In Scenalyzer, you can press the space bar to create a new "scene" (a new file). You could use this feature, pressing the space bar to "start" and "stop" a scene. You would actually capture the whole tape, but when you were finished, you would discard every other file.

yeah, that's similar, but not the same as punching on the fly. But it's the closest thing I can imagine. Certainly faster than batching.

Yeah, I looked and didn't see a way to punch in and out. What just occured to me is that if this was possible, sure would save wear and tear on the transport mechanics in your DV Cam. Even your deck for those lucky to have one.

How would a s/w system "know" where to make the INs and OUTs AND then go to the beginning of the tape section AND start capturing? Beats me .. . Maybe if one had a massive DV tank and used this as the source bit like a HUMONGOUS Windows Cache File - a type of "holding" area .. It's a bit different from bringing one massive file onto the T/L and selecting from there too - as we might suggest - but this way the pc could kinda pinch what it wanted . . yeah? Once the process was done then it would automatically OR we could have an manual override, to erase this massive lump .. oh, maybe this could be an option that when stuff was being laid down to a keeper drive, the "Tank" could then remove that which had been "used", and move on ..

I see where SH is coming from . . the rest is up to far more clever people than I am - for sure!

Grazie

Call me stupid but I don't for the life of me see how this is going to save any wear and tear on the playout device. As you said you want to play the tape out and as it's running selectively record the bits you want. That maybe convenient and save disk space but either way the full length of the tape is still going to run over the heads. Same head hours, same wear. And of cuase if you stuff it up you've got to go back which is even more wear and tear. Simply capturing the whole tape and then doing whatever with it on the hard drive is the best way to avoid wear on the VCR. Even the way scenalyser does it doesn't save wear as far as I can see, it's quicker to capture but the tape is going over theads more than once during the capture, once while it logs the tapes and then again when it does the batch capture.

Bob.

. .er Bob . .kinda was in my response .. the wishlist was an option that may be considered in the way future .. . maybe when we have solid state digital HDs of 12 terabytes .. or more .. yeah?

But yes, until then its either :

1 - Wear and tear on Batch Capture.

OR

2 - Use up large lumps of HD for a single file for Pick 'n MIx .. then render and then discard what wasn't wanted ..

Grazie

Sorry Grazie, didn't read it right!
At the end of the day if you're using a decent VCR it'll most likely become obsolete before the heads wear out anyway. We had this discussion a few weeks ago and when you do the sums on even a DVW 500 the cost of heads per hour of play is way less than the value of the tape going over them.
The stop / start of batch capture maybe different though.

If "Sorry Grazie, didn't read it right!" .. then maybe I didn't wrote it right . .er .. write it right . . er .. right it wroted .. . ER . . yer know what I mean! . . . ;-)

.. . no problems . ..

I had a fad/passion for doing Advanced Capture . . once .. .

I used the INs and OUTs hotkeys .. I used the Record for batch capture . .I named clips and Tapes . . I even felt rather smug as all these trillions of clips neatly piled up [ ready for being Batch Capture ] . . . I even watched the neat utility go off and start collecting all the HARD work I'd done .. and I watched .. and I watched .. and I watched .. yer know what? After About 45 mins of this "watching" I went screaming up the wall thinking "I could have just dumped the whole file on the T/L and selected from there?!?! ..

Now, I know others are gonna come in here and snap at me buttocks . . ooo what an image .. but Advance Capture? Who now uses it and why? . . I find the whole pursuit a bit AR .. [ wotz AR? Think of retentive and yer half way there .. well, in manner of speaking .. .. .well writing at least . . ;-) ]

Yes I will use Advance Capture and Batch Capture on certain things, if people say what a difference it has made to their lives . . .. SONY leave it in! Do not remove it . . Better still - HAH! - please put back the little Cross + in the corner of Pan/Crop so we can quickly zoom in out and onto what we were doing - yeah? Now that's my gripe for the day . ..

Grazie

Someone who I work with (we have to excuse him, he uses FCP) but he is fanatical about logging shots. So he goes through a tape and religiously logs all the shots to paper, types it into the FCP batch capture thingy and proceeds to capture.
Needless to say I reckon I could have the average shortform project printed to tape while he's still capturing.
This methodolgy makes a lot of sense with say longform drama where you've got 100s of tapes and you'll never keep it all in your head but for something that you've shot, and it probably fits on one tape I think with HDs being so cheap it's much quicker and cheaper to just dump everything to a HD and work on that, you can sure spool through the thing way faster.

Understood .. Lots of reels .. lots of clips .. lots of takes .. .

G

Unless I'm wrong, and that happens too much, isn't Advanced capture useful for when you want to REcapture shots from a tape ?

Also, I know that tape going over the head is wear and tear anyway you look at it but my push for Punch in / out capturing was so that the tape just played and didnt have to stop or start for each clip. But ya, I see the benefits of just capturing the whole tape and let "Enable DV Scene Detection" do a lot of work for ya. Then throw what ya don't want.