Problems Connecting Camcorder To Computer..can Anyone Advise?

[KAZ]

I have a new camcorder which is "HD" and uses SDHC cards. I am having trouble transferring my video onto my PC (which is quite old?) If I connect the camcorder it has managed to upload its built in software but it will not play the vidoes properly (they look purple?) I tried to just put the SDHC card into the computer seperately but this did not work at all?
Sorry I am not very technically minded and not very knowlegable on this...Please can anyone advise? Thanks

[Buenchico]

I suggest starting out by getting a decent media player onto your computer. Download and install either VLC or GOM. (VLC is the media player most widely praised by the technical press; although it's very good, I prefer GOM myself):
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html
or
http://player.gomlab.com/eng/download/
(As usual, you need to download the file and then double-click on it to run the installation program. When asked which file types you want to associate with the program, simply accept the defaults).

Once that's installed, try putting the SDHC card into your computer's card reader again. If nothing happens that doesn't necessarily mean that it's not recognised; go to 'My Computer' and double-click on the icon for the card reader to see if the contents are displayed. (If you just see a folder there, double-click on it to open it; you might also need to do that for a further folder, depending upon how your camcorder stores files). If you don't know which icon is the right one for your card reader, just keep trying them until you get success. (If you click on an icon for the wrong slot you'll simply see a message telling you to insert a card; you can't damage anything!).

If you can access the files that way, double-clicking on one of them should open it in VLC/GOM.

If you can't access the files via your computer's card reader it might be because of a fault with it (or possibly because it doesn't recognise HD cards). Try again with an external card reader plugged into a spare USB port. It won't cost you much!
http://www.poundland.co.uk/product-range/a-z/signalex-multishot-usb-card-reader/

It might also be worth trying the SDHC card with a friend's computer; if the videos still appear purple it suggests that there's either a fault with the camcorder itself or with the settings you've applied to it.

Chris

[soapnumpty]

I had the same problem as you. My PC is about 7 years old and I was trying to transfer video from my new Sony camcorder on to my PC. So Im lead to believe the camcorder records everything at blue-ray quality, but due to the age of my PC I don't have any software on it capable of playing blue-ray quality so when I try to play it on the PC the picture jumps and breaks up.

You could do as Buenchico has suggested and install better software. I was a bit afraid of downloading files from the Internet so I got round it by buying an external DVD writer (about £30 from Amazon) and connecting this up to my PC and copying the video footage from my PC on to DVD's.

I still can't watch the video on my PC but the DVDs play fine on my DVD player.

[KAZ]

From old paperwork I have discovered that my computer was purchased in 2006!!! A friend has suggested it may need a new "Graphics card" or more "Ram"???

[KAZ]

OK.. so today I think I have figured a solution...Everything works fine on my laptop so I used this to burn my clips onto a disc. during this process you can select to convert to DVD-Video. The burned disc will now play on my PC using PowerDVD, Also, by opening the actual files I can now copy them to my PC for back-up. even though I still don't really understand the technology I am hoping that this will be a good long term solution to playing and storing my video footage?