First... stop panicking.... Vegas works on just about anything.

Are you trying to capture video from a DV Camera or something else? Basically Vegas is BEST for editing DV footage... and you won't get the best result by capturing via the analog A/V inputs. You should idealy use the firewire port and connect direct to DV camera.

I have no idea why the capture program will not work.. but I would recommend you download a trial version of scenalyzer as that will at least allow you to see if it is a total problem with the capture hardware or if it is only specific to Vegas's capture utility.

If the system has builtin analog capture, there's a good chance that it's not going to run that analog input via its Firewire ports.

Have you got a camera you can connect to the system's Firewire ports to see what happens? If Windows detects the camera then, Vegas should have no problem with it.

Failing that - RTFM. HP's documentation will probably tell you how to use the analog capture ports. They're probably installed an application for you to use to perform analog capture. Work out what it is, Google it and take it from there.

IMHO - I still think it is up to somebody else to do this . . . . G

Probably right, but when a friend's in a pickle I try to help 'em out :)

True! ;-)

Skywatcher,
If you have any other capture programs(like cheap ones that might have come bundled with the computer or capture card), start there. Find out if you can capture video at all. If it doesn't work with their own software, then it's not a Vegas problem. There may be issues in the OS or in the capture hardware.

If it DOES work with the bundled software, then just use that for capture for now and start asking Sony questions(or better yet, as was previously pointed out, have your friend do it himself). Capture is not the selling feature of Vegas, so if you have to capture via 3rd party, you're not missing too much. Vegas' beauty(and focus) is all in the editing.

And also, get him HERE. No Vegas user should be without this forum. It's one of the best support forums I've seen. The people as a whole are very helpful, friendly, and fair-minded(as I'm sure you already know).

-Jayson

agree - replace the AGP video card with something decent, like an Nvidia high-end or matrox card. Then get a PCI firewire card for captures as well.


ken

Thank you all for your input. This truely is the very best place for support.

I have tried capturing through another program (Intervideo) and it captured fine. It was an analog capture...not DV. I cant get Vegas Video Capture to even "load up". It opens, then minimizes itself.

I have helped many people convert to vegas, with different types of capture cards. Never seen this phenomenon before (did I spell that right??).

Anyway, it seems like a conflict with another program. I'd hate to tell the guy to start removing programs he just purchased (bundled together). I like grazie's Idea about tech support.

Anyone out there have this model HP (HP Media Center PC m1070N) or similiar to it??

Skywatcher

Skywatcher,

vidcap should work through the 1394 port. stick to that.

be aware that media centers use a tweaked version of WinXP. It isn't the same. And Media Centers are pretty tweaked themselves, hardware wise.

I'm actually just running out the door to go to HP's consumer products division for a shoot. I write a lot of service training materials for these machines. That's not to say I know how to fix your problem. Just that it's a small world.

If you're still stuck tomorrow I can look some things up.

Rob Mack

Rob,

Thanks man! Get back at me when you can.

I understand what you mean by 1394. Two problems:

1. The system has 1394, his camera does not, so I have to use analog A/V (unless I unplug my Canopus ADVC 300 and drag it over to his place).

2. When I launch Vegas, the beautiful timelime opens. When I press the "Capture Video" icon...is when the problem starts. Capture will not open fully, it stays in a continuous "building" mode. Even if I go to task manager (which is the only way I can close it out), it shows the program as "running"...and not "not responding" (sorry for the double negative there).

Skywatcher

Skywatcher;
A quick look at the HP site shows basic info here and the various manuals here.
According to the specs pdf, it's got at least 3 firewire ports. I'd try hooking a miniDV camcorder up to one of these and trying it with Moviemaker. HTH.

Mike

Mike,

That's what i'm hearing from the other experts too (and I don't use that term loosely). I'm going to see him in about two hours. I'll go fetch my ADVC and go hook it up.

Now, if movie maker sees the 1394 (and I believe it will), what does that mean?? The only way for him to capture is thru 1394?? He'd have to purchase a converter? (his video camera does not have 1394).

Skywatcher

The only way for him to capture is thru 1394??

If he wants to use Vegas, he has to get the video in this way because that's what the capture utility wants to see (firewire, that is). When you hook your Canopus box up to it, I'm sure it'll recognize it instantly.

A further look around the HP site found
HP Media Center PCs - Working with Home Video which may help.

