first let me say that I know Vegas Capture works perfectly for a lot of people. and I have tried the troubleshooting measures that people recommend aside from refreshing the whole system.

>Is anyone else seeing this?

I'm experiencing similar problems under WinXP. no device control on Print to Tape from Timeline. video capture is aptly described as a 'buggy mess'. okay, that's really too harsh of a criticism since it really does work perfectly for a lot of people. but when your own stuff doesn't work, it *feels* like a buggy mess. and since the application almost never recovers from an error, it *looks* pretty buggy too. my system doesn't freeze, but the capture application get's stuck with the post-capture dialog up. the only way to get out of it is to use End Task. it usually asks if I want to save my file, so I know the application is alive, but the dialog won't close or cancel or continue.

the problem with batch capture is that you can't set it and forget it. instead you have to babysit it or else you'll come back two hours later and find that the batch failed on the second clip.

most of the errors occur while 'seeking' for me.

>Some DV decks are not currently supported in Vegas' Print from the timeline, whereas printing from Video Capture fully allows device control.

okay, why not? I have a Sony DSR-11 ($2100 DVCAM). is that one of the decks that are supported by Vegas Capture, but not Vegas Video?

the best thing would be if I was able to start a Print to Tape from Timeline, and have it be done in the morning. currently I cannot do this. I have to first wait for the render to complete, and then cue up the DV deck manually so it can record the video to tape.

I'm going to re-install WinXP right now and put fresh EVERYTHING on the PC. I'll let you know if it solves any of these problems.

btw - I think Vegas Capture 3 could be the coolest and best capture application out there with the following modifications:

1 - need better still image grabbing. this 'resizing the window' stuff is really annoying since my capture station doesn't have large desktop size. when I hit 'capture still' I want a full resolution frame grab with options to capture a progressive frame in full resolution, or a de-interlaced frame, or a single field. if I want a smaller version, I'll resize it in my photo editing software. to me this isn't a feature, but a major annoyance.

2 - stop motion capture with previous frame grab overlayed for doing clay animation type stuff.

3 - better support for various decks and hardware so we don't have all these problems.

4 - better error handling so when something bad happens, we can recover.

I use win2K and XP with sony DCR-PC5 and Sony VX-2000. No problems with capture or print to tape at all.

It's possible that in a future update/upgrade we address some improvements in the batch capture "set it and leave it" area, and in Vegas' DV deck support.

Your feedback is very helpful.

I'm a newby, and certainly no expert, but I went through the capture hell you experienced, with several capture utilities, including Vegas 2.0. I couldn't get my Sony PD150 recognized by any of them, using an Adaptec 4300 Firewire card. Adaptec (of course) blamed Sony, saying it wasn't OHCI compliant. My video production company tried my camera and it captured excellently (on another brand card). One solution was to change IEEE cards, but I'm too cheap to try that. My computer assembler didn't know any solutions after several hours billing, so I was left to my own devices.

SOLUTION: finally found a hint on the MGI Videowave site: While windows will show no conflicts and device working properly for the Texas Instruments IEEE 1394 device (the default driver Windows loads for the Adaptec Firewire card), but very often there is an IRQ conflict when Windows dynamically manages PCI steering. This is not easy, but IT WORKED for me: (W2K, SP2)

1. Uninstall the Texas instruments driver in Device Manager. While in Device Manger, record all the used IRQ addresses. Most everything in a new system will be dynamically assigned to IRQ 9...(therein lies the problem)
2. Power down and remove your IEEE 1394 card.
3. Reboot to the SETUP menu. Drill down to IRQ steering, and force the PCI slot you use for the IEEE card to an unused IRQ. (On new systems, usually IRQ 5 is available, but confirm this on the IRQ list you recorded in step 1)
4. Save changes and exit the setup menu.
5. Boot normally to make sure your changes were saved, then power down and install the IEEE 1394 card in the PCI slot you forced steering to.
6. Boot up again. Windows will see the card and install the Texas Instruments 1394 driver again.
That did it for me. My capture works great. Camera control works great. All is well with the world. It wasn't Vegas' fault at all.

IRQ sharing is the proper way of doing things nowadays so while it may solve some problems, it cannot be considered a 'solution' - rather, a 'workaround'.

Clearly we're all aware of the problems - even sofo doesn't deny it. I just hope now that 3.1 (er, sorry - 3.0a) has fixed the VCD problems we're hard at work fixing this most basic function of an NLE?

P.S. Instead of waiting I bought SCLive. Unlike VV3, there's no serious lag with my Canon camera and Device Control of my DSR-11 works fine. Again, a workaround.

The issue with the Canons has to do with these devices holding onto the 1394 bus incorrectly. Sony's do not exhibit this behavior. This is probably a result of Video Capture pinging the device for it's status (tape, transport, timecode) and the Canons not being able to handle the through put.

As for DSR-11 DV deck, you should be able to have full deck control from Video Capture, while with Vegas print from the timeline, you'll have to manually engage the record.

We'll try to address these issues in a future release.

The word "try" bothers me , I think if Vegas is going to be used by serious editors ,it sure has hell needs to support decks. Don't know about anyone else but I don't like using a xl1 as a recorder/player.

Not sure what you mean...you should be able to use DV devices in both Vegas and Video Capture, it's just in Vegas that you need to manually engage the record, for now.