to split or not to split, that is the question?

ushere wrote on 4/30/2010, 4:03 AM

i have never really bothered splitting tapes (hd) during capture (using sony hdv capture in vegas), but working with the mc1k (?) cf cards has made me realise that for my present project (at least 6 hours of raw footage from a 2nd camera on tape), having auto scene split would be very useful.

i've read a fair amount of negative comments about sony's scene splitting - can anyone give me positive feedback?

would i be better using hdvsplit?

leslie

Comments

xberk wrote on 4/30/2010, 9:31 AM

I never had a problem with splitting scenes from tape. I was using DV footage from a Panasonic GS250. Vegas Capture did a fine job of scene splitting. I was use to this workflow from film editing days when we'd cut workprint up into camera starts and stops for scenes, log em, label em and hang em up in a bin or store them in little rolls in film cans. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh...those were the days.......and very long nights .. I have some old footage coming off VHS tapes to edit -- no scene splits there --- so I set Vegas Capture to capture that in sections of 512K --- that's a resonable length for me to work with.

ushere wrote on 5/1/2010, 6:05 AM

thanks xberk,

i tried the dv and it worked a charm (i have 2 tapes in dv in this project), but my main 'worry' is the hdv stuff. will sony hdv capture work as well?

leslie

Chienworks wrote on 5/1/2010, 6:39 AM

The big complaint about Vegas' HD capture is that it seems to split a few frames too soon, cutting off the last few frames from the end of each clip and putting them at the beginning of the next clip. If you are a reasonable shooter and always include some head & tail then this won't be a problem for editing. However, it does mean that initially the thumbnail you see in your media bins will be from the wrong clip. That can be an annoyance, but not necessarily a deal-breaker.

Opampman wrote on 5/1/2010, 6:45 AM

I've never had a problem with HDV and Vegas capture but unlike Kelly, I sometimes (emphasis SOMETIMES) get the first frame from the next scene at the end of a capture. But, like he said, if you shoot some head and tail it's not a problem. It's kinda like when I shot sports action shots with still film, film (and HDV tape) is the cheapest part of the whole affair.

Chienworks wrote on 5/1/2010, 12:29 PM

Actually i wouldn't know personally. I've still never even touched HDV, nor any HD except for my own animations. I'm just reporting the common complaints i read in here.