HELP Sony EPM?? !! Big chance for Vegas but strange problem?

mark30 wrote on 9/20/2004, 4:57 AM

Hi all,
Finally these guys at MTV are trying out Vegas.. I'm trying to help them and a strange problem is happening.

A digibeta is connected through the Blackmagic Decklink card. Works great with Vidcap. Clips are captured fine, I can play them back with Windows Media Player. And Vidcap shows a nice thumbnail with video, in 'properties' it says video, audio, etc.

BUT!!! In Vegas 5, when you import the clip (also when it's imported via Vidcap automatically) ONLY AUDIO is there!!! No video!

So it captures fine in Vidcap, plays back great in Windows media player, but in Vegas it's audio only.

It uses the Sony YUV-codec right now (while it's SDI coming from the digibeta), but it's captured ok.

When trying to import the clips the media pool-explorer says 'stream attributes could not be found'.. It also has the 'use timecode in file' and 'use ... timecode'.. greyed out.

Could this be a timecode problem? Is it not sent by the digibeta? I'm going to look into that right now, but I hope somebody has the answer quickly..
How about MTV choosing Vegas, right?
thx

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 9/20/2004, 9:10 AM

Try Scenalyzer Live for capture. For $39 it solved all of my capture problems and I use it for all my print-to-tape too. I don't know how well it works with digibeta, but the free trial will let you know.
www.scenalyzer.com

It would be a huge PR coup for Sony if MTV went all Vegas . . .

busterkeaton wrote on 9/20/2004, 10:21 AM

Mark,

In addition to posting here, I would try and contact Sony directly. They are usually pretty helpful.

SonyEPM wrote on 9/20/2004, 2:36 PM

The Decklink Win/Directshow driver now shows up in Vegas>Vidcap (as it would with any Directshow capture app) but just because it shows up doesn't mean Decklink is now magically supported by Vegas. As of this writing I think the best you could hope for is maybe a crash-capture from rolling tape. Batch capture, print to tape, timecode and myriad other things probably will not work at this time.

At the time official support is released, we'll send out an appropriate notice to our users as well as the general public.

RafalK wrote on 9/20/2004, 2:44 PM

Mark? How connected are you with MTV. We just had a video debut live on Network station and have been trying to connect with someone at MTV but there seems to be a brick wall between here and there. BTW, the video was 100 % done in Vegas ( http://www.sevillemedia.com/cincere/daddy.asp )

farss wrote on 9/20/2004, 2:46 PM

Don't know if this helps that much.
Capture from Digibetacam using Sony J30 deck works just fine.
Will also work from JH3 for HDCAM.
Very big caveat though. You are capturing at 4:1:1 (or 4:2:0 for PAL) with DV25 compression so you are loosing pretty much all that DB has over DV25.
You CAN PTT back to DVW 500 deck via Miranda bridge. Again you're taking DV25 and converting back to SD.

Bob.

Coursedesign wrote on 9/20/2004, 8:30 PM

Forget vidcap and use Decklink's Deckcontrol app instead to "crash capture" a running tape to disk. Enter filename to use (say "MYMTV") and then click Ctrl-K (capture now) to start, and click the Stop button to stop. The first capture file is named MYMTV001, then MYMTV002 etc. automatically incremented.

I have done this in both D-1 and D-5 to BMD 10-bit and 8-bit uncompressed codecs, has worked 100% reliably for me, even up to several hours.

Of course you need to have a snappy machine, but with BMD's minimum specs you're fine.

mark30 wrote on 9/21/2004, 3:23 AM

Rafalk.. it's MTV Netherlands..

Sony EPM, I understand it's not supported officially. I was just wondering why the captured footage CAN be played - and is a normal .avi - by WMP, and does also show video in the thumbnail in the Vidcap app.. So it does capture allright.
I'm wondering why a good .avi file, captured by Sony Vidcap, can't be seen in Sony Vegas (video is white btw)..

I'll try capturing from the decklink capture app. and see if we can import those files in Vegas.

I agree that you lose converting to DV25.. from the digibeta, but that's done anyway. Untill now we've used Pinnacle liquid Chrome 'cause it supports DV50 but it kept crashing all the time. The new system implemented here will probably be Avid, but I'm trying to do what I can to let people get to know Vegas, see it work and NOT crash. And of course I also want people to know it so it will give my own little company more jobs and credibility.. Here it's still: "what do you edit with?.. Vegas?? What's that?"
No big show at IBC either.. everyone I asked didn't see it :(
I just hope I don't have to move over to Avid to get jobs just because Sony doesn't do any marketing here.. I do need to make money for a living like you all :)

mark

farss wrote on 9/21/2004, 7:24 AM

If you're capturing thru SDI then aren't you staying 4:2:2 and if you render out with the Sony 4:2:2 codec still SD NOT DV25.
If you're planning on going out to DV25 anyway, avoid the grief and expense and use J30 to capture from. Machine control and all works just like any DV deck and captures just the same with even VidCap 4 on my far from up to date VAIO.
One thing I have noticed, DV25 downconverted this way from high end broadcast cameras looks way different to stuff off prosummer cameras, it's much harder to pick the differences.

Bob.