I am trying to connect my Handycam cx675 to my Macbook 10. It connects and looks fine in the viewfinder, but when I try to use it on my editing software (both movavi and wondershare filmora) the picture is grainy. I can't figure out how to fix it. I don't have this problem with the built in web cam. I have an older Macbook 10,17.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Original Title: Grainy camcorder image
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15
There are two 13" MacBook Pros whose model IDs begin with "MacBookPro10,".
MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012) - Technical Specifications - Apple Support
MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2013) - Technical Specifications - Apple Support
Both have a 720p FaceTime HD camera. 720p = 1280x720 pixels – less than a megapixel.
That is lower than the resolution of your camcorder's sensor – but higher than the resolution that you'd get from either a NTSC signal or a PAL signal. (On DVD-Video discs, NTSC video is encoded as 720x480 pixels.)
I believe the issue is that the sensor in that camcorder is not all that good by today's standards. According to that camcorder's user manual, it records video in NTSC or PAL format. Even if we associate HDMI mostly with HDTVs, and with monitors, those are lower-resolution formats from before the HDTV era.
An online user manual contained these specifications:
Image device:
3.1 mm (1/5.8 type) CMOS Sensor
Recording pixels (photo, 16:9): Max. 9.2 mega pixels
Gross: Approx. 2 510 000 pixels
Effective (movie, 16:9)*4: Approx. 2 290 000 pixels
Effective (photo, 16:9): Approx. 2 290 000 pixels
Effective (photo, 4:3): Approx. 1 710 000 pixels
An APS-C sensor would have a diagonal measurement of about 28 mm. A 35mm full-frame sensor would have a diagonal measurement of about 43 mm. So you can see that this camcorder's sensor is very tiny compared with those on dedicated "system" cameras. The less sensor area there is to collect light, the more likely it is that there will be noise due to inability to collect enough of it.
All of the effective resolutions are just a little bit above – or a little bit below – 2 megapixels.
Small sensors do allow for smaller lenses (including lenses with very wide zoom ranges), which probably one of the reasons Sony chose to use such a small sensor.
I appreciate everyone's responses. But I do remmber using the same camcorder with the same Mac 4 years ago, and some of them were even recorded in 4k...and even before that, the images were much clearer than those with the web cam. I even used an extermal mike to record my voice simultaneously. And now, four years later, I can't remember how I got it done. I used both Movavi and Wondershare FIlmora as my editing software.
https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/res/manuals/4585/45856311M.pdf
I may have missed something when skimming the manual before. The manual does mention NTSC and PAL, but that' probably refers to the signal format available on the analog (RCA) video output jack.
The camcorder can record videos in AVCHD and MP4 formats. It has a memory card slot (check manual for the types of cards it accepts), and a "Multi / Micro USB" terminal. So maybe you transfer videos by moving memory cards from the camcorder to a computer card reader, or by connecting the camcorder to a computer via USB.
I forgot to add a ccouple of things. I am connecting it to myt computer using a micro HDMI to HDMI, which is connected to an HDMI video capture USB.
Grainy image when using Handycam cx675 with MacBook Pro
