Vegas and a Firewire card for video capturing

Cunhambebe wrote on 1/22/2004, 10:53 AM

I've got some questions.
If I have a dv or min dv cam and a firewire card, is it possible to capture video with vegas?
How about the 4 gb limit for FAT 32 systems - that'd be better to format as NTFS not to have this limit?
Can Vegas capture as AVI or MPEG2?
Anyway, if all answers are positive, I guess that'd be necessary to buy a pinnacle capture card so as to capture analog video. What do ya all think?

Comments

BrianStanding wrote on 1/22/2004, 11:16 AM

"If I have a dv or min dv cam and a firewire card, is it possible to capture video with vegas?"

Yes. Make sure the firewire card is OHCI compliant (Pinnacle likely is NOT). You'll also need a sufficiently large hard drive (at least 20gb), preferably a dedicated a/v drive, separate from your boot drive.

"How about the 4 gb limit for FAT 32 systems - that'd be better to format as NTFS not to have this limit?"

Yes.

"Can Vegas capture as AVI or MPEG2?"

All video is captured as AVI. If you get the Vegas + DVD version, you can export to MPEG2. MPEG2 is not really well suited to editing, it is primarily a distribution format.

"Anyway, if all answers are positive, I guess that'd be necessary to buy a pinnacle capture card. Waht do ya all think?"

Any standard OHCI firewire card will do ($18 or so). Vegas is not compatible with proprietary DV video cards like Pinnacle or Canopus.

Cunhambebe wrote on 1/22/2004, 11:45 AM

Thanks for taking time to respond. What about analog video capturing? In this case I guess I'll need pinnacle.......What do ya all think?

BrianStanding wrote on 1/22/2004, 12:32 PM

Best option is to get an analog-to-DV converter.

Canopus makes several, so does ADS Pyro.

Do a search on this forum.

jetdv wrote on 1/22/2004, 1:02 PM

All video is captured as AVI. If you get the Vegas + DVD version, you can export to MPEG2.

Vegas without the "+DVD" will also render to MPEG2 format.

BrianStanding wrote on 1/22/2004, 1:28 PM

oops. Thanks for the correction, Ed.

DGrob wrote on 1/22/2004, 5:11 PM

Depending on your mini DV camera you may already have an analog-digital converter as a built in feature. Check your manual. My Canon ZR45MC works just fine in this role. Little tricky in vidcap, but search this forum and you'll find a buncha info on analog capture via camera converters. DGrob

Cunhambebe wrote on 1/22/2004, 5:47 PM

Thanks everybody. Now I guess I'm gonna save some money. I'll buy a simple firewire and check out for the canopus. Any other ideas to capture analog video from VHS/standard/cable tv (without pinnacle)? I wanna make sure that I'll get quality, I mean capturing as AVI.