With all due respect if this is causing you problems you have issues with your shooting method. You should always allow some head and tail.
I think I've seen the cause of this problem, the cut in audio is out of sync with the cut in vision by several frames, take a careful look at what's on the T/L with scene detection Off. I think you'll find if a do a split where the cut in vision occurs you'll find the first few frames after the cut has audio from the previous scene. Powering down the camera between shots seems to cause more wierdness too.

In general you need to allow for these things happening when shooting, even with DV. HDV is even more of a pain, the cameras can take forever to go into record for one thing.

All that aside though, does PPro do any better than Vegas?
I suspect the problem starts with how HDV is recorded in the camera.

Bob.

I haven't tried capturing in 7.0b yet, but I have the same problem in 7.0a when capturing from a Sony HDR-HC3. I reported it to the Technical Support a few days ago. No reply yet.

I actually prefer to use HDVSplit (http://strony.aster.pl/paviko/hdvsplit.htm).
I still get video freezes in the beginning and end of the clips, but the audio is ok. HDVSplits also gives the choice to append date and time on the file name of the clips.

As a workaround, I have written a script that deletes the first few and the last few frames of all selected clips on the timeline.

Also, HDVSpilt and Vegas 6.0d works perfectly! So this is a software bug. Not a camera issue.

There is NOTHING WRONG with the shoot. Like I say, the transition is smooth when captured as a single clip it's the scene detection that is bugged.

As I said the audio droput is at the end of EVERY CLIP!!!! (330 clips/scenes in the latest shoot). Totally useless.

Gonna try a demo of PPro right now

Thanks for that Jonask.
I'll wait a few days for a solution from Sony and in the meantime gonna try Premiere Pro - I'll let you know if it does it any better!

Phil,

How carefully did you check this????
Just because it plays smoothly does NOT mean there isn't an issue.

I just checked my last HDV shoot. Captured without scene detection.
The vision cuts 9 frames BEFORE the audio. That's how the camera (A1U) recorded it. That's how HDV works. Yes it plays smoothly, how would anyone notice a 9 frame offset between the cut in vision and audio? But try to make a cut exactly on either the vision or audio cut on the T/L and there is going to be a problem.

Like I said, capture a few minutes of tape withoug scene detection, zoom down to the frame level and look carefully, you'll see what I mean. If you're not shooting to allow for trimming of shots HDV, DV or film, you will have a problem. Yes it seems HDV means you'll always have a problem, with the other stuff sometimes you might get away with it but certainly not recommended.

Bob.

Phil, pardon my impertinence, but if a few frames or even a full second being scrambled at the beginning or end of a scene makes the shot completely worthless, then you aren't shooting correctly. You should always have at least a couple seconds* of preroll and postroll at the head and tail of every scene.

No video recorder, transfer method, or editor is ever going to guarantee flawless heads and tails, ever. You must take this into account when shooting, no matter what hardware or software you are using.

*That's for digital recording. Back in the ol' analog days 5 seconds of preroll was an absolute minimum. It took that long for the editing decks to locate sync signal and sync to each other. 10 seconds was often preferred.

>>>Gonna try a demo of PPro right now

Good idea. This is a forum for users of Vegas, and no-one is going to be upset because you and Vegas don't get along. On the other hand, if you want help in getting the best out of Vegas then that is available.

The HDR-HC3 has an option to make the video stream on the tape a fully correct video stream even between the scenes. I have this option on (it's default on). And indead, the video stream is complete. It's easily verified by capture without scence detection. I have checked it frame-by-frame.

If I capture with HDVSplit using scene detection and insert the clips on the 6.0d's time line, every single frame is there. It's perfect.

But when I take EXACTLY THE SAME FILES and insert them on the 7.0a's time line, the first three frames are indentical, the last two frames are identical, and 15 frames are missing!

Why shouldn't Vegas 7 be able to do the same as Vegas 6?

Look I know the original poster is perhaps getting his knickers in a twist a tad prematurely but he wouldn't be the first here, myself included.

All that aside from what I'm seeing on the Vegas 6.0d T/L there's no way any HDV capture program can produce a precise scene split. I can't do one manually, I either end up with scene 2 with starting with 9 frames of audio from scene 1 at the start or scene 2 with 9 frames of vision from scene 1 at the start.

Yes I know, if you're not leaving a lot more than 9 frames of head and tail you've got a lot of other issues but let's just try to clear this one up.

Bob.

Bob,

Could you please explain what you mean by "scene 2 with starting with 9 frames of audio from scene 1"? In case of NTSC, one GOP is 15 frames. Are you saying that the HDV audio stream can't be split by the camera at the borders of the GOPs?

I did a test to see if I could find anything strange with the audio. By mistake I put the clips on the 7.0b time line (my idea was to put it on the 6.0d time line since that worked fine before), and to my surprice the clips from HDVSpilt were perfect. No frozen frames, no missing frames, and no problem with the audio. So the problem doesn't seem to be consistent.

The capturing and scene detection with Vegas 7.0b still had the same problems, frozen frames, missing frames and vison from scene 2 at the end of scene 1 (and those frames from scene 2 had wrong audio).

And just to clarify, the HDR-HC3 records complete GOPs at scene transitions. So at least for the vision part it should be possible to do perfect scene detection (and HDVSpilt does). As for the audio part, I'm not as familiar with the recording format, but from just looking at the envolope on the Vegas time line, it looks fine.