Mike

Other than through my DV cam I am unable to capture with my sony computer unless I use their bundled software (giga Pocket) and export the captured file to AVI video. THis works but takes a while. I suspect the HP will be a similar process.

Okay then. I read through the rest of the posts up to this moment. Definitely read through any HP docs.

Generally, what I write for HP is mechanical stuff-how to swap out parts, essentially-so my advice won't be any better than anyone else's. However, I have completely disassembled a few media centers so I know what's in there. You've got:

Onboard 1394
PCI-E 16x graphics card with composite and s-vid out
TV tuner card with RF/Composite/S-video input plus stereo input
a modem.

The motherboard is pretty bleeding edge-915p chipset, LGA775 CPU, and PCI express on the board. Plus, as I said before, Media Center windows is not exactly the same as WinXP.

That's it. The boxes are micro ATX, 3 PCI slots. Usually every slot and bay is completely full.

To capture analog video you need to use their tuner card (an Asus PVR416). According to the vidcap help file it should be able to use an analog capture card. Could it be that you have another program open that's already called dibs on the analog input? Intervideo, perhaps? It could very well be that the Media Center OS is just sitting there ready to play your video input and Vegas can't attach to the card. It's actually designed to be a kind of living room appliance.

It may be that it'll get over that hump if you attach your ADVC300 to it-it'll have another source device to look at. Normally Vidcap shouldn't need this though.

If moviemaker works but Vegas doesn't that's kind of wierd. If neither works then I'd look for some software that's running and tying up the TV Tuner card.

Rob Mack

This may be a TWAIN problem but since this is a new machine this possibility seems remote..... but:

After opening Vegas and closing it AND opening it again a second time in the same Windows session, does it seem to hang or take a very long time to load the second time?

Blues

I think this point gets doen to death pretty regularly and it's pretty clear in the manuals etc.
Somethimes you CAN get it to work with the analogue inputs and outputs on some video cards. This is I suspect only because Windows will connect the video stream into Vidcap and so long as the stream is DV25ish Vidcap will be happy with it. I know some of the cards convert on the fly to mpeg-1/2 and Vidcap will not like that at all.
If you really MUST use those ports then you'd do better to use some other app to handle the capture. I used to use MGI Videowave and capture through NVidea AGP card but I had to capture using NVidea utility and then open the file with MGI. Big trap is the audio and video are captured unlocked and can get out of sync.

Bob.

Yes, this is surely the best advice-use software that is known to play nicely with your analog capture card.

There is another problem here, though, which is that vidcap hangs on startup. Until that is fixed I imagine it'll be hard to do a capture over 1394. This isn't the immediate issue but it's important and will need to be solved.

Rob Mack

Your header is a bit misleading there Bob. :)

Vegas has always been able to capture using whatever WM type devices that are hooked up and installed. I used to to have a Osprey USB capture device hooked up and used Vegas 2 without any issues, worked with Vegas 3 and 4 as well. I think that osprey was even one of the first unoffical Vegas capture cards because I can remember seeing some of the Osprey PCI capture cards 'bundled'. Right now I have a USB Webcam and it can capture fine in Vegas...however I don't capture that way. I think the idea is that Vegas will only *output/PPT* via firewire, capture should be available to amost any device that windows itself can capture from. This was one of the main selling points of Vegas - that it would work with any windows media standard capture device as well as any OCHI compliant 1394 device. When Vegas first came out firewire was not a part of it - I don't think you could use firewire until version 3, but I am not 100% sure. Now this may have changed with Version 5, plus a higher % of people now have firewire so really analog in, as far a Vegas goes, may be gone.

Try attaching the camera to the rear port. My cousin bought a hp and couldn't get it to capture video until he hooked his camera to the rear port. Neither of us could get the front port working.

Just to clarify, Firewire was ALWAYS the preferred capture method in Vegas. There were a few instances where the Osprey cards were functionable, without control of course, and on some whims of luck various existing analog cards would pass vid to vidcap, but Firewire has always been part of Vegas. Since version 2.0.

Generally, the front 1394 ports feed off a header on the motherboard. There's no reason why it shouldn't work unless the connector somehow got pulled loose.

The issue here is that Skywatcher's friend is capturing analog and probably has to use a different app to make the capture work. The secondary issue is that vidcap hangs as soon as it opens (Doesn't matter anyway if he's not going to use it to make an analog capture). If there is a key command to skip checking for a source device...

Rob Mack