vidcap bug?

rs170a wrote on 11/6/2004, 9:22 AM
We deal with a large number of non-broadcast students using our Vegas suites and have had an issue with vidcap and I'd appreciate knowing if it's a setting I'm missing or is this a bug that I should report.
When the student starts a project, we create a folder for them and keep all information including the veg and sfvidcap files in it (makes backups easier). Before they capture any video, I make sure to set "Options > Prefs > Disk Management" to their folder and create a sfvidcap file with their name, Mike.sfvidcap for example, that is saved in their folder. Next student is the same, Tom.vidcap, for example.
The problem is that when Mike comes back the next day to capture more video, he launches the capture utility, loads his vidcap file and starts capturing. Unknown to Mike though is the fact that, unless he goes back into "Options > Prefs > Disk Management" and re-selects his folder, all his data goes to Tom's folder.
Is there a reason that the sfvidcap folder doesn't save the folder information along with everything else? I've gone through all the various settings and I don't think I'm missing anything.
We're using Vegas 5.0b but I seeem to recall this behaviour in Vegas 4 as well. Is this a bug? If so, I'll gladly report it because this shouldn't be happening.

Mike

Comments

nickle wrote on 11/6/2004, 10:26 AM
I'm not sure if I understand your exact problem, but under disk management there should be folders with checkboxes in front.
If you check 1folder , the captures will go there. If you check 2 folders the captures will go to 2 folders.
So you have to select the appropriate folder each time you start a capture or it will capture to the last setting.
rs170a wrote on 11/6/2004, 11:44 AM
...or it will capture to the last setting.

And that's the problem. IMO, if I load in the sfvidcap for a particular project, it should contain all project information, including which folder has been set up for captured files that particular project.
Because we have 4 edit suites on the go almost constantly (and there's only two of us in the area), sometimes students start capturing without us making sure things are properly set up to do so. BTW, repeated warnings have no effect on them as they think it's our problem that their files are somewhere else :-(

Mike
nickle wrote on 11/6/2004, 12:29 PM
In my opinion, the capture destination is pretty critical. If you ran out of space on "d:" and set it to the "e:" drive, you would not want it to reselect the "d:' drive. So I can see why it would remain as the last selected destination.

The important part in most situations is that the saved "veg" files contain the correct information as to where the clips are located and that the bins have the correct items for each project.
I think Vegas does O.K. in that department doesn't it?
rs170a wrote on 11/6/2004, 12:50 PM
The "veg" files do just fine - as long as the captured files are in the proper folder to begin with - which is the root of my frustration.
I agree that the capture destination is critical. The NLEs we let the students use only have a C (OS & programs) & a D (capture/edit) drive.
My frustration is when student A inadvertently captures to Student B's folder because they neglected to select their folder. It's a simple matter to move the captured files back to the proper folder - but my complaint is that I shouldn't have to. The sfvidcap file should already contain this information, even if I were to add another drive. I don't think I'm asking too much of the capture app as other NLEs I've used have this feature already.

Mike
nickle wrote on 11/6/2004, 1:28 PM
I just setup 2 projects with 2 users (me and me2) and captured to either folder. The bins contained the appropriate clips regardless of which folder they were captured to. The veg remembers where everyhing is. If you were to save the veg and then move the files, vegas would ask to search for the missing files.

Maybe there is a way to save the setup the way you want it, but I don't know of it.

Maybe a cattle prod on the kids would be a better solution.

nickle wrote on 11/6/2004, 1:55 PM
Mike

There is a workaround that you could use, which is when they do a capture, name the clips with their initials (jdnov6 - clip001.avi etc.) and at least you would know who they belong to and it wouldn't really matter where they were.

That is if they would actually do it.
rs170a wrote on 11/6/2004, 3:19 PM
...name the clips with their initials...

Some of them rename clips as they're being captured (very little batch capturing being done with these kids) but that's few and far between. Most simply end up with a lot of clips named (Unknown) clip 001.avi, etc. and then rename them after the fact (if they even bother to do that.
As much as the cattle prod idea is enticing, there are laws against doing this and I 'd get hit with a huge lawsuit :-(
Looks like I'm SOL on this issue so I'll send it to Sony as a feature request.

Mike