Jonas

I can't do one manually, I either end up with scene 2 with starting with 9 frames of audio from scene 1 at the start or scene 2 with 9 frames of vision from scene 1 at the start.

Bob,
For testing I use an m2t file with a unique number is the center of each frame so I can track frames.

I can't reproduce your results. All my HD TL edits are frame accurate. The m2t on the TL is shown is presentation order in RGB 4:4:4 format so I would expect the edits to be frame accurate.

I can see how the Sony HD scene detection could be in error if the frame number is based on coded order not presentation order in the m2t. Don't know if the scene change is on an I frame. Just speculation.

Could you exand on your explanation or point me towards a document that will help me understand the 9 frame lead/lag.

Ed

I don't know if this is related, but I first noticed back in March on my first real shoot with my new FX1 that HDVSplit was correctly pulling the clips into my PC fine, but the first 3 or 4 frames of every clip were muted. I had to adjust my thinking into never using the beginning of any clip.

Come to think of it, I believe I ran a few informal tests and discovered that the FX1 itself was muting the first few frames of every clip. I think I mentioned this on this board, and no one else commented, so my conclusion was that it was just something in the firmware of the camera...

Heads and tails are all well and good but in some situations, such as lots of guys I know who are making daily scuba diving souvenir videos and shooting them "right first time", heads and tails are a luxury they can't afford.

I'm finding in 7.0a Vegas is cutting the scenes consistently 3 frames too late. That's for 1080i60 footage from a Z1 captured on either my laptop or desktop.

HDVSplit is doing a fine job however and I love the ability to customise the filename.

Since switching to HDV I'm badly missing the file viewing ability of Sclive. I hope he makes an HDV version at some point.

"...lots of guys I know who are making daily scuba diving souvenir videos and shooting them "right first time", heads and tails are a luxury they can't afford."

And after a few shoots they soon learn heads and tails are something they can't afford not to have! Tape is the cheapest thing on the shoot: Roll early, roll often.

If I look at a HDV tape on the T/L captuerd with no scence detection here is what I see.

At where I've buttoned off and then buttoned on i.e. scene change. The audio from the first scene continues for 9 frames after the end of the vision for scene 1. At that point, 9 frames after the start of the recording for scene 2 is where the 'cut' in the audio happens.
The camera cuts the vision and audio with a 9 frame offset if you like. Everything is in sync, it's just as though the camera did a J/L cut.

To see this you need to zoom in a fair way on the T/L. You need to find the point where there's the change in vision, now look at the audio waveforms, I'm seeing the abrupt change in waveforms at nowhere near where the change in vision occurs, in fact it's 9 frames offset.

Bob.

All I know is that before I switched to HDV, my old DV footage used to split perfectly into scenes which made editing easy. Now I've moved to HDV and Vegas is screwing up every clip. To suggest that I should manually trim the start and end of all 330 clips in a home movie is just ridiculous - 5 clips maybe, but 330??? Get real.

SONY - you promote HDV scene detection as a feature of v7 - are you going to acknowledge this bug or not????????

Phil,
you're still NOT reading what's being said.
As far as I can see this IS NOT A BUG!

HDV is very, very different to DV, individual frames of vision and audio are not written to tape discretely. What works with DV will possibly not work with HDV.

I've seen exactly the same issue sort of issue with the DVD camcorders. Welcome to the world of mpeg-2.


Bob.

Bob,

The J/L cut you describes does not happen with my HDR-HC3 camera.

Jonas

OK, so now I have made my first Vegas script.

This is how I do it:

- Capture from my Sony HDR-HC3 using HDVSplit v0.75 (http://strony.aster.pl/paviko/hdvsplit.htm) with scene detection activated.
- Put all the captured clips on the time line of Vegas 7.0b.
- Select all the clips (both audio and video)
- Run the following script (http://web.comhem.se/~u82707197/vegas/Trim_Captured_Clips_v1.0.zip)

And then I have a perfect starting point for my editing. No frozen video, no lost audio and all frames in the correct clips.

Note that the script remove the first two and the last three frames of each selected clip. If your camera and capture software requires a different number, just edit the script.

If someone thinks this is useful, please use the script.
And if you think Vegas 7 should handle this, please let Sony know about it.

Jonas

All I know is that before I switched to HDV, my old DV footage used to split perfectly into scenes which made editing easy.

HDV and DV are very different formats. The compression that allows you to use higher resolutions in HDV also make editing it a bit trickier. Despite its name, HDV is more similar to MPEG2 than it is to DV, and I think we all know what a pain MPEG2 can be to edit.

To suggest that I should manually trim the start and end of all 330 clips in a home movie is just ridiculous

No one suggested that you do that. In fact, jonask mentioned that he has a script for just this very thing. Maybe if you asked nicely, he'd send it to you.

Rob

> "To suggest that I should manually trim the start and end of all 330 clips in a home movie is just ridiculous."

Not really ridiculous - I have always trimmed the start and end of every clip I have ever used - that's what editing is. If you don't want to trim, maybe you don't need scene detection.

I do hope, however, that the Vegas scene detection function is improved if other apps are doing it better.

OK, I've just pulled a job off a system to go back and do a screen capture of HDV footage on a Vegas 6.0d T/L.

It clearly shows the problem. Even a script and / or HDV split may create the impression that there isn't a problem. BUT there is.

Yes you could perhaps join the clips on the T/L and you'd still think everything was OK but trust me it's not.

Now I wish I could post this simple jpg BUT the Madison Library website is totally messed up, there is NO way to log in.