Hey BStanding,

Thanks FFR.

I tried like 10 different FireWire Cables, in the past 3-4 months. :(

OK, here we go. >>
NO Firewire Networking is enabled, as I had disabled it months back. I do NOT network my PC at all, ever. Why MicroLost auto-enables/assigns all IEEE1394 adapters, as uhhhhh, network adapters, is BEYOND ME. (?!) Nothing like yet another security hole in XP and more wasted sys resources. Way to go BILL GATES. (dumb @$@%*@$#%)

OK Next >>
NO Tex Instr. driver ever, I always used Microsoft's default version. Why? If you go to Pyro's website they tell you, in so many words - "Use the Microsoft Driver we don't make one for XP for this card."

Next >>
I reinstalled Premiere just now, today, and easily can capture video on my Pyro Card. The card is just fine IMO.

I really appreciate your advice, very well thought out ideas. However, and unfortunately, none seem to help my situation. No offense to SF, but I think they have a BUG in VC, Big Time. Again, I can use Premiere 6.5 to capture. Shouldn't be!

Lastly, YES, I can capture on Premiere 6.5 all day long and make AVI clips and import to VV 4.0. I do NOT want to do this! I came to SF to move ahead, not to fall behind. I MUCH rather edit in VV then Premiere. I should NOT have to run a separate App just to get my video. AND WORSE YET, Premiere uses the Default MicroLost DV Video Codec. If I make AVI's off of Premiere and import into VV 4, the video looks like SH*T when you compare it to SF's built in codec. See what I mean? I am about ready to smash my PC or take my VV CD and burn it in the fireplace. This is TRULY disappointing. I spent a lot of cash on the VV/DVD A Suite to get into trouble in the end. :( Anyone else?

It's not an inherent problem with Vegas, since I and many other folks can capture just fine. Since you've already eliminated the normal system setup problems, I'm guessing you've got a bad Vegas driver or software module.

Have you contacted SoFo tech support directly? Any response?

Don't trash your Vegas software. There are thousands of Vegas users and I have never seen the particular glitch you have posted as to the Capture utility. I wonder if there's an issue, however, with capturing footage directly into/in the presence of a RAID array, since the video capture utility was not originally developed for that purpose..? Sounds like some kind of driver conflict is being triggered when you start the capture software running, as it looks for hardware to connect to.

Get rid of the Raid 0 setup and I'll bet the problem stops.

John

I Have the same problems to.
But my hardware is ALL in Wonder 8500 DV
The solution was:
install all micro$hit softwares and upgrades and then
Vegas..
Now I Can capture from analog device
Tuner, Svideo and Composite whitout crashing the machine..
But When i go to capture from my Samsung DV i get :
No video was captured
Number of Clips 0
Frames droped 0
bla bla bla

File/Capture Video/Options/Preferences/Capture/ then un-check MINIMUM CLIP LENGHT.

If it isn't simple like "setting clip length" then follow John Clines advice
and "dump" the raid. The raid will eventually cause you many problems
especially if your OS is on it.

JJK

I too have capture issues. Not the same as yours though, mine won't recognize the same deck on 2 out of 4 machines V4d installed on.

I feel like something is amiss, but have not had time to fully look at it. Never had this issue with VV3.

Not helpful right now, but maybe I will find something in the next few days...

Hey B Standing,

Yes, I contacted them via phone and email many times. I also uninstalled and reinstalled VV 4.0 many times. I used versions b/c/d. All have this problem. It's rather bizarre.

Hey Editor3333,

I don't wish to Trash VV. It's just very hard to believe, that I'm the only guy having this issue, with a very well built and mainstream Asus MoBo and typical P4 CPU w/ W.D. Drives. I know tons of video editors who use RAID 0 for capture and render due to it's added speed. VV should support that, no?

LT

Hi JJ and Everyone Else.

Settings are fine, minimum clip length is 1 second. Listen guys, I feel many of you misunderstood my system setup. I have ONE BIG ATA W/D Caviar H/D, the 120 JB Series. This is for Windows XP. I then have the same exact drives, TWO of them, at 80G each on RAID 0. RAID 0 = one 160G Drive as far as the OS is concerned. I use this for video capture. In other words, I NEVER capture or edit video on my main drive, where my OS and VV and other programs reside. There is NO RAID where my OS is! The RAID is on two empty drives just for video only. This is a typical set-up among video professionals, especially PRE SATA. Plus, these TWO Video drives, are on a separate IDE Channel from the main o/s system drive. Anywho, for sake of diagnosis, I can set Vegas to capture video to my Sys Drive - just to see what happens, thus bypassing the RAID 0. Remember, this is NOT RAID 1 for redundancy. It's RAID 0 for speed.

