I've got a really strange problem on my PC. I've been told that you don't "capture" DV, it's a byte-for-byte copy from the camera via firewire directly to your hard drive. My observations suggest something different is happening. Someone is getting their bytes mixed up and it looks like its Vegas but I can’t be sure. I assume this is a codec problem but I don’t know how to fix it.
I use Vegas for all my editing and for DV capture but I also have Pinnacle Studio 7 Deluxe for capturing analog tape to DV. Neither of these programs exposes their DV codec to other Windows programs (shame on both of you) so I also installed the Panasonic DV codec which came with my miniDV camcorder so I can encode AVI's in DV format from utilities like VirtualDub, Ulead Cool 3D Studio, etc.
If I capture the video (either DV or analog) with Studio 7, it will load and display correctly in all applications. Likewise if I generate a DV file from Cool 3D using the Panasonic DV codec, it displays fine. When I use Windows Explorer and I right click on the AVI file from either of these and go to Properties and then the Media tab, the video plays perfect. If I do the same thing with a DV AVI file I captured with Vegas, it displays correctly in VirtualDub and Studio 7, but in Cool 3D Studio and some other programs like particleIllusion SE, it is just a matrix of small multi-colored squares. The same thing happens in Windows Explorer. If I select the Properties/Media tab, it displays the same garbage matrix of small multi-colored squares. This seems to indicate that the two DV avi file formats are NOT the same.
I checked the FourCC on both AVI files and they are both "dvsd". In the Details tab on Windows Explorer they are both showing as using "DVCodec". In my system.ini file (I'm using WinMe) under the "[drivers32]" stanza Studio 7 added "VIDC.dvsd=miroDV2avi.DLL" which is their DV codec which only decompresses so you can't encode with it (thanks for nothing Pinnacle). After I installed the Panasonic DV codec that came with my camera it got changed to "VIDC.DVSD=pdvcodec.dll". I have no idea what it was before either of these programs changed it. Both of these yield the same results. Vegas captured or generated DV AVI files are just garbage multi-colored squares.
Same problem when I render. Even if I select ignore 3rd part DV codecs and use Mircosoft DV codec and then explicitly select the Panasonic DV codec when I render I get the same problem. Very strange. So that makes exporting video from Vegas for use in other effects programs limited to output as uncompressed (which can be quite large). Does anyone know what the default entry for VIDC.DVSD=??? in WinMe was so I can test the default Microsoft codec? Can anyone from SoFo explain why the DV AVI files they capture and produce are not compatible with the Pinnacle Miro and Panasonic DV codecs?
~jr
I use Vegas for all my editing and for DV capture but I also have Pinnacle Studio 7 Deluxe for capturing analog tape to DV. Neither of these programs exposes their DV codec to other Windows programs (shame on both of you) so I also installed the Panasonic DV codec which came with my miniDV camcorder so I can encode AVI's in DV format from utilities like VirtualDub, Ulead Cool 3D Studio, etc.
If I capture the video (either DV or analog) with Studio 7, it will load and display correctly in all applications. Likewise if I generate a DV file from Cool 3D using the Panasonic DV codec, it displays fine. When I use Windows Explorer and I right click on the AVI file from either of these and go to Properties and then the Media tab, the video plays perfect. If I do the same thing with a DV AVI file I captured with Vegas, it displays correctly in VirtualDub and Studio 7, but in Cool 3D Studio and some other programs like particleIllusion SE, it is just a matrix of small multi-colored squares. The same thing happens in Windows Explorer. If I select the Properties/Media tab, it displays the same garbage matrix of small multi-colored squares. This seems to indicate that the two DV avi file formats are NOT the same.
I checked the FourCC on both AVI files and they are both "dvsd". In the Details tab on Windows Explorer they are both showing as using "DVCodec". In my system.ini file (I'm using WinMe) under the "[drivers32]" stanza Studio 7 added "VIDC.dvsd=miroDV2avi.DLL" which is their DV codec which only decompresses so you can't encode with it (thanks for nothing Pinnacle). After I installed the Panasonic DV codec that came with my camera it got changed to "VIDC.DVSD=pdvcodec.dll". I have no idea what it was before either of these programs changed it. Both of these yield the same results. Vegas captured or generated DV AVI files are just garbage multi-colored squares.
Same problem when I render. Even if I select ignore 3rd part DV codecs and use Mircosoft DV codec and then explicitly select the Panasonic DV codec when I render I get the same problem. Very strange. So that makes exporting video from Vegas for use in other effects programs limited to output as uncompressed (which can be quite large). Does anyone know what the default entry for VIDC.DVSD=??? in WinMe was so I can test the default Microsoft codec? Can anyone from SoFo explain why the DV AVI files they capture and produce are not compatible with the Pinnacle Miro and Panasonic DV codecs?
~jr