Why don't you tell us what your issues are?
Back in the 2.x days, I found vidcap to be clunky and unreliable - missing audio, out of sync audio, dropped frames, etc.

I used to capture using StudioDV from Pinnacle in those days.

VV3 cured all those problems for me, and I don't remember how long it's been since I ridded my system of all things Pinnacle.

So far, I have experienced no problems in VV4 (is the capture program different for the upgrade?).

Capture problems can certainly be frustrating. Hope you get your system working.

Caruso

There's also Scenalyzer Live. If you need 4 channel audio, this is the way to go.

"So far, I have experienced no problems in VV4 (is the capture program different for the upgrade?)."

If it helps tracking things down... VV4c seems more sensitive to audio hardware, driver, and related issues probably because of it's increased support for ASIO, multichannel audio & so on. Probably for scripting support as well as staying current, VV4 also uses .NET stuff from MS, & likely newer compilers etc. to go with it - this isn't in itself bad at all, but may make things more sensitive together with windows to issues with older drivers, &/or drivers based on old code/models. I don't thing this sort of thing is just Vegas specific though - generally have more and more prob. keeping older stuff working as XP Pro & updates evolve.

WinDV-1.2.2

http://windv.mourek.cz

I love editing in vegas but Im have issues with capture.

IMHO, prior to looking at other options, I would want to know what the issues are. I have been using VVs capture since I dug through 14 old boxes and found my fireware card (which I never really used until now).

Prior to Firewire, I have a Dazzle DVC (external digitizer) that works very very good. It makes everything MPEG 1....once you are done playing/recording the file is saved - and I can get a good hour of video (or more) to fit on a regular CDR. Of course going through my VV/Firewire I've been saving as uncompressed AVI (which is huge...) but I've only been working with smaller files.

But I'm digressing too much.

Although there probably are some other products to use - I'm one for trying to keep evrything down to one application (or as close to one as possible).

So - what type of issue be you having? Maybe we can help you get past them. Personally, I haven't had any issues with Vidcap - except for the occasional dropped frame but that only when I try and play Freecell while I'm capturing :-)

I captured in 3 with no audio glitches....It appears to be a VV4 thing

Oh...guess I should have read the second post prior to rambling on about VidCap.

So....what type of glitches do you get when you try and capture?

I'm using a non-optimal platform (Dell M50 laptop, 5400 RPM Laptop (in media bay) hard drives, FW hard drives, etc.) for capture / edit, so I wasn't surprised when the VV4 capture app gave me problems (dropped frames & dropped audio, etc.)

To my surprise (ok, go ahead & laugh now, get it out of your system, YMMV, etc. :), but I found that the updated (not the original, but the updated, version 2.0.3312.0) version of Windows Movie Maker that is included with XP captures beautifully. Using very un-scientific methods (monitoring system load (amongst other system parameters) using fangiu http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/index.html, watching for smooth / continuous constant / consistent disk light activity, etc. & judging from dropped frames & dropped audio in the captured video, it does a fine job for very simple video capture.

Of course, that's about all you want to use it for, but for a freebie, it's not a bad deal.

I do _everything_ else in VV, of course :)

I checked the Micro$oft site & it does appear that Movie Maker is only available for XP. I updated my original Movie Maker installation from the Windows Update page.

HTH,

Franko (rank amateur)

Issues:

Heavy Audio stuttering during capture

Captured video has audio that has actual clicks and other artifacts.

In VV3 it does not happen - on the same machine.

ScenalyzerLive is a very clever inexpensive program. The nicest thing about it is that it has the ability to name avis based on the shooting date and time on the clip itself. It's very easy to capture an entire 90-minute LP tape in one go.

There is a small bug in the current version. I discovered that if I do a long continuous capture, the audio will lag the video on the Vegas timeline by about 1 frame every 20 minutes. The benefit to this program, however, is that the author is very motivated to set things right--he immediately emailed back and said he would get on it. Kind of like the Vegas guys.

Oh, another clever feature of the program is that you can do a rough "capture" of an entire DV tape in about 5 minutes. It does this by putting the camera is fast-play mode, noting where clips begin and end. The resulting blocky footage is useless for editing, of course, but at least you can quickly see all the clips on a tape. You can then tell the program to go back and batch capture just certain clips.

Well, my capture pretty much always stutters when it captures - but the resulting video is clear as a bell. So I don't think that that is so much of an issue. But the other clicks and stuff in your video do seem to be an issue.

I'm rendering right now so I can't check - but isn't there an audio setting in the VidCap where you can tweak the audio settings? Maybe the drivers that are being used need to be updated or the setting just need to be tweaked for VV4 (since VV3 don't seem to have the problems).

Silly question - but do you have the updated DirectX loaded?

I'll 2xcheck the vidcap audio settings that I think are there when I'm done rendering and post back if I actually know what I'm talkin 'bout.

:-)


Okay - I'm back. There is a setting that may (or may not) have anything to do with this.

In VidCap, go to Options - Preferences - Capture tab ...and at the bottom what does your "Master Steam" setting say? Mine is set for "Video" - but since I never really noticed it before I can't tell you what happens if one of the other settings are checked.