Posts Tagged Samsung NV24HD

Importing movies from a Samsung NV24HD into iMovie ‘08

Posted by eric in Apple, General Software, Multimedia, iPhone on February 11, 2009

I’ve been using my Samsung NV24HD camera for some time now to capture both standard resolution (640×480) and high definition (720p) video, but recently my wife needed to import one of those movies into iMovie to edit it down in size. To my surprise, even though Quicktime is able to play the MP4 files created by the Samsung camera, iMovie 08 is unable to properly import the videos and just locks up.

Turns out that the MP4 files made by the Samsung NV24HD camera are a of a non-standard H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format. So what’s to do?

Well, if you’re an Apple user (which I assume you are since you’re reading blog entry about iMovie ;) ), then you’re in luck. There’s a tool you can download called ffmpegX which allows you to convert the MP4 files to iMovie compatible MOV MPEG-4 files. In addition, ffmpegx can convert video files to a multitude of formats inlcuding iPod, iPhone and DivX formats. So even if your issue isnt EXACTLY the video files from the Samsung NV24HD camera, ffmpegx is still a great utility to use for video transcoding/covnverting in OSX :)

Screen Shot of ffmpegX

Screen Shot of ffmpegX

The only down side I had to doing this was the time it took to convert. It took over two hours to encode a 25 minute movie at 640×480 on my 2.4ghz Macbook Pro. So if you’re planning to use this method, plan to leave your Mac plugged in for a while.

Also, I’ve yet to try newer iMovie ‘09 which also just may fix this issue. When I’m able to get my hot little hands on a copy of iLife ‘09, I’ll be sure to let everyone know if it works out!

Hope this post is able to help out my fellow Samsung and Apple users out there!

Cheers! :)

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Samsund NV24HD — Choppy High Definiton Video?

Posted by eric in Hardware, Miscellaneous, Multimedia on July 5, 2008

I recently sold my entire DVD collection in order to buy some things I’d actually use around the house. On top of a small upgrade for my desktop computer, I also purchased a new Samsung NV24HD Point and Shoot Camera. I decided that I wanted a Point and Shoot in addition to my SLR because it seemed silly lugging around a giant camera and lens when going to simple events such as a friends birthday party.

One of the selling points for me on the Samsung NV24HD was the fact that it was able to capture high definiton video in 720p (1280×720, MPEG-4 H.264). Combine this with the 16GB Transcend SDHC memory card I bought to use with it, and I now had a point and shoot camera AND an HD video camera that could record over five hours of HD content.

After a couple test trials using my cat among other things, I started to notice when playing back the files using Quicktime on my computer that the video seemed fairly choppy and also the audio would drop out and then come back from time to time.

My first suspect was the memory card thinking that it might not be fast enough to record the video. But the Transcend 16GB SDHC card I purchased was certified Class 6 SDHC (guaranteed minimum 6mbps), which is the fastest you can buy for SDHC cards, so that couldn’t be the issue.

I then tried perhaps using another computer to play back the file, so I fired up my wife’s Black MacBook and used Quicktime on her machine. I had the same issue of choppy playback (at the beginning of the file) as well as the audio dropping out at the same points.

I suspect one of three things:

  1. This is an incompatibility with the MP4 files generated by the NV24HD and Quicktime, which I should probably e-Mail and ask Samsung about.
  2. It’s an issue with the memory card I’m using not being able to keep up with the recording device and thus losing data while recording video.
  3. It’s an issue with the NV24HD itself or an issue with the hardware encoder that’s used to compress the H.264 video stream.

I imagine it takes a bit of CPU power to compress video to 720p real time, and it’s evident on the NV24HD because after shooting continuous video for over five minutes the camera gets noticeably warmer.

ANYWAYS, if you have experienced this issue or have some ideas for a remedy I’m all ears :)

Cheers! :)

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