LT

If you don't think system probs are at fault and you are dropping frames when capturing, try this:

1) Resize the video preview window in the video capture app to something smaller, like 240x160. You could alternatively check the "smart video preview" option (which does not display video during the capture process only).

2) Don't do ANYTHING else on your system during the capture process. This even includes surfing the web- you might think you are "just running I.E." but you might easily be running all kinds of processor intensive operations under the IE hood, firing off flash, loading graphics, downloading junk in the background etc. Even hovering over (and highlighting) a link can cause funkiness during capture- I've seen this in some systems, probably the video display card hogging resources.

Anyway,when any system is called upon to do too many multiple tasks at once, capture performance may suffer, so please try the above. On a decent system (like everybody here has), you should never ever drop any frames. I never drop any frames on any of the 3 systems I have, including two old-dog 2k PIII 700s (I can force them to drop frames if I try of course, but capture running by itself, no prob).

LT:

I was having problems with VidCap, nothing like yours, however. What I finally had to do was reformat my boot drive, install Winbloze, install all the service packs and patches, then install Vegas. All my problems went away after that, I'm even capturing to a USB 2.0 hard drive now with no drop-outs.

This may not be the right solution for your problem but if you haven't tried it yet maybe it will work. Best of luck to ya!

Hey SonyEPM and Sid,

Listen, thanks so much. But I never ever dropped a frame in my life, on this P4 PC. :) It's not frame dropping, it's SF's VC 4.0 just completely crapping out, and locking up, to where I have to "end task" the program. Then, when I relaunch it sometimes acts retarded.. So sometimes I need to reboot even though XP never crashes. I never crashed my OS but some programs will crash or lock. Anyway, I do not surf the web normally while capturing video. I use smart preview or disable preview. I even disable my network adapter so no traffic comes thru my NIC Card.

UPDATE:

OK this is crazy. I was about to disable my RAID 0 Array. But instead, I decided to try and import video, a different way. I normally do NOT deal in analog video at all any longer. However, I used to. Therefore, I set up my old and reliable, JVC S-VHS Deck, (analog obviously) and connected it to my Dazzle Media Bridge. (Dazzle Media Bridge = an analog to dig. converter, and vice-versa D to A, w/ pass thru as well)

What I Did: I connected S Video and composite audio from the JVC S-VHS/S3500U Deck, to the Dazzle, on the IN side. On the OUT side, I ran a Firewire cable to my Pyro card, (pci device) which is mounted in my PC. I then, set the Dazzle bridge to A to D - which simply tells it to convert the analog data to digital, and then pipe it OUT on the Firewire cable. I then started VidCap 4.0 alone, all other programs OFF. I started to import an old music video I had taped, at a club, back in 1998.

Misc: I actually set the preview option to 'always' in VC 4.0, and let the video come in to my TWO 80G video drives, which are actually RAID 0 so the O/S sees it as one big drive. (80Gx2=160G. XP sees it as a single 160G) Anyway, it was working GREAT. So, after I captured like 30 minutes of video, I stopped VC and saved the clip. I then re-enabled my Network Adapter. (figured I'd TORTURE test it now) I started the capture process once again, and this time launched Outlook Express and IExplorer. Would you believe, I surfed the web & posted on this very message board, let email go in and out in background, and even launched MS Word while having NO lock up at all. No dropped frames either. (even though I never drop frames) I actually captured 18 Gigs of video today, using this set up, while running mail and a browser and programs with NO issues. God, if I could do this with my Sony Camcorder, I'd be dancing outside, uhhhh, naked right about now! Point is, VV/VC seem to LIKE talking to my Dazzle Media Bridge. This is telling SF's VC, hates my Sony TRV 900. BUT - WHY? Makes no sense...

My Sony works with Premiere, and works even on another PC at my bud's house running Premiere. Additionally, this very same Sony TRV 900 Camcorder, works great on a Power Mac G4 using Final Cut Pro. So then, what's up here? Does anyone at SF know of a problem with the Sony Camcorder I have? Is this driver related?

