Urgent: Capture Problem Assistance

CClub wrote on 6/6/2010, 4:49 AM

Hopefully I can get some input on this quickly; I'm recording a concert this evening with 3 Sony V1U's. I attended the Saturday show last night just to do some testing, and I recorded some clips on one of the V1U's. I'm able to playback the HDV footage via the V1U itself, and when I plug into the firewire cable, Cineform shows that the capture source is a "V1U." I can start/stop the V1U playback via the Cineform software. But it isn't capturing, and I get a message: "Could not find video header in 10002ms of video data, possible malfunction." The log error states "no valid transport stream header (error hr ox80004004, operation aborted) in RTCaptureconvert.app @ 1412)."

I found a posting on the DVINFO Cineform forum http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/cineform-software-showcase/112726-could-not-find-video-header-infuriating.htmlhere[/link] that states that it could be a firewire card or a player setting. I put the HDV tape into my other two V1U's and also a Canon HV20, and they all played back fine. I tried to capture via the Vegas capture option, and nothing captured there either. I recorded some new clips via the other V1U's and my HV20, and I can playback within the camcorder itself, but none of it is capturing to my computer.

I'm okay if this is a firewire card or cable issue, but my main concern is that I'm recording the full concert tonight (with thousands of $$ at stake and a lot of families and other videographers/audio personnel involved), and I'd hate to go there knowing that I'm recording footage that I can't capture. ANY ADVICE??

Edit: Update: I just tried using HDVSplit with no success either. The message stated: "Capturing has been started. INFO: No more data is received from camcoder. Capture stopped. End of capturing." I'm just guessing that this has to be a firewire card/cable issue, as there's no way that 3 different cameras can all be creating data incorrectly that can't be captured.

Comments

Opampman wrote on 6/6/2010, 4:58 AM

Don't mean to sound silly, but be sure if you use the Vegas capture you're not using the external capture utility and ARE using the internal HDV capture function.

CClub wrote on 6/6/2010, 5:04 AM

Not silly... I appreciate any feedback. I know what you mean, and I made sure I had set up to use the internal HDV capture. I also just double-checked in Preferences, and the external capture was NOT checked. Thanks.

ushere wrote on 6/6/2010, 5:15 AM

a. try another cable.

b. try using hdvsplit.

if it's recorded on tape (and playing back in the cameras), don't panic!

winrockpost wrote on 6/6/2010, 5:34 AM

check the cam palyback settings and make sure its on hdv and not auto,and you probably already have but if not reboot,,
something simple for sure, card-cable

CClub wrote on 6/6/2010, 6:20 AM

Thanks for all the feedback... especially the "don't panic!" suggestion. It's a great relief to know that the forum is here in a tight spot.

I'm thinking it's an issue with my firewire capture card and Windows 7. I'm seeing a number of issues around the 'net suggesting such an issue. I went over to my son's computer (Win XP) where I still had Vegas 8 installed, and the footage captured correctly. That seems to clearly point out an issue with Win 7 and the capture card. I'm going to work on that for a bit, but it's certainly relieving to know the capturing seems fine, so at least I'm not going into tonight's taping wondering if I'm capturing the footage. There's nothing worse than having a camera/tape problem and coming back and looking at just a blue screen on the camcorder (been there...).

Can I some recommendations for a firewire card from those successfully using Windows 7 Professional 64bit with a firewire card?

UlfLaursen wrote on 6/6/2010, 7:50 AM

Do you have access to another PC where you could try to capture? Maybe "just" with HDV split - easy to install/uninstall afterwards.

I have always looked out for a Texas Instruments based card, they have served me very well, but sorry, have not captured anything in Win 7 yet...

I think that one from ADS Tech is just fine:

http://www.adstechnologies.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=4&zenid=ba899cf9cf1d2db52b62ce8f861b822e

/Ulf

CClub wrote on 6/6/2010, 8:10 AM

Ulf,
Thanks for the suggestion. I'm going to record everything tonight and then sort out how I'll capture. I may just install back in a dual boot with WinXP or use an alternate computer as you suggested.

