Hm,
I've had no problems just doing a capture with no scene detection, m2t file looks 100% OK but I've had oddities in the CF HD avi file.
Bob.

I found it best to capture the m2t file, then do the conversion in a separate step after capture. Had lots of problems with trying to do both at the same time with my older machine. I tried it once with my new 3.4 ghz processor and seemed fine, but I ve just made it a practice to do the conversion after capture.
time takes about the same, just a few more mouse clicks is all.

A side note , I wish you could designate the location of the CF avi , it only allows you to convert it to the same filder as the m2t. Maybe it'll be in the next update?...

The CineForm version is newer than the Sony. The Sony would not attemp to capture except one clip at a time and became non-responsive. Note to epirb that I said for me it would not capture the mt2 either as all audio was garbled.

Out of frustration I tried to install HuffyUV but I can't get that program to install. Has anyone sucsessfully done that? Could they give some clues? Are there any other NLE with trials with HD support included I could experiment with?

Keep in mind, Huffyuv won't be in the correct color space, won't map properly either....it can work, but it's not accurate.
Try capturing with DVHS, there is a link to the english version on the HDV portal/VASST site, and then convert in Cineform.

I could not figure how to run CapDVHS. It never captured anything for me. Does anyone have a very basic settings suggestions for it? As Spot also experienced it is the buffering with the shorter scenes that die. If I capture without scene detection as one large file it does now work. Spot implied he cured this problem or did he just stick with long scenes?

I will now try to capture with no conversion and report back.

Michael,
By shorter scenes, I was having challenges with 3-4 second scenes, and I've just avoided those at this point. It was mostly part of the testing phase for the camera and Cineform. You're still not flying?

OK- tonite I found the "capture" of the m2t is flawless and plays beutifully if I avoid scene detection. The problem is with the conversion to .avi. The .avi stutters, has artifacts and the audio breaks up. Maybe it is a bad video card? I'm just about to try and import to Vegas and see what happens.

This sure sounds familiar, worse than the problems I've had though.
I don't know how much attention anyone paid to what _dan_ from Cineform had to say about my problems. Anyway it turns out that the version on the Vegas site and their one is different. The Vegas one uses the same decoder as Vegas, the release from Cineform comes with it's own decoder which they claim is faster. That's why the price difference. He's suggesting that the problem is in the decoding of the m2t file and not the encoding phase.

This would also explain why some of us are seeing these problems and not others. Maybe SPOT could elaborate as to which version he's running.
Bob.

Bob: I have tried BOTH versions with the same result. One funny thing I noticed, the non Vegas version allows for m2t capture from the FX1 as progressive?

Anyway I for now have captured the unconverted m2t and am editing in Vegas nativly. I certain will not buy the CineForm product and it seems they have admitted to you it is flawed. Native editing will keep me afloat 'till Vegas 6 I hope.

Just to set the record straight, they haven't admitted that it's flawed. They did ask me for some samples to test but this seems so highly reproduceable I can't see why they're having difficulties finding the problem. I've so far been unable to capture anything without finding frozen frames every few minutes.
My 15 day trial period has expired so I've eithher got to pay for the 'Vegas' version or buy the full Monty for quite a bit more. I was hoping from what they were saying that the full version that they're selling should be bug free and faster but from what you're saying this doesn't appear to be the case.
What I'm even more concerned about is that initially I was blaming the camera when clearly it wasn't the fault of the camera, the frozen frames look exactly the same a HDV dropout.
I'll probably still buy the CF encoder, even with these problems I can always use it to edit a proxy but the problem then is I think I need do to the 709->601 etc conversion manually. Watching Vegas struggle with playing out the m2t is just too painfull.
Bob.

Bob or anyone else - Did you have to do anything special for ConnectHD to find the camera?

I finally got my Z1 yesterday - love it, but haven't been able to capture yet.
Even though XP made "the noise" as I connected the firewire, it reported no device present, and then asked me to insert the CD or find the software on the internet so it could install the hardware.

As there's no CD and my editing PC is not connected to the internet I'm currently stuck ...

Peter,
fire up connect HD and make certain the camera is in HDV mode, both the blue LEDs on the top of the camera and the 1394 port need to say HDV. Then switch camera off and on, that usually gets things going.
I guess you realise you cannot use VidCap to capture, you have to use the Connect utility. I found best approch is to first capture the m2t only and then convert to CF DI in a seperate pass.

Bob.

Thanks Bob - still no go though.

Both blue LEDs say HDV.

If I set the Menu item: IN/OUT REC / iLink CONV HDV>DV CONV to ON, then XP recognises the Sony camera, but still no video capture device in CineForm.

Early days ......


edit : This wouldn't be an XP SP2 thing would it? I haven't installed it yet.

edit - just installed it & no difference - guess I should contact Cineform

Well the Cineform thing will NOT recognise the camera like that because you've told the camer to downconvert to DV25. You need to turn OFF the downconvert. WinXP should most likely NOT recognise the camera if you have it setup properly.

Once you've got the camera setup properly close and restart the camera and the Cineform capture utility. I think it took me a few goes before Windoz would pass thru the data.
Bob.

Peter,
have a look at the post below in this thread I started a while back.
Although I know oyur not making the same dumb mistake I did in the thread, Spots suggestions might help you out.

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?Forum=4&MessageID=355970

eric

Thanks Eric - I'll try that out in the morning ....

Peter

AND have the camera connected BEFORE you start ConnectHD. Also do as someone else said, capture the ts then convert to .avi afterwards. For me though I still am getting a good transport capture but faulty conversion.

Thanks to all - my Z1 is now not only visible to me - Cineform can see it too!

Special thanks to DSE - those Device Manager steps from the thread Eric pointed to did the trick!

I'm sure there will be lots more questions, but at least I can play with HDV in Vegas....

Peter

Darn! My Next step was to have you send me your Z1 and I would send you my FX ;) Oh well Im still happy with the Z's baby brother.Glad to see my bonehead mistake make Spots efforts pay off for somebody.
E

Peter,
which CF are you using?
The one form here or the one from their site?
I'll be real interested to hear how you go.
Bob.

I'm using the 1.4 version from here Bob - 15 day trial.

I've only done a minute of footage so far - no frozen frames thus far.

I don't have any way of "really" viewing the HDV footage yet - notice lots of interlace wavy lines in Vegas.

I'm going to be concentrating on "learning the camera" and getting SD conversion happening ready for a shoot next Friday. I'll be trying Vegas conversion and camera down-convert to repeat DSE's findings on comparative quality.

My dual AMD 2000+ (which I believe are actually 1.6 Ghz) can manage about 10 frames a second for the Cineform avi. Will obviously need an upgrade, but for now I'm staying with SD.

Exciting days.

Our clients are getting a lot of useage out of the cameras just shooting in 16:9 DV, treat a Z1 like it's a 170 on steroids isn't a bad way to think of it.
I have noticed the difference in audio quality though shooting with the Z1 in HDV. We shot one opera using a feed from the inhouse system into both a DB deck and the Z1 and the stuff off the Z1 does sound pretty flat compared to the 24/48 out of the DB deck. It's more than adequate for most things though, not as bad as I thought it'd be, but as SPOT warned not the best for a full on orchestra.
Bob.