PS - The Dazzle Bridge is auto installed by Windows XP Pro as an "AVC Compliant DV Tape Recorder/Player". It seems to treat is as a "camera" and even says "by generic" - which to me, means it does not see it as a manufacturer specific item. Like, for example, it (XP) does know my Sony Camcorder is a Sony. Windows uses it's own driver for all the cameras I hook up. This tells me VC 4.0 has NO problems with my PC, it's hardware, or with my RAID 0 Array/Promise RAID Controller Card. If it did, this set up should crash and burn just like the Direct Connection to my Sony's Firewire Port. Remember, I'm still "going into" my PC with the same Firewire cable, and FW Card. What's unique, is I'm NOW TESTING, using a Dazzle Bridge which encodes the Analog Data from my JVC S-VHS Deck to Digital, then, pipes it in on Firewire. Why does this work? With the Sony, I'm going DIRECT from Firewire OUT to Firewire IN and the signal is ALWAYS digital - right from the MiniDV Tape. Any ideas to what is going on here people? This is crazy.

LT

I seem to recall other Sony camcorder problems with capture on older threads but I can't remember exactly when. I believe it was on the DMM forum.

JJK

Hmmm, I wish someone could remember then? Anyone?

LT

Ask for DSE on www.dmnforums.com I'm not sure if he has the answer as it
was a while ago.

JJK

LT:

Have you tried any other digital cameras connected directly via FireWire? You're right, the Dazzle Bridge working seems to point a finger at Vegas not liking the Sony, especially since Premiere works fine with it. If a different DV camcorder works check the settings in the menus to see if there are any noticeable differences, there could be some option in the Sony that isn't set correctly. Just a wild guess.

Hey Sid_Phillips & Everyone,

I'm still trying to resolve this. Anyone else? Sid, I only own this one Camcorder. At the time I bought it, in 1999, it was truly cutting edge technology. (3 CCD) It listed for like $3,200.00. I paid much less thru a wholesaler, but point is, I will not replace this camcorder for at least another year. Anyway, I do not own any other Firewire Cam. I can TRY to borrow one from my bud, but god he uses it all the time. He does video work for MTV, for a living. If I do hook up another Firewire Camcorder and it works, that even further proves Vegas VC is having a specific problem with my Sony TRV 900. Again, I can capture all day with the Dazzle Bridge and Analog JVC deck. Sh*t - I can probably play a freaking video game too, while I surf the net and capture off the Dazzle set up with SF's VC 4.0d. That is HOW robust it works when my Sony is not used. I can do almost anything while it works in background, and not drop so much as a frame, let alone lock things up. (disgusted) : /

LT

LT7,

If you start VideoCapture.. what does it say about the available time in the lower right corner of your screen? Does it give a correct time available? It should be about 4 minutes per GB if I'm correct now.

Then, if you capture, you say the time goes too fast? I've had the same problem if that's what you're having. When I hit 'stop' it said it had no clips captured.

Then I tried using another captureprogram, which DID work, so I was sure it wasn't my camera. I'm trying to figure out how I solved this problem, but I remember that in 'device manager' Win2000 said that there were 2 imaging devices.

Now I'm not sure if you had your camera directly connected to your firewire port, or via the Dazzle bridge. If you connected your camera to Dazzle, and the Dazzle to your firewire port on your pc, than what you have to do is this:

Disable 1 of the imaging devices in the device manager. For me that works because my A/D converter was seen as the camera. Once you get it out of the line to your camera, the pc sees the camera directly and you should be fine.

Now I think about it, that might not be the exact answer - although maybe helpful - I can also remember that I changed something to the harddisk-access..
One thing i know for sure is that (if it's the same problem) if in VC your available time is correct, it will work.
When I find out I'll tell ya!

Mark

Hi Mark,

Actually, when I said the 'time' gets crazy, I meant the mini-dv tape's timecode. Not the amount of space/time left on video scratch disks. Sorry for any confusion. At any rate, the final outcome is a LOCKED up VV/VC. So I need to restart and usually lose all my work and the video clip I was attempting to capture. The timecode jumping, is simply something I noticed, which is obviously abnormal.

My Dazzle bridge works with an analog JVC S-VHS Deck just fine. I never hooked my Sony to the bridge, but instead, directly into the Pyro Card. I can try to experiment with disabling stuff and even hooking the Sony into the DBridge on bypass mode. But I should not have to do any of that, to make this work!

I can just shove this camcorder into any other PC or Mac and it works fine. Even on this PC - it works in Premiere 6.5. Seems VV hates my Sony. And seems no one at SF gives a rat's as* that I have this problem. I was on the phone and got a brush off. "Check your settings, reformat your drive." Yea OK! For what, the 100th time? The Irony? Sony just bought up SF's 'software assets' -as the news flash showed on 07-31... I guess the dudes at SF are like, "Oh look, one in a thousand is upset, oh well. Sony just bought us! Let's celebrate, we now have money to play with!" Meanwhile the very same company that bought up SF, they built this freaking TRV 900 that VV/VC will not work with. It's unreal.

-Still Pissed Off-
LT