Samsung HMX-Q10 video choppy when uploaded to iMovie, HELP!

So, my 14 year old loves making videos with his friends. We got him a nice camera for Christmas in the Samsung HMX-Q10.

When he pulls it in to IMovie to edit, it is VERY choppy. All the research I did on the web suggested this camera would work great on a Mac. Now he's really discouraged and I'm pretty frustrated. Seems pretty ridiculous to me that we are even having this issue.

Is it the Camera?
Is it the program?
Is it the speed/memory/etc. of the computer?
Is the affordable Mac program out there that will either convert to an easier format or that he can use like iMovie?

My Computer info is as follows:

iMac
Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed 2 GHz
# of Prcessors 1
# of cores 2
L2 Cache 4MB
Memory 1 GB
Bus Speed 800 MHz

If the system is too slow, can I make this computer faster?

You help is appreciated.

Same exact problem. Choppy, jumpy, wholly unviewable. Occurs whether or not image stabilization is used and occurs unpredictably within any given filming session. It renders this videocam worthless unless I want to rejoin the PC world.

Using iMovie '09 8.0.6

MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro6,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i5
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Processor Interconnect Speed: 4.8 GT/s

I too would appreciate any help.

Well, let's look at what we've got here. One of you is using an Intel Core2Duo (a bit on the slow side, and really not enough RAM) and the other is using a machine with plenty of RAM and a throughly modern processor.

Yet you are both having the same problem. To my mind, this makes it unlikely that the problem is the computer (saving said that admanforosu, seriously you need to bump up that iMac to at least 2GB of RAM).

You could test this by importing into a different program to see if the problem is replicated, say a demo of Adobe Premiere elements or something like that. If it does, then it's most likely to be the camera or the card its using.

Have you tried shooting at rates lower than full HD to see if the problem goes away?

Thanks, chas. I have done some more homework. I downloaded videos from the Samsung HMX-10 onto my wife's brand new iMac (specs below). The video remains choppy, jumpy, unuseable. So you were right that the computers are not the issue. I downloaded as "Large" rather than full-size, with no resulting difference. Then I exported the file to QuickTime and opened it (after 15 minutes of export) and all clips are still just as jumpy as before.

Frustrating to spend almost $300 on a videocam and not be able to use it. I admit (as have others) that the box says it's not designed for Macs, but there were many citations on the internet saying that the camera would work fine with a Mac.

On the wife's machine I was using:

iMovie 9.0.4


Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac12,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i5
Processor Speed: 3.1 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Boot ROM Version: IM121.0047.B1D

My first thought was to get my son to film in 720p as opposed to full 1080i. Of course, his sense of urgency is that of a 14 year old so he has yet to get me what I need to test it at 720p. That said, I found that my hard drive (250G) only has 5G available, so I purchased a 2 TB HD and bought 4G of memory. Everything is installed and I am currently in the process of restoring from Time Machine.

The problem is, once it finished the restore and rebooted, the screen went from blue to the galaxy pic to blue to the galaxy pic, etc. I turned it off and on again and got the same thing. I am re-installing the OS disk but I am wondering if I should be re-installing from the snow leopard upgrade disk and not the OS disk that came with the computer? (sorry, this is another problem all together).

Once I get this figured out, the first thing I will do is see if the 720p recording works better. I'm also going to get my work laptop out (PC) and see if I have issues.

I've also called Samsung and after getting to a second tier tech rep, they "allegedly" have a product team testing a Q10 video on an iMac trying it on iMovie. Supposedly, they are to get back to me within 24-28 business hours. I talked to them Saturday after I posted.

Lovely of them to finally get around to testing their product on an iMac. Wonder what would have happened if they'd bother to do this before releasing it?

The customer service rep even told me it was supposed to work on a Mac even though they did not have software for it. With it being an MPeg4 file, it makes no sense to me.

I finally got everything updated. My Memory is now 4G and my HD is 2 TB as opposed to having 245G of 250G being used. The machine is flying much faster almost like I got a new computer.

I opened up a couple of the files directly from the camera in QT and they were better, but still a little off from the sound. Again, these are full 1080 files. I am currently trying to upload a few of the files as "Large" files and also under optimization, we set it at stabalized instead of stabalized and people.

We are going to shoot some 720p vids tomorrow and see what the results are.

I called Samsung this morning to see if there was an update and their 24-48 hour window of help didn't start until today because I talked to them on the weekend. They are telling me it will be Wednesday. I let him know I have upgraded my memory and HD and that I tested it in 720 and it was STILL choppy. I expressed my continued disgust with whatever it is they have done to these files and he said he was going to send me to a higher tiered tech right away but one was not available and they would have someone call today. That was 2 hours ago. I'm not holding my breath.

I;m too impatient to sit around and not get answers so I turned off the OIS Duo function and recorded in 1080 and in 720, imported both as Large files. The 1080 was still choppy, BUT... the 720 looked and sounded fine. The video was about 40 seconds, so we recorded a 4 minute video in 720 with OIS Duo off and it too was fine.

Then, I had my son edit the video with music and clips of other videos and add effects. He made ab out a minute long video and it worked fine.

Finally, we recorded about a 20 video with the Western effect on the camer in 720 with OIS Duo OFF and it worked fine after uploading.

All that said, it seems to me that there is some coding in the OIS Duo that could be causing issues when reading the mpeg4 file. The 720 will get us by, but I'm still very frustrated that I cannot utilize the full capabilties of the camera and go full 1080. One more thing, the 1080 is a 1080p, not 1080i. The 720 is also p.

I'd still like to get resolution to all this if there can be any. Would love to see it used the way it should be.

Someone else try recording without OIS duo on in both 1080 and 720 and let me know what you find out. Maybe those who have a faster processor might be able to get the 1080 to work with OIS Duo off.

By the way, turn OIS Duo off by clicking the Home button next to the touch screen, then hit settings. It should be on that screen.

Thanks for the update. Will work on duplicating your experiments this weekend. Have you heard from Samsung yet?

No word from Samsung yet. I plan on calling them today when their customer service dept opens.

Let me know how your experiments go.

I have this problem since i started using my Samsung HMX s10. i also experience this on my Mac Pro (an upgraded 1.1, specs below) when i import my .mp4 files into imovie '11 and optimize them to original format (convert them to .mov) when i preview these files in imovie they're a-ok but as soon as i export the files to a movie (does not matter if i choose 1080, 720 or large) the result is always jerky like mentioned in this threat.

i read somewhere else this might have to do with the 50p HD format being converted to 25p, 50i or whatever, things like frames beiing dropped' does someone have a clue if that could be the issue?

My Mac specs: Mac Pro 1.1
2 x Intel Xeon 'cloverwood' 5345 @ 2,33Ghz (so there are 8 threads shown in activity monitor)
16 Gb FB-Dimm RAM
160G SSD startup disk
2Tb RAID 0 data disk
OS-X 10.6.8
Imovie ´11

Do not "Import from Camera". Instead choose "Import" and then "Movies" and choose the file from the SD card. This solved the problem for me.