I seem to recall that (some) Sony consumer cams can playback the DVCAM tapes... that would explain why your HC9 is playing it....

Like musicvid said, check sony's knowledge base on this website for dvcam, & you may find your answer, is missing drivers....

I've captured and edited more DVCAM with Vegas than anything else. I suspect the problem is neither in Vegas or in the camera.

The camera needs to be in DV mode, not HDV or Auto.
You need to use the external capture utility Vidcap, not the internal HDV capture method.

Bob.

thanks, bob

I knew someone was doing this in Vegas. Glad it's you.
Since I don't have DVCAM playability at home, I just order a set of Mini-DV dupes when the shoot is in that format.

Hi all, thanks for all the responses.

First let me make this really clear: I am not a video professional. I am in fact a web developer.

However I am sure that the cassette I'm trying to capture is DVCAM and that it does playback on my Sony HDR-HC9E.
As I said I am also discovering DVCAM and almost all I know comes from this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVCAM#DVCAM
(as a sidenote I'd be glad to know if it is accurate)

So following musicvid's advice I went to the KB and found this page:
http://smsfr.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/smsfr.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1811&p_created=1154635571&p_sid=-VW_JTuj&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MSwxJnBfcHJvZHM9MTcmcF9jYXRzPTk1JnBfcHY9MS4xNyZwX2N2PTEuOTUmcF9wYWdlPTEmcF9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD1EVkNBTQ**&p_li=&p_topview=1
(this page is in French but you should be able to find it by the answer ID: 1811)
I'll be trying that out as soon as I have a few minutes to spare, although I'm a bit nervous about uninstalling the video capture software.

Any ideas about whether this is the magic bullet?

BTW I checked the drivers and I do not currently have dvcam.sys or dvcam.inf

Thanks Farss for giving me hope that this is feasable. Of course our other solution is to send the tape to our usual lab, but if the situation crops up again, I'd like to be able to save the money...

"BTW I checked the drivers and I do not currently have dvcam.sys or dvcam.inf"

This is quite irrelevant!

DV and DVCAM are to all intents the same when it comes to reading that data from the tape into a NLE. Any NLE that can read DV can read DVCAM and that includes Vegas. The difference is how the data is recorded on the tape. DVCAM writes a wider track and hence the tape has to travel faster. Some tape drives cannot do this but as your camera can play the tape, it can play the tape. It's that simple.

There is a subtle difference in the data. DVCAM has a restriction that the audio must be "locked" to the video. This can have implications for a NLE recording (Print To Tape). To the best of my knowledge ALL NLEs can do this, it may have been an issue years ago but I doubt it.

So Vegas will do the job, your camera seems capable of doing the job. Here's why I think it is not working for you.
By default all the Sony cameras set the firewire port to AUTO and AUTO defaults to HDV. This will completley confuse Windows, OSX or any friggin operating system and any NLE. What happens is this. You go to capture the tape, the NLE and OS load the drivers for HDV. As soon as you try to play the DV/DVCAM tape different data comes off the tape and the camera / VCR changes modes which requires the operating system to load different drivers and the NLE has a heart attack. Why in the world Sony designed things this way I don't know. I do know I could kill whoever came up with this daft idea because it's caused me to spend hours on the phone trying to explain this to customers who insist our VCRs or cameras are broken.


So here is how to fix this.
Now I only have a HC5, cannot image it's much different in a HC9 etc.

Switch the camera to Play / Edit.
P-Menu >Menu
Scroll down to EDIT/PLAY, OK.
Scroll down to VCR HDV/DV, OK.
Change from AUTO to DV. Press OK.

Now try. You MUST restart Vegas if it was open while you made this change. You MUST wait for Windows to 'ding' that it's seen the change and loaded the correct driver.

Now in Vegas capture DV. Do not try to capture HDV.

Bob.

Update:

In the interests of not looking foolish I just tested this.

I recorded 5mins of a program to a MiniDV tape in DVCAM using my M15 VCR.

Connected our HC5 to Vegas, changed setup as above.
Fired up V8.0b (this has not changed since V7 and worked even in V4). File>Capture Video.
Click the DV button and OK.

DVCAM tape captures perfectly.

I have no reason to doubt this will work with a HC7 or HC9.

Bob.

"This is quite irrelevant!" ??????????......

You even admit there is a small difference in the data stream, which is possibly why the PC thinks it's a DVCAM device it's trying to communicate with.
&, he did say he doesn't have the drivers on his system. His friend was able to get it to work with his system.

Do you have those DVCAM drivers on your system?

I'm really not trying to argumentative here, just trying to help the guy.... : )

I regularly capture from DVCAM tapes through a DSR11 DVCAM deck. I've never needed to do anything special. Vegas has the capability out of the box.

