I don't think I have it in me to continue with these 14 hour days for another week. I'm really under alot of stress having to monitor the captures with MC 4 and restart them every few minutes because the program encounters a gap in the recording (bluescreen), a hiccup in the footage, switching between HDV and 4:3 dv footage on the same tape (my mistake), and other problems. Windows Live Movie Maker seems to work right through these problems without missing a beat, but isn't there something just a little bit more professional that I can use?
What is the BEST capturing software to use, that will be 100% perfect quality captures (I assume uncompressed and native format, just like Avid does, right?) with the least amount of hassles and hiccups, and that I can import the files directly into Avid MC 4 afterwards and combine with my .mxf files that I've already captured to edit my projects? Would Quicktime Pro be the best, or something else?
Seeking Hdv Capture Utility For Mac
What I would do is stop using FireWire, that's likely what is causing the issue. When the data stream is interrupted (ie, a TC break) Avid will no longer detect the presence of a signal and will stop the capture. The deck control and the video/audio signals are being sent digitally and any interruption in that stream can be trouble.
Your best bet for sure fire capturing with no issues is to use a deck with a 9-pin RS-422 controller and capture it HD-SDI. FireWire is a ***, to put it lightly. You can capture direct into Avid at DNx145 and you won't have to deal with any of the other issues that come with using HDV footage.
The BEST software for capturing HDV is MC, especially when You're going to use it for editing! HDV is tricky but it does work, camera/deck firewire output has to be set for the right format and frame rate (no AUTO), and so has to be set the project; the correct template for the deck has to selected, if Your deck/camera hasn't a template and generic does not work use the closest match; You'll always get hiccups when there's mixed material on the same tape; sometimes it's also a matter of when You turn on the player: before starting MC, once MC is running, when You launch the capture tool; make sure that when You change camera/deck settings You unplug the device and plug it back in for MC to properly detect the changes; many of us digitize HDV on a dayly basis: it can be done, You just have to find out the working workflow; and by the way, I've never seen a bluescreen in capture mode in a long time, and even outside of it for that matter: are You running the latest (supposedly more stable) MC release with the patches? You should be running 4.0.5.2 if I recall; if You upgraded from an earlier version, did You properly uninstalled the old software before upgrading? Bluescreens may be caused by faulty ram chips, if You keep getting them You should really run memtest overnight (google for it) to make sure You don't have memory issues. Hope this all helps...
An option for you is to capture everything in without TC - Avid should be able to capture a whole tape if it's ignoring TC. Then lay each tapes worth of footage into it's own sequence and then master it back to another new tape - the new tape will not have any breaks.
Then digitize from that new Master. (theoretically, if you know you're not going to need to Batch Capture any of this footage, you could just start editing from the footage captured sans TC, but I always advise against that)
lrmf:By bluescreen I mean on the tapeGotcha, forget about the computer failure part of my post lrmf:no avid template matches a Canon HV40Does it work with generic? Does it work with another Canon template? lrmf:Other programs are having no problem capturingother programs do not care about timecode... lrmf:the slightest problem on the tape that interrupts Avid results in an error message and the need to restart captureif by that You mean that when there's a timecode break the capture stops this is normal and You should be given the option to keep the captured clip up to the TC break; other than that You can go to the Capture settings and enable Capture across timecode breaks, the software will start capture and stop on a TC hole, go to the next available TC and keep capturing until the end of the tape, You will still experience errors (and blue screens) when the capture comes across a format change on the tape, moreover, if TC resets (restart from 00:00:00:00) You should fake a new tape name at any TC reset: if capturing TAPE 001 after the first TC reset You should name it TAPE 001a for example, this will allow You to keep track of TC breaks and You will be able to online if You're working offline; another option is to disable the TC button in the Capture window, by doing this You won't be able to capture at a low resolutuion to online at a later stage, which may be unconvenient if You're short of storage room and/or will need to rebuild the sequence in the future after deleting the mediafiles.
"if by that You mean that when there's a timecode break the capture stops this is normal and You should be given the option to keep the captured clip up to the TC break - This is what happens, but imagine this happening 20 times per tape for 130 tapes....
