Can I automatically capture DV from a camcorder without recording blank (empty) spots?

jmk396 wrote on 3/29/2005, 8:32 AM

I'm very new to editing but I'm trying to learn about Vegas Video and capturing DV footage.

Here's the situation that is prompting my question...

My mother purchased a Canon ZR85 MiniDV camcorder for Christmas. She recently went on a cruise and said she recorded "at least four hours" of video. (well, she only had four 60 minute tapes so I knew it could only be four hours at most) When she returned from her trip we started watching the tapes but to her horror, 80% of the tapes were blank. Well, since I want to learn about editing, etc... I said I'd take a look at the footage in more detail on my computer...

The beginning of each tape is not blank. It starts correctly with a 00:00:00:00 timecode and then after a while (it varies) it will go blank for sometimes 10 to 15 minutes (or longer!). After that, there will be more footage sometimes with a continuation of the previous timecode but sometimes the timecode will be reset to 00:00:00:00. So when all is added up, there is probably 20 minutes of footage on each 60 minute tape, but the footage is split all over the tape.

My mom doesn't know the first thing about camcorders (she can barely turn it on), so I'm assuming she screwed up badly, but I don't know if she would have fast-forwarded the tape in-between recording sessions. She could have re-taped over the same tape but I'm not sure what the heck she did.

Could the camcorder be broken? The tapes seem fine (the tapes play back consistently) but they are JVC (I don't know if name-brand tapes make that much of a difference on a MiniDV camcorder).

With all of that said, is there an easy way to capture the footage off of the camcorder (through firewire), but only capture the parts of the tape where there is footage? (fast-forwarding through four hours of tape, recording for 1 minute at a time, is not fun...)

Comments

BrianStanding wrote on 3/29/2005, 8:45 AM

I'm not sure what happened during your Mom's recording. I think the accidental fast forwarding sounds plausible to me. Could some of the other "blank" video be the camera running with the lens cap on?

Now to your problem at hand. If you're seeing the timecode on one tape reset itself to zero, it's probably because your mom stopped the camera, maybe took out the tape and then started again. This will also happen if you record for a bit onto a blank tape, then fast forward, then record again. This discontinous timecode will make it difficult to capture the video to disk.

I have 2 suggestions:
1. If you have access to another DV camcorder with firewire in, you could copy your Mom's tape to a new blank DV tape over firewire. This will give you a new timecode with no gaps. Capture this dubbed tape into Vegas using the Capture application by selecting "capture entire tape" at the prompt. You will probably also want to make sure "DV Scene Selection" is on in preferences. You can then quickly move through the resulting files on the hard disk to discard the blank ones.

2. Another option would be to try out a program called Scenalyzer Live (www.scenalyzer.com). This is an alternate DV capture application that can quickly scan an entire tape, find scenes based both on time/date coding OR by optical changes in the picture. It will then give you a thumbnail, low-resolution summary of everything that's on the tape. You can then pick and choose the scenes you want to capture.

Hope one of these ideas works for you.

Oh, and you might want to sit down with your Mom and the owner's manual for her camera and practice. ;-)

jmk396 wrote on 3/29/2005, 9:08 AM

I'm not sure what happened during your Mom's recording. I think the accidental fast forwarding sounds plausible to me. Could some of the other "blank" video be the camera running with the lens cap on?

Actually, there is plenty of that too... but you can still hear sounds coming from the microphone and the video is black. The empty sections I'm talking about are pure blue (which is the camera intrepretation of pure empty tape -- or so I'm assuming)

Now to your problem at hand. If you're seeing the timecode on one tape reset itself to zero, it's probably because your mom stopped the camera, maybe took out the tape and then started again. This will also happen if you record for a bit onto a blank tape, then fast forward, then record again.

Ok, I can understand the timecode resetting if you fast-forward, but what would cause the timecode to be continous except have huge empty spots between segments? (eg. timecode start at 00:00:00:00, plays until 00:15:00:00, and then the tape has 15 minutes of "blue" [eg. emptiness] with no timecode, and then continues along at 00:15:00:01?)

I'll try that Scenalyzer Live program, but I have already captured two of the tapes using the default Vegas capture settings. It created like 250 seperate files so far, is that normal? As I mentioned, I'm not very familar with Vegas or capturing but it seems like I'm going to have one heck of a time piecing them all together. (one file per segment per file would of been fine, but it seems like only record like 10 seconds per file).

I don't have access to another other camcorders, but I'm curious what the point would be to transfer the video onto another camcorder. Did you mean to only transfer the real video footage to the second camcorder? (eg. fast-forwarding on the source camcorder in-between the footage) Furthermore, can't I just "capture entire tape" with my current camcorder? Wouldn't I be editing out the empty spots the same regardless if I transfer the video to a second camcorder? (I'm also unsure what selecting "DV Scene Selection" will do, but I'll do a search for it or try looking in the manual...)

Please forgive my ignorance on all of this and thank you very much for helping me.

There doesn't happen to be any in-depth tutorials about capturing DV footage in Vegas is there?

jmk396 wrote on 3/30/2005, 4:36 AM

Anybody?

BrianStanding wrote on 3/30/2005, 7:18 AM

If your Mom stopped the camera, inadvertently fast forwarded the tape without recording anything, then recorded again, I think you'd get the video interspersed with blue screen that you describe. Was she maybe rewinding the tape to look at what she just shot, then fast-forwarding past the last point she stopped shooting? Many cameras have an "end-search" function, where the camera will automatically cue up to the last recorded section of the tape, exactly to avoid this kind of problem.

Test it out. Borrow the camera, and get a brand new DV tape. Shoot something for a few minutes, then press the record button again to stop it. (Don't rewind or fast-forward at all.) Shoot something else for a few minutes. Now rewind the camera all the way, put it in VCR mode and play it back.

Do you still have blue screen problems? If not, then your Mom likely needs help with her shooting and camera handling technique. If you see blue screens, it's likely a camera malfunction. I had some similar problems with an older Canon ZR, and had to send it to Canon for warranty repair work. Can you take it back to where you bought it?

I'm guessing that Vegas is having a hard time capturing the files because you have discontinous timecode. You probably have "DV Scene Detect" selected in the Video Capture preferences dialogue. This feature tells VidCap to create a new file every time the camera was stopped and started. All those blue screens will result in a new file on your hard disk. You can look at all the clips in the Video Capture program after you've captured them and delete them if they are blank.

If you turn this feature off in the preferences window, VidCap will give you one, large, 60-minute .AVI file. If you prefer, you can load this big file onto the Vegas timeline and cut out the blank parts.

Hope this helps.

craftech wrote on 3/30/2005, 7:22 AM

1. If you have access to another DV camcorder with firewire in, you could copy your Mom's tape to a new blank DV tape over firewire. This will give you a new timecode with no gaps. Capture this dubbed tape into Vegas using the Capture application by selecting "capture entire tape" at the prompt. You will probably also want to make sure "DV Scene Selection" is on in preferences. You can then quickly move through the resulting files on the hard disk to discard the blank ones.
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I would agree with Brian. This is your best option.

John

johnmeyer wrote on 3/30/2005, 4:24 PM

This shouldn't be any big deal. This is a problem everyone has at some point or another. With DV tape, if a section doesn't get recorded, the timecode will reset to zero when the recording resumes. Scenalyzer can easily cope with this. Even with simpler capture applications, like the one built into Vegas, you can just move to the next section and resume capture. It's just not as automatic.

In Scenalyzer, make sure that you do NOT use optical scene detection -- that is probably why you are getting so many scenes. Instead, use Date/Timestamp scene detection.