Actually I think he's trying to capture DV video through VidCap and digital audio from the MOTU.
But as Steve said VidCap only supports one stream so your only chance is running Vidcap to capture the DV stream from the camera and opening an instance of Vegas to record the audio using the ASIO / WMD drivers.
Now two issues you might face:

Your recording to more than one file at once, that means the HDD has to work a lot harder so the risk of dropped frames/ glitches in audio is increased.

Your running two firewire devices and I've had some issues with this. Trick is to have all the devices connected and powered at boot, sometimes Windoz seems to get confused and I've ended up sending video to my external firewire audio box, nasty, nasty sounds.

Maintaining sync. Because your incoming vision and audio are being clocked by two separate devices drift and offset will be an issue. I think the MOTU can sync to blackburst, if so run a cable from the cameras composite video out into the MOTU's sync input, if it can sync that should do the trick. Still will not overcome the offset issue but that's easy enough to fix as you'll also have audio in the DV file to use as a guide.

OK, oops, just looked up the MOTU, sorry for external sync you need ASIO2 which Vegas doesn't support and even if it did you'd need genlock into the MOTU to sync it to the camera unless you had a camera with genlock in and even then it could be tricky.

Bob.

Farss
The MOTU might be able to supply digital audio to the computer, as does my DIGI002R, but the TRV33 doesn't have a digital audio output separate to video which means the MOTU would need to be able to strip the audio signal out of a combined video/audio firewire feed to get a digital audio feed. Otherwise it's feed analogue out of the camera into the MOTU which will then convert it back to digital. Hence my interpretation of the arrangement.

Again I have to ask why make it so difficult... what benefit would be derived from doing this when the DV stream contains both vision and sound in digital format and they are quite separable once captured?

It's sounds rather like putting corners on a wheel to me.

On the two separate firwire devices side though I happliy run my DV Deck into one firwire port and the Digi002R into another simultaneously... though I don't try to capture from both at the same time....

Steve

"... the ADS Video Express and connect the camera's s-video port to the ADS and then I'd be able to use the MOTU at the same time for audio..."

Again this would degrade the quality of the video signal when compared to the DV signal which comes in unchanged from what was originally recorded on the camera.

I really don't ubderstand what you are trying to achieve or why.

Perhaps your reasons for wanting to do this would be helpful.

Steve

Steve,
I think the man wants to record live.

So the idea is he has VidCap capturing vision live from the camera and from the MOTU he's recording live, possibly multitrack, audio. I suspect you're assuming he's coming off tape.

This serves several purposes.

He can record more than 1 hour of vision as he's only got a MiniDV camcorder.

He avoids the rather RS audio section in the camera. On this type of camera probably no line ins, only mic in if he's lucky and no way to disable AGC.

Bob.

farss
"I think the man wants to record live"

Doh!!! Yep didn't think about that....

Perhaps he needs to think about a Canopus box or something similar, although that still wouldn't provide multitrack audio.

Regards
Steve

Maybe one of the higher end ones would fill the bill or the SD Connect however for what they cost he could probably buy another laptop and use one for recording vision and one for audio, that's probably safer than trying to do both in the one PC. Even then you'd have to bring the vision in as analogue so it'd suffer some loss I think.
There is an option in VidCap to specify the audio inputs, must say I've never tried using it apart from back in the bad old days when I recorded via my video card ViVo 'feature'.

I have the ADVC-300 and I'm pretty certain it has some form of compression / AGC / limiting on the audio inputs, I've never been able to get it to come close to clipping.

Bob.

Yep...farss has it right on the money, this is for recording live tutorials with me playing music (not multi-track, but pre-mixed down to stereo). The Sony TRV33 camera is not good for feeding audio into it, since it's just a consumer camera with auto-gain control (that cannot be defeated), which would not allow me to be able to get good audio from a mixer, mic, sound modules, etc.

The way Vegas appears to be setup, is that if you are using the DV port of the camera, then no other video or audio connections can be used at the same time in VidCap since it's only able to see just the DV connection for both video and audio. The MOTU's audio connections are greyed-out under VidCap when the camera is connected via DV.

Therefore, I had to find a method to use the camera for video and the MOTU for audio. I got the Turtle Beach Video Advantage PCI Card, and with this installed, it shows up as an additional device I can select in VidCap (I'm using the S-Video input on the TB Card)...and I'm also able to select the MOTU for recording audio as well when selecting the Turtle Beach Card. It all works well so far it seems, and the audio appears to be very much in sync with the video...but I'm doing short video segments less than 3 minutes, so I'm not sure if I were to try longer captures if the audio and video would start to drift out of sync.

Like I said, it seems to be a limitation of VidCap that when connecting the camera via the DV port, then that's the ONLY stream of audio and video that can be captured. Well...it's probably not a limitation more than that's just the way VidCap is designed. So I had to find a poor-man's way to bring two separate devices under one roof of capture.

