Wierd Capture Problem: PAL/NTSC

mbryant wrote on 12/10/2005, 2:03 PM
Further struggles with my new HDR-HC1E (PAL version):

Having established that Windows 2000 does not support HDV capture, I've been focusing on trying to get the HDV to DV downconversion to work and capture DV.

The camera does the downconversion fine - I can connect it via firewire to my PAL settop DVD recorder, and it handles the DV in fine.

But when I capture to Vegas, it is all a "mosaic" pattern - a total mess.

I think the problem is that Vegas external capture, for some reason, thinks the input is NTSC and is treating it as such. When I look at the properties of the captured file, it is NTSC: 720x480, FR 29.970, pixal aspect ratio 0.9091.

I know the input is PAL - my settop recorder won't handle anything but PAL. The project properties are all setup for PAL widescreen. I tried changing the properties to NTSC just in case it really was NTSC, but still the mosaic mess.

The only thing I can think of is that the last time I captured I was in the US, and I captured NTSC. Could that have set some setting where Vegas is remembering that it last captured NTSC? Or what else could fool Vegas into capturing a PAL tape thinking it was NTSC?

Mark

Comments

mbryant wrote on 12/10/2005, 2:29 PM
More data... I just captured a PAL DV tape from the same HC1 camcorder and that worked fine...

So it is just the HDV-DV downconversion that seems to fool Vegas into thinking it is NSTC when it is PAL, resulting in garbage.

So in summary:

DV capture into Vegas is fine.
HDV-DV downconversion into PAL settop DVD recorder is fine.
HDV-DV downconversion into Vegas is treated as NTSC and the result is total garbage.

Very strange.

Mark
farss wrote on 12/10/2005, 3:16 PM
Try not starting the capture until you've got good tape running over the heads. Starting a capture with blank tape over the heads causes VidCap to lock onto whetever is coming down the cable, can cause grief with the audio as well.
Bob.
mbryant wrote on 12/10/2005, 3:26 PM
Bob,

Thanks - I tried it on all different parts of the tape and got the same.. though maybe the first capture was the start of tape and that confused it..

Anyway - after successfully capturing a DV tape I went back and tried the HVD-DV downconversion again... and it worked fine! This is after failing all the time, several days in a row.

I think that my "feeding" it a DV tape first got it sorted out.

Thanks!

Mark
mbryant wrote on 12/11/2005, 10:06 AM
To wrap up this "wierd" behaviour, tried a catpure of the HDV downconversion again today and guess what - Vegas was treating the PAL as NTSC again... so garbage capture.

So I stuck in a DV tape, did a brief capture of that, switched back to the HDV downconversion, and it worked fine then!

So it seems that each time I want to capture HDV-> DV downconversion, I first must capture some PAL DV, then without shutting off the camera capture my HDV-DV downconversion. Otherwise, Vegas doesn't seem to be able to tell what it is and defaults to processing it as NTSC, and I get garbage.

At least I have workaround, but it is a bit of a pain.

Mark