This is not quite the same as playing a DVCam tape in a DV-capable HDV camera, but as bob says, if it plays it should capture. It's close enough and the fact that HDCAM uses locked audio makes no difference.

You will have to use Vidcap and NOT the internal capture tool that you'd use with HDV. You might have to go back into prefs to get Vegas to ask you which one to use because Vegas allows you to "Always Use" one or the other by ticking a checkbox. If you have always captured HDV prior to this then that checkbox was likely ticked.

Rob

Some cameras can play back DVCAM, some can't.

Because the tape speed is so different, you might have glitches/dropouts for the first few seconds while the camera/VTR tries to get the tape to the right speed. Some can't do it.

After rereading the original post, what is actually recorded on the DVcam tape? So far he's only mentioned that it's a DVCAM tape, not neccessarily the DVcam format that's on the tape.....

On a regular basis, we use DVCam tapes to record DV, & HDV once in a while...

It would be nice to hear what edmon has found out, or any conclusion he's come to.... & has he tried any of the suggestions others have made.....

Please, follow bob's (farss) advice rather than mine, he has far more working knowledge of this than I.

Yeah, exactly.... ignore the rest of us.... : ) ....

Uhh, that's not what I said.

I did defer my response to someone who I know has more experience with this particular task than I do.
How many DVCAM captures in Vegas have you made? More than Bob?

I did not suggest the OP "ignore" you, nor do I have any influence over whether others read your advice or not.

I really hope you are right so you can come back and say, "I told you so!"

I guessed I asked for it... so here I go...

did you miss my smily face?... but, before this gets out of hand...

You do yourself a great disservice if you think you don't influence others in the forum.....

Yourself & Bob, & many others, have an excellent reputation here.... as I have read many posts by you & others, I quite agree...

Maybe Bob's right...Personally, I don't give a crud who wins or is right or wrong on the solution...

I only offered up one possible solution to edMon's dilema, along with the others suggetions...

& for the record, I would never come back with an "I told you so"... that's just not good form....

& if I may quote you, for you to think otherwise is outside the logical scope of this discussion... again : ) ....

maybe edMon will report back with what he's found out.... & ther's a happy ending....

I capture, on a regular basis, anywhere from 10 to 12 hours worth of DVCam footage per week into Vegas (since before Sony acquired it) and never had a problem. All of this is shot on a team of PD-150s on the DVCam setting on miniDV tapes. As has been mentioned before, not all cameras can play DVCam, certainly those that can record the format, will play it back.

In reply to no one in particular.

1) No, I do not have dvcam.sys or dvcam.inf on my system.

2) I did take the time to test an almost identical scenario to edMon's and detailed it in a post above. I do not have a HC9, I tested DVCAM capture using a HC5. It's possible Sony made a change between the HC5 and HC9 that is what's causing edMon's problem. That's pretty unlikely but I cannot rule it out.

3) The locked audio part of the DVCAM spec refers to the audio sampling rate being precisely locked to the video sampling rate. This has no impact on capturing the material.

4) Another possible scenario. We've found all the PAL Sony consummer cameras will play NTSC onto their LCD screen and out the analogue ports. You cannot capture it via firewire though.

5) Reading edMon's original post again several times I'm not 100% certain what's going on. It really sounds like the classic problem of the camera being in Auto. As I said I've spent considerable time sorting out the confusion this can cause to any NLE, you should try sorting this out with a FCP user :)

6) In the context of this discussion there's no difference between tapes sold as "DV", "DVACM" or "HDV". Regardless of the sticker any of those tapes can record DV, DVCAM or HDV in PAL or NTSC. Recording times between DV and HDV are different to DVCAM due to DVCAM's 50% faster write speed.

7) We have found some consummer Sony cameras will get part way into capturing DVCAM and then loose tracking. If you have DVCAM capable kit it's always best to use that to capture DVCAM however 9 times out of 10 cheap Sony DV or HDV cameras will work.

I believe if edMon follows precisely my instructions above in a previous post he will get this to work. It might not work due to something in his HC9 however it's very easy to get it to not work for reasons other than that.

Bob.

like everyone else here, i've had no problems getting dvcam into vegas - ever - since ver 4 (or was it 5?).

to the op:

a. did you shoot the tape?

b. does it play back in other cameras?

c. it is in the format you expect (ie. pal / ntsc)?

d. if your pc worked before, have you installed new software / checked for malware?

good luck

leslie

btw. according to http://www.sony.co.uk/product/hdd-hdv/hdr-hc9e#pageType=TechnicalSpecs dvcam isn't listed, nor the ability to playback ntsc to pal!