After loading video clips from camcorder to laptop, the playback is jumpy?

Sunshine 1

but not when played back on the camcorder. What do I do?
I am using a Praktica DVC 5.5 HDMI with resolution options of 1080 720 WVGA and QVGA. The laptop is a Compaq presario CQ70 (windows vista). Hope this is helpful. Great to get help so quickly after a long time trying to work things out on my own!

Answer
Hi Stephen, and welcome to Yahoo!Answers: [UPDATE -- see below]

As a brief Answer to your first post here, most laptops are NOT well-suited for trying to edit & playback HD video. Consumer HD video tends to be highly-compressed, and that takes a lot of mathematical algorithms & processing power to decode & playback.

Professional video editors spend thousands of dollars on extra-RAM, multi-core processors, and super-fast external hard drives (to keep the main boot & software drive from thrashing around needlessly). Some editing setups have dedicated hardware accelerators just to handle the HD video compression & de-compression needed for real-time edit & rendering playback.

Your camcorder has the equivalent of hardware encoders/decoders to handle smooth playback of footage. This is stuff your laptop has to try to do in software, along with everything else you might have running in the background.

Without knowing what kind (Mac or PC & which OS version) of laptop you have, and which processor and RAM amounts, etc., I can't guess at your "bottleneck" without more info from you. Most Windows machines require a good DirectX 9 (or higher) compatible video card with plenty of video-RAM to run HD video codecs without "hiccups". Laptops tend to scrimp on video card specs. And telling us exactly what brand & model # camcorder you use also will help.

A quick workaround is to set your camcorder to record in standard-def (640x480 VGA), if it has that menu option. The results will run smoother, and look just fine for YouTube and other online projects. Most modern camcorders will also have standard-def 16:9 widescreen settings to allow that "HD look" but still use standard def bandwidth.

Feel free to update your Question with more info on your hardware & software setup, using the "Additional Details" link on the Action Bar below your Question. (Mouse-over the "pencil icon" Edit menu.) This Q&A will remain open for at least 4 days for updates & responses.

hope this helps,
--Dennis C.

[UPDATE edit] Thanks for the details. Your Praktica DVC is basically a German combo camcorder/still-camera that shoots H.264-compressed video in both 1080p & 720p HD, as well as widescreen (WVGA, 800x480) and email-friendly QVGA (320x240) standard def files in QuickTime ".MOV" format. The H.264 codec can be the hardest for some computers to deal with (files are highly-compressed). Make sure you have the latest Apple QuickTime 7 for Windows update (free at Apple.com). You can also update to QuickTime Pro for $29, which will give you more options (converting & simple editing) dealing with H.264 files.

Your laptop has a 2GHz dual-core Pentium (mobile version chip), and came with 3Gigs of memory (and 1.2Gigs of video RAM) -- not bad and not great. The stock hard drive only spins at 5400RPM, which is kinda slow for shuffling HD video files. Adding more RAM and changing to a faster hard drive are about the only speed-up options you have in a laptop. Close out all other apps and background processes (turn off updates, etc.) when you're dealing with HD video.

Windows Movie Maker (WMM) won't "natively" handle H.264 (or any Quicktime files, for that matter), but you can download Real Networks' free RealPlayer & RealPlayer Converter, which should play your video files much better (as well as convert them to .WMV format, for WMM to be able to edit & play). See link in my Sources below.

You might find that WVGA widescreen videos are better-handled by your laptop & software, and will still give you that big screen look. The file sizes will also be smaller than 1080p or 720p HD.
--DC
 

Best/top pc laptop for video/photo editing?

Dejadthisv

So, my mac was having issues for months. When I went in to the apple store they told me it would cost me $1400 to get my still under warranty MacBook fixed. I was very unhappy, to say the least. I have sworn off all apple products. I've been looking for a new computer for almost a month now (thank heavens for smart phones). I finally found one I liked for what I use my computer for, which is video, photo and music editing. The computer I wanted was the Asus n56vm ab71. As it would go, the week before I planned to purchase it, it sold out. My next choice was also an Asus, the a53sd ts71. Alas, the same thing happened. My next choice was the Levono Y580. I found it on amazon, the next day I went to by it, it was gone. I've been without a computer for almost a month now. I'm dying; if I didn't have a smart phone I don't know what I would've done. I need a computer for my job. I just want one that will be good for all my editing needs. I'm also on a budget and can't really afford to pay more than $1000. Thanks in advance for any assistance provided.

Answer
Dell Precision Mobile Workstations are on deep discount.
Get this and upgrade to i7. It has an NVIDIA® Quadro® 2000M
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=bwct72b&model_id=precision-m4600&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04


You could go Lenovo SLI for $900
http://www.techbargains.com/news_displayItem.cfm/335575

With i7 for $1049
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834312439

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But the Quadro 2000M has better scores for Video Editing Programs. Better than the gaming SLI setups.
Look at SPECviewperf 11 Scores for Catia Ensight Lightwave Maya etc.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-650M-SLI.84953.0.html
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-Quadro-2000M.47316.0.html

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