I'm having a difficult time locating a firewire card that definitively states that it works with Windows 7 and uses a PCI-Express slot. I did locate one here at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815201026Newegg[/link]. Unless I hear of any others, I'll probably order one of these tomorrow.

UlfLaursen wrote on 6/6/2010, 8:34 AM

As far as I can tell from the picture it seems like a TI chipset, so I guess you'll be fine.

All the best, fingers crossed :-) I think many of us can imagine how it feels like...

/Ulf

rs170a wrote on 6/6/2010, 11:00 AM

CClub, according to the manufacturer's website, the card you're looking at is W7 compatible.

BTW, for anyone who's interested, Microsoft has a paper (it's a Word file in .docx format) titled 1394 Bus Driver in Windows 7 that provides information about IEEE 1394 support in Windows 7.

Mike

John_Cline wrote on 6/6/2010, 11:08 AM

Are you certain that this specific V1u is set to output HDV via the Firewire output and not down-converted SD? There is a setting in the menu that deals with this.

CClub wrote on 6/6/2010, 11:34 AM

Thanks so much, everyone. John, if we're talking about the same setting, it's accessed via the following: Menu, In/Out Rec, VCR HDV/DV... that is definitely set to HDV. At this point, given that I was able to capture via another computer (XP) with the same tape/V1U, I'm fairly certain that it's the OS/driver issue. I just have a basic firewire PCI-Express card I picked up at Best Buy when I upgraded to Windows 7... should have known it wouldn't be that easy. I'll reply on this post once I determine if the new firewire card solves the problem.

Off to prep for the concert tonight... much less anxiety after all the assistance above!!

Cliff Etzel wrote on 6/6/2010, 12:23 PM

According to the Microsoft website:

"The 1394 bus driver was rewritten for Windows 7 to provide support for higher speeds and alternative media, as defined in the IEEE-1394b specification. The 1394 bus driver that is included with Windows 7 replaces the 1394 bus drivers that were included with earlier versions of Windows."

This is seems to indicate why my Adaptec FireConnect PCMCIA Firewire card was more or less choking with firewire capture on my Dell D620 laptop running Windows 7 Pro x64 - I reverted back to trusty ol' Win XP x64 and haven't had a single capture issue since to the laptop.

Only wish they made MS Security Essentials for XP x64...

Cliff Etzel
Solo Video Journalist | Micro Documentary Film Maker
bluprojekt | SoloVJ Blog
--------
Desktop: OS: Win7 x64 | CPU: Q9400 | Mobo: Intel DG33TL | 8GB G.Skill Dual Channel RAM | Boot/Apps Drive: Seagate 160GB 7200RPM | Audio Drive: Seagate 160GB 7200RPM | Video Source: WD Black 2x750GB RAID 0 | Video Card: nVidia GeForce GT 220 1GB

Laptop: Dell Latitude D620 | C2D 2.0Ghz | 4GB G.Skill RAM | OS: XP Pro x64 | Primary HD: WD 320GB 7200RPM | Video HD: WD 250GB 5400RPM

CClub wrote on 6/7/2010, 6:40 AM

Cliff,
It sounds like you have a workaround using XP, but if you're interested, a number of people had success with Win 7 64bit using the following steps:
1. Right-click on the firewire host controller entry in the device manager and choose Update Driver Software.
2. Browse your computer for driver software.
3. Choose Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer.
4. Select 1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller (Legacy) and then Next.
This process didn't work for me, but the "Legacy" driver I believe is the same driver that you're using prior to the Windows 7 rewrite you mentioned in your post.

Update on the concert mentioned in the original post: I was able to capture 3 great angles with the V1U's for the entire 2 hour show (and a 4th wide-angle from an HV20 I use as a backup). No problems at all with the recording itself, as I came home and all 8 HDV tapes played back fine. Now to order a new firewire card so that I can actually capture and edit!!

CClub wrote on 6/10/2010, 6:29 PM

Just to wrap up this post:
I purchased a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815201026Koutech PEFW332[/link] from Newegg, just installed it, and it captured footage via Cineform Neo HD and via Vegas. It worked great!! This is on a Windows 7 64bit system, in case anyone else ever needs a firewire capture card that works with this OS.