Perhaps there is another video capture utility that would allow me to use "just the video" from the camera when it is connected via it's DV port, and the MOTU at the same time. If so, please tell where I can find a capture program like that. I'd certainly love to capture live video via the DV connection rather than using another capture card and its s-video port. But I have to be able to use the MOTU for audio, and that's the given in this equation.

I'm not sure I'm understanding the guys problem or question...
Is it concerning filming with a cam and rec (better) audio at the same time?

for filming live music/whatever in studio/house:
- film as usual with the camcorder(s) - mult cams provide more interesting filming btw...
and use your audio card/system/vegas to record audio while they play and your filming (narration overhead/laoel mic, miced instrument or amp, etc.)
- bring in the video, mute the camcorder audio track
- bring in the audio tracks you recorded (hopefully at better quality) - line it up with the camcorder audio.
edit away....

For off-site band filming/recording (live venues), other purchases might be in order if you can't get a decent board feed (audio).
cheap: one of those maudio portable dig recorders (or the venerable portable dat, etc.) for basic 2-track.
If you want that you'd need a portable mutltitracker, or laptop and applicable audio interface.

>>>The way Vegas appears to be setup, is that if you are using the DV port of the camera, then no other video or audio connections can be used at the same time in VidCap since it's only able to see just the DV connection for both video and audio. The MOTU's audio connections are greyed-out under VidCap when the camera is connected via DV.<<<

Yeah, but why is this a concern?

If you want to record better audio/multi-track audio - film with the cam(s), and use vegas to record audio (hopefully you have the right audio gear - that's a whole other world of questions if you don't).

or maybe you're talking about a LIVE STREAM - you might find an older Osprey capture card (or any like cards) that will let you set separate audio input (I think, better check that). Of course, we're not talking about use of vegas at that point either - this is live streaming, a diff beast (vid/aud quality is subjective as well). You still need decent audio gear/mics to justify not using cam audio i suppose if u don't already have it.

Hi jaydeeee. I understand where yourself and others are coming from in saying I should separately capture the audio, and the video, and then line it all up in Vegas. Yes, that would certainly work, and is probably not much more effort, but I'd prefer to capture my audio and video into one media file all at the same time and not have to bother to line up separate audio and video tracks after-the-fact. What my primary frustration with VidCap is, is not being able to capture audio "within VidCap" from a different (better) device when the camera is connected via the DV port.

Maybe others systems are working differently, but once the camera is connected via the DV port, and VidCap is started, then all video and audio coming into VidCap is only from the camera. I assume this is how DV drivers work under VidCap.

What I'm saying is, even if you could have dif audio from video IN via the dv port (basically, not possible as most consumer cams dump over the audio and video track) you'd STILL likely be having to resync the a/v anyway.
So I understand you'd like to avoid that step/process...but with your gear it really seems unavoidable.

But, is it really that much more work (if we're not talking live streaming)? I mean, the audio is already recorded and there if you did it right. How much work is it really to bring it in and sync? Some mouse clicks at best.

I'd start looking at high-end cams offering a line in (proper line in) and make sure you're audio is setup and sounding good, then dump over the vid as usual. IMO: seems like a lot of dough to spend to solve a problem that really isn't a problem.

>>is not being able to capture audio "within VidCap" from a different (better) device when the camera is connected via the DV port.<<<

But, once again if you did it right, you ALREADY recorded the proper audio - while recording in vegas (or whatever audio tracker you use).

I faced the same kind of issue Nathan is facing but for different reasons. The solution I finally selected may be applicable for him though.

I want to combine video with external audiotracks.
Laptop capturing video (and Audio) with Vidcap, and external audio tracks required for Dolby Digital projects.
I also looked at devices like the Motu 828 Mk II or Mackie Onyx 400F.

But finally I decided for this set-up.

I bought the Yamaha AW1600 recorder, which records up to 8 tracks simultaniously. The stereo out is feeding my camera (DVX100). So the video and the downmix of the AW1600 are captured on my laptop.
The individual audiotracks of the AW1600 I transfer later to Vegas, using USB connection of the AW1600.

If I would have selected the Motu 828 Mk II or Mackie Onyx 400F I would have needed a second laptop (as also argued here, I don't like to capture video and multiple audio tracks on the same laptop) and a separate mixer.

With the AW1600 I combined both worlds in one device, a digital mixer and recorder. Syncing will be an issue though. That's why I also feed the stereo downmix to the DVX100 as a reference for syncing.
After audiosyncing I can remove the audio of the stereo downmix I captured with VidCap.

For the Yamaha AW1600 you could also use the Korg D888, which is a cheaper (and lighter) option.

Oh well, don't know if this helps in any way.