is my external harddrive will run faster with the new 2.0 USB port.
Thanks for the help.

You could remove the video card and use onboard video instead, I see an unused VGA socket on your photo (left, blue one).

If you are a gamer, your fps will probably drop tenfold, but for standard def video editing and viewing an onboard video chip should be sufficient.

cant remove the video card I use the S-video output to hook to my TV to watch movies and I play games quite often. I will just take out the network card.