Sony HDR-CX240 low light problem after recording

[lightsaver5]

I filmed in low light probably not using a setting which I should have used i.e. low lux?

Is there any software that I could use that is free and suitable for Microsoft Windows from which I could increase brightness without wrecking video quality? I am using the mp4 files for my output. I appended the files in Windows MovieMaker adding a 14 minutes mp4 file to a 1 hour 30 minutes mp4 one.

[IamNic]

Hello @lightsaver5,

highly unlikely. As the camera records compressed video (as oppose to raw video as overly expensive professional cameras), everything that is black is black and everything that is white is white, so you can't recover information which is too dark or too well illuminated. You can try to increase the gamma slightly, but it will only amplify the noise in the video.

- Nic

[lightsaver5]

That doesn't look to promising...

I tried to make a few adjustments in both Handbrake and MovieMaker but nothing worked.

I wonder if there is another free or open source video editing app I could try, even if only to satisfy my frustration?...

[lightsaver5]

I will partly answer my own question.

My mistake was not to use the Sony PlayMemories Home application. I should not have copied the files from the SD Card myself and tried to append them together using other software.

The files were imported through the Camcorder and now I have a single 12GB M2TS file and a single 2GB MP4 file, each with a total running time of 1 hour and 44 minutes.

The M2TS file is very high quality and some low light issues have been minimized. However, it looks like the M2TS file will need to be converted to MP4 for editing. I am not sure it is possible that this will be 'lossless' within PlayMemories Home or other software.

Nevertheless this is a good start.

[IamNic]

Hello @lightsaver5,

just to clarify - the singular "clips" you got off your card should have the same quality the one single .m2ts file has, right? The issue you experienced was therefore caused by the export settings of the editing software you used to "stich" the clips together most likely, right?

Glad to hear, that the "source file" retains better quality than what you tried to work with after stiching.

What editing software do you use? I personally highly recommend the Magix programs - while they are not free, they are a single time purchase - if you select "new purchase" from the dropdown menu on their website - and offer very good compatibility with Sony camera formats and file extensions. The team which makes "Movie Edit Pro" (the "amateur" version of their editing software) is the same that makes/made Sony Vegas in the past on a sidenote.

You can also use the free version of "DaVinci Resolve", yet I personally never liked the user interface and the structure of the program.

I myself use Magix Video Pro X to edit all my footage, but that is probably beyond what you would be willing to pay.

- Nic

[lightsaver5]

just to clarify - the singular "clips" you got off your card should have the same quality the one single .m2ts file has, right? The issue you experienced was therefore caused by the export settings of the editing software you used to "stich" the clips together most likely, right?

Absolutely right. I must have wasted two days trying to extract and stitch these files together and I have not been feeling well on top of it!

In fact no application has worked as well as PlayMemories Home for this purpose from an old Application file (.exe) I had (which upgraded to the new version) and not from this link. However I have to link the Camcorder (of course with the SD Card attached) to my computer with a USB connection and then there are options to import the files in to a selected folder of your choice in Windows etc.

What editing software do you use? I personally highly recommend the Magix programs - while they are not free, they are a single time purchase - if you select "new purchase" from the dropdown menu on their website - and offer very good compatibility with Sony camera formats and file extensions. The team which makes "Movie Edit Pro" (the "amateur" version of their editing software) is the same that makes/made Sony Vegas in the past on a sidenote.

I have tended to use an old version of Windows MovieMaker for video editing which must be available somewhere online under Windows Essentials 2012 as it is easy but I'm sure it's not the best one in terms of video quality.

I normally use Handbrake for increasing the decibels on the video, which I do not need for this one, however I had major installation problems on another computer because it asked me to download NET 5 which subsequently resulted in me having to spend a day reinstalling Windows so you have been warned!

I tried using Shotcut to append the files together but it didn't work so thank goodness I am at this stage now.

I will look into your suggestions of Magix Movie Edit Pro, Magix Video Pro X and DaVinci Resolve.

I am currently trying to aim for as much "lossless" editing as possible as the M2TS file which is 12GB is so much better quality than the MP4 one which is 2GB. My only fear is that through editing I will lose video and audio quality when I presume M2TS will have to be converted to MP4 as I am not sure that M2TS is as a compatible format as MP4.

By the way video editing and recording etc. is something that I am not at all professional at. I am always comparing the few films I have done when filming this theatre trained actor and it is nothing like a professional video production of her I have seen that was made with multiple cameras and a professional production team. This is ideally what is needed if you have the budget for it!