When I try and save captured .avi files to an external drive they won’t play back correctly. I am using Corel Video Studio 5 for the capture and editing. I am using a Panasonic PV-GS320 Mini DV camera. If I save the clip to either of my 2 external drives (WD Passport or Maxtor One Touch 4) when I play them it’s jittery and audio is garbled and in slo- mo. If I save the clip to the Video Studio library or to the computer hard drive they work fine but soon as I try and move it to the external drives I lose the quality. I am using Windows 7 pro on a dell laptop that is relatively new. Any ideas?

Btw- I tried loading the old (5-6 years) Panasonic software to my new (6 months) computer but the install gives me an error that it cannot install on the computter operating platform. Assuming this is a new system not configured for the old Panasonic software. Any way to upgrade the Panasonic software so it might work on the new Dell?

Obviously I’m not very computer literate but want to make this work!

TIA

Steve Scherrer

How is the external drive hooked up? USB sometimes struggles with video streams. As well, what "spin" is the drive? 5400 rpm isn't as "robust" as 7200 rpm for stream playback. Also, if the video file is "strewn" across the drive due to high percentage of space on the drive, it may struggle.

yeah it's usb. funny I do have an old laptop hard drive that I use for external storage that actually works correctly. it's usb too. how do you acquire the "spin" rate? I tried it with a 512 mb flash drive/ memory stick that doesn't work either.

steve

yep. I finally figured it out. It was a 4 way USB hub that I was using! d'uh.........when I plug it in solo....no problem. The one drive that did work is on the right side of the computer and got plugged in solo. Fuunny the wife figured it out!

steve

Panasonic's last update for drivers was in 2007 for vista, but might work: Pansonic Product Support - PV-GS320 (http://shop.panasonic.com/shop/model/PV-GS320?t=downloads&support) The Motion DV studio software is here: http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/vSupportDownloadDetail?storeId=15001&idval=UCM_STG_CNT_029914 It has a 2007 date for windows xp2, appears to be the last update available.

Keep in mind there are several USB flavors... if you've got anything USB 1.0 in there, it'll choke (like an old hub, maybe?).

Video will stutter if anything is below par, and anytime you mix "older" with "new", you have to make sure each component in the chain is fast enough.