Hi,

New to the forum and new to camcorders.

I like to upload videos of all sorts of stuff to my Youtube account. I currently just use the video recorder on my Digital Camera (Sony DSC-T5). But I'm wanting a proper video camera, because I want better quality etc.

I am going to be buying the Sanyo Xacti VPC-TH1. (The specs look good for what I need. My budget is tight, £250 max... and this is currently going for £199).

Anyway, I see that the Sanyo Xacti VPC-TH1 is HD (720p, not the best I know, but ok for me) and records videos in 'MPEG-4 AVC/ H.264' format. The thing is, the video files I create now with my Sony camera, I edit in Windows Movie Maker (on Vista)... because the Sony saves as .MOV (I think). I like Windows Movie Maker, and I am very used to it. Alot of people say it's not very good, well for me it is... it's simple to use and has all the functions I want (I think). I like to create titles at the start and throughout the video, credits at the end, add pictures, cut out parts of the video I don't want and delete them... and I feel WMM is FINE for this and is so easy to use. But, I have found out that WMM doesn't support MPEG-4 files!

So, if I get a video file converter and convert my HD/MPEG-4 video to a file that does open in WMM, will I lose video quality? When it comes to saving the edited video, what format is best to save it as in WMM?

I'd prefer not to lose quality, or if I have to then not too much. Because the whole purpose of buying the new camera was to be able to upload better looking/quality videos to Youtube than I have so far.

I know there are plenty of other video editing software and they work with HD videos, but these do cost and I like the fact that WMM is free, lol, (I am willing to pay, but my budget is tight... and I find it frustrating when software is too hard for me to use).

So far I have downloaded the trial versions of Adobe Premiere Elements 8, and AVS Video Editor. Out of the two, I found the AVS ALOT easier to use... I gave up with the Adobe Premiere Elements 8, way too confusing for ME. The AVS is not too hard to navigate around, but trying to add a title at the beginning, in the middle etc is a nightmare and NOTHING like WMM... I don't like it.

I'd love to be able to upload better quality videos to my Youtube, but I am sorry to say, I cannot live without my WMM! and hope that if I convert my HD/MPEG-4 file to .MOV or .WMV etc I wont lose quality.

I also just downloaded AVS Video Converter. I converted a HD video to WMV, it took 55 minutes to convert a 2 minute video!? So if that was a 10 minute, or longer HD video it could take 4+ hours? All this HD stuff seems like alot of grief.

Thanks

Well I decided to try it out and see. I imported the HD/MPEG-4 video into WMM 6 on my brothers Vista PC. It worked? why was everyone telling me it wouldn't?

Anyway, I can edit it fine and all that. But trying to get it to Play in in the preview screen on WMM (so I can find parts I want to edit/delete and where to add titles etc) isn't good. It plays really slow, judders, starts, stops and so on. Is this because of the PC spec? Do you need a relatively high spec PC to be able to play/edit HD videos?

I can play the video absolutely fine in Quick Time, runs smoothly, just how it should. When I play it in Windows Media Player, it plays the same as in WMM, slow, judders and starts and stops.

Yes you need a good spec PC to play HD video.

__________________
Every thing said by me should be taken with a pinch of salt. Unless you have high blood pressure, then I would recommend a salt substitute.

Hi Chrystal,

I'm not a MM user, so not sure if this is going to help you - but as far as I know the HD capability in MovieMaker comes with Vista Premium or Ultimate versions. I assume you're running one of those.

If you still have problems I would suggest checking out Windows Live Movie Maker. It's free and very easy to use (works on Vista and Windows 7).

Videoauthor

Hi Chrystal,

I see you are in the UK, which uses PAL 25fps as it's standard, now I have never used a Sanyo Xacti VPC-TH1 but was very interested in them until I couldn't see a PAL 25 fps version in New Zealand it seems they all use the NTSC standard at 30fps, this will not matter if you have a multi standard TV it will happily play 30fps the problem arises if you want to play them at 25fps then you have to convert them and to do that the converters drop every 5th frame, unless you can afford a very expensive standards converter.

I am in the process of editing some video from a Sanyo that has already been edited into the PAL standard and when I checked the file it says's currently 25fps original 30fps, so trying to incorporate it into a PAL video with 2 other PAL HD cameras has caused me many hours of frustration as I can't get it to look anything but jittery from the Sanyo.

Bryan

Hi Videoauthor, I think it's Premium so that must be why.

I'll have a look a the WLMM thank you.

Hi Bryan,

Thank you for your reply. I have no idea about TV's or compatibility with camers etc. I don't plan to play my videos from my camcorder on my TV anyway, so the issue you explained wont be a problem for me.

I will only be uploading them to the PC, editing them and maybe uploading to Youtube.

My only issue at the moment is finding the right PC that has the right specs to play/edit HD easily and smoothly.