Comments

GaryKleiner wrote on 2/4/2004, 6:06 PM
If you are capturing DV, there is nothing being done to your video. It is only a file transfer from tape to hard drive.

Maybe you just have your computer monitor set differently than your video monitor?

Gary
LongTallTexan wrote on 2/4/2004, 6:12 PM
nope, I constantly have to lighten everything up before I output. Never had that problem with vegas 3

L.T.
stormstereo wrote on 2/4/2004, 6:27 PM
Have a look in your graphics card settings. Sometimes an overlay is used with strange settings. By default, my saturation was set at 130 % instead of 100. However, the overlay should not affect Vegas at all, only WMP and alikes.

Could it then be your camera LCD? Maybe it's set too bright or your perception of it is wrong. I've fooled myself sometimes, both with the camera and my laptop screen. If you can use the zebra-pattern whilst shooting it can help you achieve good exposure of the main object in the frame.

Do you have preview on external monitor while editing? Try to compare the original tape with the captured media on the same externa monitor. Don't forget to compare the cameras LCD to what you see on the monitor.

GaryKleiner is right. The capure process only moves the 1's and 0's from the tape to the hard drive. Nothing is done to affect image brightness.

Best/Tommy
Liam_Vegas wrote on 2/4/2004, 9:41 PM
Try this test.

1. Capture a small (short) clip from a tape.

don't do anything with it

2. do a print-to-tape of the clip you captured in 1

compare 1 to 2. Any difference?

Now look at what you captured within vegas. Looks dimmer than you expect?

Let us know how the test goes.
johnmeyer wrote on 2/4/2004, 9:48 PM
Are you capturing analog video through your DV camcorder? If so, the connections to the camera, coupled with the way DV is encoded could possibly change the gamma.
JackW wrote on 2/5/2004, 11:13 AM
Are you using an LCD monitor? We recently switched from CRT to LCD computer monitors and the first time I captured video I nearly went into cardiac arrest. Thought I'd have to brighten two hours of tape.

As suggested above, I printed a 2 minute test segment from Vegas back to DV tape and found it to be virtually identical to the source tape.

I subsequently changed to a different LCD monitor and found that the source looked still more different, somewhat lighter than on the original LCD.

For me, this points to the absolute essentiallity of a two-monitor system, one for the Vegas interface, a studio monitor on which to view the video.
LongTallTexan wrote on 2/5/2004, 11:18 AM
Thanks for all of the feed back. I am thinking that maby it must be my monitor settings. I will some tests and get back to everyone. Thanks again.

L.T.
earthrisers wrote on 2/5/2004, 2:17 PM
Off-topic reply:
Another great potential name for a band or a piece of music!

Another recent topic-name in this category was, "Blue Noise in Dark Areas."

I'm making a collection of these evocative topic-names, for when I get stuck for titles for musical compositions...
jobu wrote on 2/7/2004, 3:53 PM
I want to keep this thread awake. I too am having problems with DV capture being much darker than on camera LCD. I have searched all posts I can find, but no real solution has shown up. Anybody out there found the solution?
Liam_Vegas wrote on 2/7/2004, 9:37 PM
jobu.... have you actually read the responses we put on this post?

Tell us what suggestions you have tried already. I think the primary suggestiojn above was to do a capture then a print-to tape and see if you notice any difference. Have you tried that? What happened?

We are all basically suggesting that as a firewire capture is a simple bit copy (the 1's and 0's put there by the camera onto the tape) that any "darkness" you are seeing is there due to the brightness / color setting of your monitor.

Please try the suggestions above (particularly the test capture and print-to-tape) and then get back to us with the results.