SX40 poor quality videos

[olowkow]

My SX40 has never given very good videos, at any resolution.  I figured it was just the nature of the beast, but I have seen some demos recently on YouTube of videos from SX40 that are phenomenal.  It is 2 years old and never did work like I expected it to.

Is it possible I am doing something wrong?  I tried every possible setting I can think of.  Problems:

• videos are very grainy
• when I move the camera, there is horizontal shimmy or waving in the video when chromcasting, but not on the computer monitor
• the camera seems to jitter or rock subtly vertically as if I am shaking it.  I tried with and without stabilization
• quality is no where near what I have seen on demos on YouTube.  Seems like poor refresh rate, but I don't know how to access this parameter.

Hope someone can help.  Can Canon fix this?  Or should I toss it and try a NIkon?

[smack53]

olowkow,

My experience with video is pretty limited, but I have found that I really need to use a tripod with a very smooth operating head to help eliminate the shimmy/waving effect that you are seeing. Not sure from your description if you are using one or not. As far as the graininess, that sounds like the ISO might be too high or that there isn't enough light available to assist with the camera focusing.

I hope some other members can shed some better insight for you on this.

Steve M.

[John_]

Also you need an SD card of at least Class 6 or higher for good videos.

[olowkow]

Thanks for all suggestions.  Not sure about SD card. No tripod.  Some problems due to low light. I'm doing a lot of experimenting and reading the manual.  One major problem was my conversion from .mov to .mp4.  I got a new converter program, Wondershare, and it makes a huge difference in compression artefacts.  Nearly acceptable now. 80 meg MOV file is 20 meg as MP4, was about 7 meg with the other converter.

Still some problems with Chromecasting mp4 from the SX40, waviness.  Some graininess even in bright sun is still there.  I am testing with 30 f/s instead of the 24 f/s setting, seems to be significantly better when panning.  Very sloow panning, OK.  Fast panning is still very bad, confusing to the eye. I saw a demo of very fast panning, and it was much much better than mine.  Making progress, I think.  I have little expertise in this.

[hsbn]

can you play MOV file directly without converting? Sometimes converting downgrade your file depend on the method.

[olowkow]

Playing .mov into my LG HDTV using HDMI cable results in error, "LG does not recognize Canon audio".  Video looks fair, but no audio.  My conversion to MP4 is definitely a problem.  Using "Downloadhelper" results in very poor quality, highly compressed.  I got trial version of Wondershare works much better. 

I took some video today, full sun. I'll try to get it uploaded to Photobucket. Original MOV has lots of Moiré effects and bad panning.  Just not natural looking.

PS:  I just viewed this .mov video on my LG using Chromecast through Videostream.  This combination works very well for other videos, MP4, flv, M4V etc.  but it makes a mess of my .mov from the SX40, highly compressed, lots of squares for the sky. 

[John_]

You should not be having problems with getting good quality videos and should not need to be messing around with different options..if it is still under warranty I would suggest you have it looked at.

[olowkow]

Here is a sample from today. 1280x720, 30 f/s

http://s1365.photobucket.com/user/Olowkow/media/PBtest001_zps4923089f.mp4.html

On my monitor, I see lots of Moire, some sparkling.  I should have panned more to demo, because it becomes very confusing.  The overall look does not seem right to me.  Again, when chromecasting to my LG, there is lots of buffering and unacceptable compression and waviness, which may not be the fault of the SX40.  However, other videos chromecast very well.  My IPAD video looks better than the SX40.

My SX40 is 2 years old.  I think warranty is 1 year.  I'm just getting around to playing with videos.

[Tim]

Hello Olowkow,

Based on what you describe the issue to be, I would recommend that you attempt to not alter the compression settings when using the third party software.  Their affects cannot be accounted for by Canon.  If the issue persists, and you would like to have the camera evaluated, you can send this in for service. 

You can set up service on our service and support web site, located here.