video up load/editing.

I am having trouble with my uploads. I film with a sony handy cam dv dcr-hc20. It does what I need for now. When I plug it into the tv, it is crystal clear. when I up load on to my computer using the sony suplied soft wear, no mater what capture rate I try, it looks bad. Is my computer too slow to keep up with the camera, is my syncing soft wear not set up right? Do I have to set my camera some how? Also I have been editing with the standard windows movie maker, And it is ok, but If I can figure out how to make my vid quality better, I want to edit with better soft wear. Any good free ones, or cheap ones?

Your computer display is an RGB progresssive device and the video playing out of the camera to your TV is YUV analog. Even if you digitize your video using firewire (a lossless transfer) your computer still has to transcode your video for display on screen. So even with highend software like final cut pro on the Mac you're still only going to see what's called a proxy in the video business.

If you want to edit and see your video in full quality connect your camera to your computer via firewire and your TV or video monitor to your camera's analog port (like you do now to playback) set your camera to play through and if your software supports playing video out via firewire you'll see full res video on your TV while you edit.

If you don't want to go to that trouble just import (digitize) your video, edit it and then online it back to tape via firewire and then play it back on your TV, I'll bet you see the same quality you saw on your raw footaage.

I am puzzled by your statement about "capture rates" though. You're shooting with a DV camera and there should only be one transfer rate and that's full via firewire. If you are not capturing via firewire (sony calls the port ilink or DV) then you're not doing things the right way. If you can sepecify the data rate then you're capturing either analog or to a different codec and that's no good.

Get yourself a firewire card (if you don't already have a FW port) and import via WMM.

Ok. Sorry im such a noob. If I try to emport through wmm it says I dont have a capture device. So I need to plug my camera to a seprate device? then into the computer? I am using the cable that was sugested for use. It goes into my usb. Is that the problem?

yep. do what rich suggested. get a firewire card and cable and capture files that way.

I assume the card is similar to an eathernet card?

If you're using USB and capturing live therein lies your problem. I'm pretty sure that's only good for capturing to some weird ultra-compressed format. Sony does stuff like that on the consumer level. (not sure why)

Other names for firewire are 1394A, iLink, DV. I believe they are relatively cheap cards for PC's and FW is built-in to just about any Mac built after 2000.

You shouldn't need a separate device just a firewire cable (probably 6 pin - computer to 4 pin - camera) and of course the card if your PC doesn't already have one.

just like rich said, you usually can only upload pictures and ultra compressed video which sucks. Firewire isn't very expensive, check newegg for a cheap pci firewire card and a cheap firewire cable. don't buy from a retail store, you'll be charged 30-40 bucks for a cable.