Anyone have any experience with capturing miniDV over firewire?

[Chapbass]

Hey all,

So, im trying to take a hv20 camcorder and put its content (from a minidv tape) to a computer over firewire.

The problem lies in the fact that the 60min tape gets to somewhere between 35 and 42 minutes, and then the capture software basically stops. The tape keeps playing on the camcorder, but it almost looks like the capturing software (I have tried both pinnacle studio and winDV) thinks that the tape is done.


One thing I noticed is that this happens right at the change of a scene. The problem is, if i fast forward to the later scene, and try and start a NEW capture from there, the program just displays a black screen, like there isnt anything coming through the tape.


Now, the tape WAS recorded on a sony camcorder, which I might be albe to have access to...anyone think that will fix it? I've done a little googling, but nothing has come back as a for sure.

Anyone have any ideas i can try? Oh, btw, Ive tried it in two different computers as well, same result.


MODS: I might post a copy of this in the Digital Cameras sub, but if youd rather not feel free to delete/lock it. Thanks

 

[Muadib]

I haven't used studio in ages, but when I had such problems it was due to the hard drive. You say you used 2 computers, but were you using the same hard drive that windows was on? I got the best results using a separate hard drive, and saving my capture to it.

 

[Chapbass]

Hmmm, i suppose i could grab an external or somethin. You think that would cause the exact same thing on windv?

 

[Muadib]

Yes, the same would apply to windv. You don't say what version of firewire you have, but if it's firewire 800, you have a transfer rate of 786 Mbits/s, or about 98MB/s. Under idea conditions, most hard drives aren't going to be able to keep up. Performance suffers if they are doing other things, like running the program, and being used for virtual memory. If the drive hasn't been defragged in a while, things will get even worst.

Did you check the websites for updates? I know Studio has been patched.

 

[Chapbass]

I believe i found the solution. Turns out the guy im doing this for recorded it on two different cameras. The first part, the part i could record, is dv. The 2nd part, however, was done in HDV on an HD camcorder. Turns out, pinnacle studio (normal) doenst support HDV, and im assuming windv doesnt either. I just grabbed a copy of pinnacle 11 plus (i had version 10), and while i havent tested it yet, I'm pretty sure this will work just fine.

 

[Muadib]

Lol, it would have been nice if he told you that. You are correct in your software choice. Studio 11 supports HDV. I've never used HDV, but I hear it can be tricky to work with. Please let me know if Studio only uses the native MPEG-2, or if it will allow you to transcode it to another format.

 

[gsellis]

I replied over in cameras. I did not think that the Canon did the same packetized MPEG as Sony, so cool that it sees it. S11+ will do it. You may need to create a new project for the HDV section. Studio's big brother, Avid Liquid, can mix SD and HDV in projects and timelines, but I don't remember that being available in Studio. But I still have V9...

Paul Atreides - Studio 11 edits in native MPEG-2 (mv2) and yes, it needs some horsepower (here is where a nVidia/ATI 1950Pro PCIe card with 256MB jumps to the front). I think Studio allows export is most formats, but you do not want to do DV-AVI in HDV as it tends to get uncompressed (>>>13GB/Hr). The native format editing is not the same as you used to expect with recompression loss (Pinnacle pioneered the technology and I think everyone does it now). So keep it in M2V and edit away. It runs much faster than doing transcodes and inserts (I do a lot of format mixing in Avid Liquid, which is the core engine for Studio 11, and the non-MPEG2 pieces are slower to render in a HDV timeline).

 

[Modelworks]

Also could be hardware related.
I have had bad luck with firewire and anything but a TI chipset.