HDV Video capture failures

imaginACTION_films wrote on 8/30/2009, 6:07 PM
Having a problem capturing HDV in Vegas 8 and 9. Capturing from either Sony Z1P or A1P.
I try to capture 50 min of video and the indicator shows zero dropped frames. Playback in the camera viewfinder is perfect and audio sounds fine.

BUT. The clip breaks into many short segments and even in long segments the audio is only present intermittently eg maybe 5 sec of audio then flat line.

I'm running dual LCD 1920x1080 monitors through an HDMI switch box (so I can access a second computer). Driving me nuts - never had capture issues in 8 years.
Help appreciated!
David Smith
imaginACTION

Q6600 2.6 GHz 3GB RAM ASUS 4850 1GB graphics with dual DVI out.

Comments

jimingo wrote on 8/30/2009, 11:52 PM
I had your exact problem and it turned out to be my hard drive.
I actually never found out why the hard drive was causing this, as it's in perfect condition and it captures SD video just fine.
But I switched hard drives and everything's fine now.
imaginACTION_films wrote on 8/31/2009, 6:43 PM
Interesting! Here is a more detailed description of current issues.

I'm sure you agree these are serious issues. Like many others reporting on the forums many of us are dedicated Vegas users because we never had time-wasting technical issues. vegas was uncrashable and used to let us just get on with the editing. I've written about this fantastic software in many reviews. However, the current issues have taken up so much time and energy I've actually started thinking about some other editing solution. I REALLY don't want to do this because like Mike Jones (another Auscam writer) we believe Vegas was always the most efficient way to get from idea to video product. At the moment it's not...

Earlier Issues
9.0b has fixed the Media Generator problem but I still have the serious issue (reported by many others in both Sony and DMN Forums) of red clips appearing on the timeline. This seems to indicate a memory access issue, but Task manager shows at least half of the 3GB of RAM is still available.


In all cases the tapes are recorded perfectly and play back in the camera with no problems.

Capture Issue
If I don't use Neo HDV but instead use the Vegas HDV capture program (in either Vegas 8.0c or 9.0b), I get these variable results:

Scene detection definitely turned OFF
Dropped frames reported as zero
Some choppiness observed in the Capture preview window during capture, although playback in the camera viewfinder is absolutely smooth.
Video is cut into short segments of variable length
Audio is mostly missing, ie I get short segments - of proper waveform but mostly a flat line.
I've tried this on two cameras, Sony Z1P and A1P and on two computers. Both cameras fully serviced - the Z1 had a complete tape mechanism replacement including the heads three months ago. Same variable problem in all cases. I have managed to get one 3min clip to capture properly, but capturing a full 60min is proving impossible.

As I mentioned capture with NeoHDV is perfect, so I think that eliminates problems such as fried firewire ports, or other issues with my two computers (One is the Quad core described below, the other is a Pentium 4 with 2GB RAM.

As far as I can recall, I never had a single dropped frame or any other capture issue in all earlier versions of Vegas up to vegas 7. I believe I've only encountered capture issues in 8 and 9. I did have that earlier issue of the camera not being recognised, but that was due to my having three firewire drives connected, making the camera the fourth. Apparently this is a real no-no. Now I only use a single firewire connection to the camera with all external drives being connected by USB2.

I will, however, also try disconnecting all of the USB drives including two 1 TB Seagate Free Agents.

Computer Specs:

M/B: Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3P
CPU: Intel Q6600 2.6GHz
RAM: 3GB DDR2 RAM
Graphics: ASUS EAH 4850 1GB graphics card.

Capturing via M/B Firewire port to dedicated hard drive (ie NOT C: drive).

Win XP SP3
Latest ATI graphics drivers
Connected to two ACER X243HQ 1920x1080 LCD monitors via an HDMI switcher (ie two computers sharing one of these monitors via the switcher.

Testing with Vegas 8.0c and 9.0 and 9.0b
Laurence wrote on 8/31/2009, 10:55 PM
Have you tried http://strony.aster.pl/paviko/hdvsplit.htmHDV Split[/link]? I have never been able to get the Sony Vegas HDV capture to work. It always splits the video up into a bunch of tiny chunks just like is happening to you. I don't know why. HDV Split works much better for me.
imaginACTION_films wrote on 9/1/2009, 12:11 AM
Thanks, Laurence,
I will give HD Split a try, although Ido get perfect captures with Neo HDV (now replaced by Neo Scene).

I guess I'm just very concerned that Sony can release and get away with a seriously flawed HDV capture engine in a product labelled as "Pro", and which I have used since the early days of Video Studio to make my living.

I know, I should just give up and use Neo HDV, but there's a principle here and I really love to SOLVE a problem. I do however wish I was being paid (by Sony) for the considerable time it has taken me to get around the Media Generator issue, faulty capture and red clips. This has actually cost me weeks of down time I can ill afford.

Problem is I LOVE the Vegas paradigm and up until about Vegas 7 I never even thought about technicalities. Vegas just worked seamlessly and let me get on with the work/fun. It seems to me things started to go wrong when we entered the world of HDV, XD Cam etc.
Thanks for the HDV Split tip, though.
Cheers
David Smith
imaginACTION
bsuratt wrote on 9/1/2009, 8:51 AM
I don't think this is a Vegas thing since I capture 4 to 6 hours weekly of HDV tape from a Sony HVR-M15U deck on a Dell XPS 720 Quad machine with RAID 5 internal drives using the Vegas HDV capture utility and I never have a problem as you have described. I am currently on 9.0b (32 bit) but I have never seen this on 9.0a or any version of 8. There must be something machine related, camera to computer communication, or other cause for your problem. Sounds like there is a bottleneck in your throughput somewhere.
Laurence wrote on 9/1/2009, 9:08 AM
If you do a search of this forum you'll find that there are quite a few of us who have to capture with HDV Split because the Vegas HDV capture doesn't work on our systems.
imaginACTION_films wrote on 9/1/2009, 3:47 PM
I'd agree it seems machine/connection related, except that I get absoolutely perfect captures on the same system with Cineform Neo HDV.

Since my last post I've stripped all external drives off, removed all but essential video software and plugins gone to a single DVI monitor and I still get the problem with Vegas, but not Neo.

I am in discussion with Sony techs to try and sort this but it's a puzzle!
imaginACTION_films wrote on 9/1/2009, 11:24 PM
I've sent sample files of Vegas captures and NeoHDV captures to Sony for testing. Will post results. The Neo captures are faultless so I'm still in business.

Related issue
I did get success with the dreaded red frames issue. On Sony's advice I set Dynamic RAM allocation to zero and set Max number of threads to 1. No red frames, even in a huge 18 hour HDV assembly!! Yayyy!!!
Dennis-Gaines wrote on 9/22/2009, 12:28 PM
I am using Vegas 9 Pro 64 bit and when trying to capture HDV I get no preview and after capturing, no file. Controls camera (Sony HDR-FX7) fine. I am not going to spend more bucks on software for something Vegas is supposed to do with Sony camera. Any answers to this?

thanks,
Dennis
imaginACTION_films wrote on 9/22/2009, 9:34 PM
My capture problems have been totally solved by increasing the Max RAM buffer from the default of 25% to 80%. Dozens of captures now with no problems at all. This setting is the slider in the Prefs window within HDV capture. I haven't worked with 64 bit yet but see if this helps.
Cheers
David S