Capturing 720x480

klloyd wrote on 3/29/2004, 2:01 PM
I use a Sony DCR-VX2000 camera which is firewired into ATI All-In-Wonder 9800 card and the software is Vegas Video 4. I have set the options in capture side of Vegas to preview as NTSC DV and to base DV Decoding resolution on preview window size. Any ideas on what is causing whatever I capture to be 640x480 instead of 720x480?

Thanks,
Kevin

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 3/29/2004, 3:22 PM
If you're capturing through firewire then you are getting a DV capture which will be 720x480. Where are you seeing the 640 number? What capture software are you using? What capture device is selected?
johnmeyer wrote on 3/29/2004, 9:06 PM
My guess is that you are not capturing via the Firewire. Make sure that you ONLY connect the one single Firewire cable, and not any of the analog connections.
rmack350 wrote on 3/29/2004, 9:28 PM
The ATI site doesn't show firewire on that card.

Rob Mack
klloyd wrote on 3/30/2004, 6:15 AM
I was wrong about firewire through the ATI card, my firewire card says "Hercules DVAction!" on it but I personally didn't purchase it so I don't know exactly what that is. I am capturing via Sonic Foundry Video Capture 4.0 and for the video source I have selected "Microsoft DV Camera and VCR," which is the Sony DCR-VX2000 camera input. I got some live assistance on sony.com, asked them for sure that the camera records and outputs 720x480 and they said it does. Where I am seeing the 640x480 size is the avi file that is produced from capturing in Sonic Foundry Video Capture 4.0. I don't want to have to stretch the video aspects to fit 720x480 for tv and make everyone look "wide," or as I'm sure they would say "fat!" What am I missing here?

Kevin
bakerbud9 wrote on 3/30/2004, 6:22 AM
I think the others are right: it sounds that you are not capturing thru firewire, but through some analog connection instead. It is highly likely in this case that your ATI capture card is what actually creates the 640x480 frame size.
-nate-
klloyd wrote on 3/30/2004, 6:27 AM
The only thing connected to the camera is the firewire though.

Kevin
klloyd wrote on 3/30/2004, 6:56 AM
Now I just went to sony.com and asked the same question as yesterday to a different support person and they found out that the camera cannot record 720x480! You'd think for the price we paid for it, $3000 last year, that it would have this capability, but I was a novice at video editing back then and didn't know to find that out. Thanks for trying to help anyway people.

Kevin
John_Cline wrote on 3/30/2004, 9:10 AM
The VX2000 (and any other DV camcorder for that matter) does indeed record at 720x480 (or 720x576 in the PAL world) There is no such animal as 640x480 DV.

John
johnmeyer wrote on 3/30/2004, 11:32 AM
John is correct. If you have a VX2000 (and for $3,000, it sure sounds like you do), then the only resolution you can get (for NTSC) is 720x480.

Since you are getting 640x480, I have the following theories:

1. You are capturing via the analog connections. Make sure you have ONLY the Firewire cable connected to your camcorder.

2. You are reading the resolution incorrectly. You should be able to right-click on the video file (in Windows Explorer) and, on the Summary tab, see the resolution.

3. Perhaps you are importing stills. The VX2000 captures STILL pictures at 640x480. Does this camera also let you capture short movies to the memory card? If so, they might very well be 640x480. Is the tape in the camcorder moving during the capture? You should be able to hear the camcorder whirring away while you capture.
klloyd wrote on 3/30/2004, 1:54 PM
I sure thought it was supposed to do 720x480 and I had also never heard of 640x480 DV. johnmeyer, i looked at the summary and low & behold it was actually 720x480.all along. Man, I can't give very good marks for the sony.com live support staff. Not very good marks for WMP 9 either because that is where I was seeing the resolution being 640x480 on my post-capture files, even though it was actually 720x480. Thank you all for your help, sorry it was so simple. Lessons learned. Just for your information, when the gentleman helping me today, on sony.com support, told me that it could not record at 720x480, I told him that the person I spoke with yesterday said it could...he then disconnected without another word. How rude is that?

Kevin
johnmeyer wrote on 3/30/2004, 3:06 PM
Glad you got it working!
Former user wrote on 3/30/2004, 6:06 PM
WMP will always report the resolution it is displaying the video at, not the file resolution.

Dave T2