They just kind of end up like dust bunnies in the corners of your files....

Teaktart

I just wonder; how do you NOT save those little devils?

By clicking "No" every time you capture.

Thank you, "simple comme bonjour", as we say over here.

It's not that you shouldn't save them, it's just that there's usually no compelling reason. If a Vegas timeline file actually knew which vidcap file contained it's media that'd make it more compelling to save the file.

Vidcap has always seemed like something Sonic Foundry purchased at a swap meet and then scabbed on to Vegas. Now, with the Media Manager, Vidcap functions could be integrated into it and an overall database could be kept. Some people like to work this way, especially those coming from other edit systems (users sony should try to attract).

Of course, the database should run both ways, and when you delete media files from the Manager it should be able to tell you what projects will be affected.

One major problem with vidcap files is that they can easily get sluggish after capturing a couple dozen tapes with many logged clips in them.

Vidcap just isn't a very professional tool and provides almost no help in media and project management.

Saving vidcap files? Yes, as a matter of principle, No as a matter of practicality.

Rob Mack

But if you need to recapture media, it helps to know the tape name and vidcap sessions it came from ...

JPF

I always save the vidcap files. If it's a large project, I may have 2 or 3. You only have to experience once the need to recapture files in a complex project to learn the value of keeping them!

They're excellent for archiving...
... just in case that one crazy client gets the notion to Change Something a few months down the road. For those that don't deal with clients... maybe YOU will get the notion to Change Something a few months down the road.

You can ReCapture, ReBuild, & Export rather Painlessly if you have a good method of Archiving. I think saving the .vidcap is an integral part of the Archiving process.

I just save all my captured footage, .veg files, DVDA files and anything else I used for the project on a HDD and when done, take the drive out of the external case, write the client's name on it and put the drive on the shelf.

j razz

Well, that kind of begs the point. Yes, it's good to save the vidcap file, but you can also recapture everything from a project file. When going this route, the project file will open vidcap and enter the capture data into the vidcap file (unless it's already there, I think).

In fact, this is how Veggie toolkit imports external log files. They are first imported into a project file and then from there you can get Vegas to insert the entries into vidcap.

Where using Veg files falls appart is when you've cleaned the media pool of unused footage. At that point, if you haven't saved your vidcap files, you can't get back the clips that were never used. This might be a good reason to be fastidious with your vidcap files. They only have to save your butt once to have been worth the effort.

In my work, we have a project with log files in MS word going back about five years. I definitely go back to old footage to get clips. Usually the most I go back is a year or two, but there's definitely a need to recapture old clips.

Rob Mack

I always backup the captured files and the intermediates (CFDI) along with the project. It does cause a lot more storage consumption.

Obviously this saves whatever length of time it would take to recapture from tape, but the other reason for doing this is because an HDV capture then convert to CFDI is not guaranteed to be frame-accurate (due to the GOP structure of HDV). I've seen recaptures differ in length by 3 frames once converted to the intermediate.

Of course many projects wouldn't be concerned by differences of a few frames. So I suppose it's purely a judgement call how to archive your HDV projects.

Trivia tidbit

There used to be a backup program called Mezzo that worked specifically with Media100. It could back up all your project assets to tape drive, using your Media100 project files as the basis of the backup. So when you later restored the project you could get the media and assets too.

They've since gone out of business. The periodic changes in Mac hardware platforms killed them, as they relied on being able to control specific tape drives.

Rob Mack

"Vidcap has always seemed like something Sonic Foundry purchased at a swap meet and then scabbed on to Vegas. "

I agree totally. For all its prowess as an application, Vegas' capture utility is really quite clunky and always has been. Fortunately, capturing video is the least demanding part of the process - and can be accomplished using some other utility if you wish.

I have yet to save a vidcap file and would be happy if I could exclude that dialog box from ever popping up again.

Del