Will not capture whole video

dragonblade wrote on 3/15/2014, 3:15 AM

I started to capture a VHS tape - so far, so good. Prior to capturing, that generic Windows message appeared about a firewire device being detected and if I wanted to capture - I selected 'No'. I then started up Sony Movie Studio and started the capture process. After about an hour, a message came up saying there was some sort of problem and that the capturing will stop (I can't recall the exact message - I'll try capturing again and see if the same message comes up and write it down.) About the same time, another message appears asking me the options I want to choose from with regards to capturing a tape. And that generic Windows message also appeared once again regarding the firewire device being detected.

Despite these messages, the video from the VHS was still showing on the screen and I chose to let it continue until the VHS tape stopped. And when the tape stopped, I pressed the 'Stop' button on the video capture window. This is because I thought that there may be a chance that it still might be capturing despite a message appearing that told me it is not.

Now I want to try and find what I did capture on my pc but the problem is I do not have a clue where it is! When I started the video capture process, I was not informed whereabouts the file would be saved. And I was not given the option of choosing where the file would be placed. I have looked in the 'Videos' folder in C drive as as the 'Videos' folder in E drive and there is no sign of it there. All I remember is that the file was given the name Tape1. A search for that name didn't come up with much in the way of results.

So I have two queries - why do you think the capture was aborted part way through and how can I prevent this from happening again? And where would be a good place to look on my PC for this captured file? Even if it's only a partial capture, at least this will give me something to analyse.

Btw, initially I did select the "Don’t capture any clips right now" option prior to capturing.

Comments

dragonblade wrote on 3/15/2014, 4:13 AM

Okay, I tried capturing the same VHS tape again. After about 27 minutes, capture was aborted and this message came up: "An error occurred while capturing the device. An invalid argument was specified. "

Really vague, I know.

Another thing is that I'm doing the captures in tutorial mode with all the prompts. I don't suppose that makes a difference?

In the past, Ive used basic, low-tech NLE programs like Windows Movie Maker and Ulead Video Studio for capturing analogue video and they worked fine - no abrupt stopping of video capture with those.

TOG62 wrote on 3/15/2014, 7:24 AM

What hardware are you using to do the capturing?

dragonblade wrote on 3/15/2014, 7:34 AM

The hardware consists of:

A Canopus ADVC 100 analogue to digital conversion box

PC - Windows 7, 32 bit, Intel (R) Core (TM) i5-2400 CPU@ 3.10GHz 3.30GHz, installed memory (RAM) 4.00GB (3.01GB useable)

And not surprisingly, I'm using DV capture (standard definition)

Chienworks wrote on 3/15/2014, 9:11 AM

In VidCap check options / prefernces / disk management. This is how you tell VidCap where to store the captured files. Its current setting will show you where it saved the last capture.

dragonblade wrote on 3/15/2014, 10:16 AM

Ah thankyou. I found the captured clips. When I was capturing the first time, the video was stuttering badly on the capture window. And playing back that first clip, there are quite a few bits where the video skips forward quite abruptly. However, the second clip plays back smoothly.

Jillian wrote on 3/15/2014, 6:12 PM

Hi DragonBlade,

You may find it a lot easier and better to capture DV with almost any other software than Sony Movie Studio, which still uses a 16 bit legacy program element that never was very good.

I usually use Win DV which is a very small and simple (free) program. There are also several other free and fee DV capture programs available on the Web. Just Google Win DV.

Win DV will break up your VHS tape into lengths you set, such as 15 or 30 minutes, by choosing the number of frames you want to capture at a time. This can make it a lot easier to deal with a couple of hours of video from a tape. The pieces will fit back together seamlessly in Movie Studio.

Movie Studio 12/64 bit has a "memory leak" when previewing DV footage, so you may find it necessary to use the 32 bit version if you try to edit much DV. I do not know if this leak has been fixed in version 13.

One of the first things you need to do before capturing a VHS tape is fast forward and re-wind it several times to "free-up" the tape and blow out any particles that have accumulated since it was last played. I also clean the tape heads if it has been a while since I've used the machine of if it has been used a lot. Also, using a high-quality player with a time-base corrector in line can make all the difference in the world.

But, in the end, it is still going to be a copy of a VHS tape and the quality is going to be visibly bad when compared with any modern HD or true DV source. All the digital magic you can perform while editing can only make the image look and sound less-bad, you can't actually make it better then the original.

Hope this helps.