video darker when xfered from digital camcorder to vegas

[Edward Troxel]

Since transfer via firewire is a digital copy, you are getting exactly what you recorded. If you do a PTT back to the camera you should see it is identical.

If you are saying it appears darker on your computer monitor, you can’t really go by that. Instead, color/brightness correct when viewing on an external monitor. Computer monitor show things differently. I believe Windows Media Player even has an option somewhere to help adjust for this.

Edward Troxel

[Dan Achatz]

It’s impossible to say what is going on. Here is what I think is happening. Your LCD or Viewfinder on your camera is giving you bad information. It’s probably set too bright. This would explain why when yo uprint to tape it looks closer to what you thought you had.

The only way to tell for sure is to run the playback video out from you camera into a waveform monitor and check the levels that are coming out of you camera.

You need to check this against the waveform monitor in Vegas. This will also tell you if there is a problem with the monitoring out of your computer.

If you do not have access to a waveform monitor. Record color bars in your camera and then bring them in firewire to Vegas. Check the levels on the wave form. The peak of level from the colorbars should be around 100% give or take a few IRE.

If this is what you see then the viewfinder/LCD in your camera is too bright and the camera is not really recording what you see. This is a common prblem for anyone who shoots with LCD’s.

Dan

[Bryan Wells]

Thanks for the advice. I will consider what you have said. It seems to be a bit more than just a monitor issue. When I render the video out to DVD, and play it on my TV, it never looks as bright as it did when I ran the analog video directly from the Sony camera into my TV. And it seems odd that its only the video I see in the capture screen and render from Vegas where the problem is. All my other video looks fine when I view on my monitor. The same goes for photos. Everything I ever view on my computer monitor looks fine except for these low light video clips I transfer from my camcorder. I dont understand how if my monitor is the problem, why it does not show up for other video I view. I will try the calibration test to see if I can see what the image really contains for light and dark.

Bryan

[Bryan Wells]

Can someone suggest the best tool/filter or combination of tools in Vegas that I can use to help improve the IR video I am capturing? I have messed around with several, but it never does much to bring up anything. I realize that if the inforation is not there, nothing can be done to help. But I alawys have a fantasy that there will be some cool plug-in or something that will improve my noisy, poor quality IR video.

Bryan

[Bryan Wells]

I have put up a 20second clip of the IR video. There is a raccoon in the middle of the two trees cleaning itself. Does anyone have any ideas for how I can make this any better? I did apply the color curve to this video to enhance the contrast, but it is basically the raw video directly from my digital camcorder.

https://www.sunkhaze.org/movie/test.wmv

Thanks!
Bryan

[Stephen Mann]

More IR lighting would help.

[Bryan Wells]

Yes, I am going to add more light. Currently, I am using an automobile brake light with an IR filter over the light. I can place more lights for each of the cameras. I am also going to try simply removing the IR filter and just using the red lens of the brake light and see what that does. I am not sure if the animals will notice the red light any more than the IR light, but I am thinking that the red light without the IR filter will emmit more light which the camcorder will recorder better.

[Bryan Wells]

In my IR brake light set up, I am currently covering the red brake light lens with the IR filter, so another option would be for me to remove the red lens and use only the IR fliter. But I am not sure if any of this will help, since the IR light being emitted by the brake light is probably not being reduced by the red lens.

Does anyone have any idea of how the brake light will effect the IR light with respect to using only the IR filter without the red lens or using both the IR filter and the red lens, or not using the IR filter at all and only using the red lens of the automobile brake light?

[Doug Graham]

I’d remove the red lens and just use the IR filter.
The camera is actually more sensitive to IR than to visible red.

Regards,
Doug Graham

[Chris Young]

Bryan ~

Had a look at your clip and yes it was pretty dark. I notice on the WFM that the video level is barely half a volt. Tried the Vegas ‘Colour Corrector’ and used a combination of the ‘Gamma, Gain and Offset’ sliders and came up with a picture that reached one volt. This enabled me to see the little fellow much clearer. Back to us then turning, cleaning, shaking himself then flicking his tail and heading off to the right. Was also able to discern far more detail in the foliage between the two trees/saplings to the right of the critter. Almost see the color of his eyes 🙂 Good luck.

Chris Young
Sydney