" other than that You can go to the Capture settings and enable Capture across timecode breaks, the software will start capture and stop on a TC hole, go to the next available TC and keep capturing until the end of the tape" - I did this, it hardly helps.
"You will still experience errors (and blue screens) when the capture comes across a format change on the tape, moreover, if TC resets (restart from 00:00:00:00) You should fake a new tape name at any TC reset: if capturing TAPE 001 after the first TC reset You should name it TAPE 001a for example, this will allow You to keep track of TC breaks and You will be able to online if You're working offline; another option is to disable the TC button in the Capture window, by doing this You won't be able to capture at a low resolutuion to online at a later stage, which may be unconvenient if You're short of storage room and/or will need to rebuild the sequence in the future after deleting the mediafiles." - I don't really understand this. I'm very new to editing.
Thanks for the advice. I've pretty much given up on this, I've done capture across timecode breaks, etc., but the problem is that my tapes aren't perfect, so Avid will reject them. The fact that I did have ONE perfect tape makes it seem that my Avid settings aren't to blame, it is just Avid's intolerance for anything but perfect tapes. My strategy now is to just make a scissor reel, show it around, and bring in a production company and let them deal with capturing all the tapes (the ones I already did plus the ones I couldn't do) and sort out the mess with professional equipment. If that fails, I'll be back to capturing tapes myself again and pulling out my hair, or using another program that can REALLY capture across timecode and other breaks in the tape.
Are you trying to capture across both the HDV footage and the Standard DV footage in the same master clip? I wonder if you could log the tape making individual master clips for each time the tape switches format and then batch capture the tape.
In my experiance capturing DV from my Canon XL-1 I used to run up on TC breaks of like 1 frame that if the deck was simply FF or REW-ing it would not notice and Avid would still be able to control the deck, but if capturing or pre-rolling would cause problems. So I wonder if you could capture right up to the end of say an HDV clip and then advance 1 or 2 seconds (with a custom pre-roll) into the DV clip and capture up to the end of that and so on perhaps you could then get easier results.
When it stops capturing I rewind and then time it to resume just as the footage starts again, leapfrogging past the problem. I am then able to capture, but having to do that 20 times per tape makes this an impossible task. I work 14 hours a day on it and only get 5 or 6 tapes done at the most. I just can't take it anymore. I'll have to get someone else with better gear and knowledge to handle this.
You have created a bit of a monster for yourself. Where to start? A new project for each tape? Not a good idea. Now you will have to open each one from inside the main project which you intend to edit from. Messy. You can capture HDV and DV to the same project by flipping the project type from HDV to SD. No need to capture to a new project each time.
Catalina (Mac OS) has nullified the DV capture setting for Premiere Pro. Editors need this feature desperately. Please bring it back. I have lots of old tapes I need to capture. Am I supposed use iMovie?We pay for these features. Please add them back.
Running into the same issue. Seems like everyone else is missing DV capture and neither Adobe or Apple are bothering to address it. What a disappointment! Guess I'll avoid upgrading software or equipment in the future.
EDIT: Just want to add that in some cases it seems like it is actually still possible to capture DV or HDV, on OS X Big Sur but only within certain parameters that make it seem almost like a glitch. Even in my own experience on PP2021 I've been able to scrub an entire tape but activating the capture breaks the program. It's obviously possible for them to fix this and there is literally no reason why they aren't other than relevance of the feature
I have moved to the Blackmagic capture program on the PC but guess as it is a pro company there is a Mac version. (and it's free)Capture still works on my PC but not always reliable. (latest Adobe version and I capture via the Blackmagic card)
I have a catalogue of home movies captured on Mini DV tapes. I was able to use Premiere version 13 to capture the footage and import for editing. The latest Premiere version only allows HDV capture via camcorder tape. I note a workaround is to use quicktime and then import but this is very clumsy or use a third party software e.g. LifeFlix....I have an old mac and was seeking to download version 13 of premiere but note these links are not available. 2ff7e9595c
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