Capture-Anyone else finding this?
 

I've noted that when I capture from the camera I am finding un-expected breaks i.e. it starts a new clip when the camera obviously wasn't started or stopped.

Anyone else noted this? Had it on both my PC's

It could quite simply be dropped frames. What type of tapes have you been using to shoot HDV?

I haven't found unexpected breaks, but when I capture HDV in Vegas with auto scene detection I often get the scene division one or 2 frames late. Not sure if this is inherent to HDV or just a "feature" of Vegas capture.

Richard

I'm still on the Canon tape supplied with the camera. It's early days for me and I'm not at my PC. Not sure if the HDV capture interface has any options for scene detection or not.

Just to clarify, it's occuring where I wouldn't expect it to. I was shooting 30 mins un-interupted and it split it into three clips? Had the same with a shorter section I filmed of approx 5mins un-interupted. It just started a new clip out of the blue.

I've had issues too. The issues seem to be "getting better" as I learn how to work with the camera, but I still get *very* funky *very* unexpected stuff sometimes.

mysterious stops and starts
 

I dont realy know but it just might have something to do with the way your hard drive is formatted. If it has been formatted as fat32 there is a limit on the size of file you can make, if it is formatted as ntfs you can make very much larger file sizes if not unlimited check how your hd is formatted hope this is of some help

You have auto scene detection in HDV capture mode??? Hey, do you have the ability to set in and out points, too? My capture tool has half the options grayed out.

Don't rule out your firewire port
 

Don't rule out the firewire port on your PC as a potential cause. If I use the firewire port integrated on my laptop to capture, I can count on at least one or two dropouts per tape. The same port works fine with external hard drives. I switched to a $30 PCMCIA firewire card and I have zero dropouts.

I'm also into PC-based, multi-track audio recording where continuous data streams at very low latencies are important. It's common knowledge in that arena that not all firewire ports are created equal. Interfaces using either a TI or VIA firewire chips are generally preferred. Firewire/USB combo cards can also be suspect. On both of my desktop systems I have the integrated firewire ports disabled and use a $20 PCI card instead.

I'm not saying it can't be the camera. I don't know about the A1 as I'm awaiting delivery of my unit. I'm just suggesting that dropout problems can also be caused by factors other than the camera itself. Also check to see if the hard drive you are capturing to is heavily fragmented.

-Dan

It's happened on a brand new frash 160Gb Laptop drive and also on an external fresh formatted drive. Both NTFS so file size issues not the culprit.

I don't have that problem with both my A1s. I use FCP and the built in firewire port. Record to either an external drive or an internal, never had this happen either way.

Patrick

If your external laptop drive is a 5400rpm drive the drive speed may be part of the problem. Laptop external drives aren't usually as robust and desktop ones. I have one that works well for my but I haven't tried HDV on it yet...just DV.

I was shooting a wedding a couple weeks ago and I had that issue... It was about 30 min of footage in one solid take and it divided it out in 3 clips...? Possibly and HDV buffer running out? I am REALLY curious to know what is causing this...

In one of my shots someone was at the beginning of the isle (splits the clip) and then is at the end of the isle... I capture with vegas and it is set to stop on dropped frames so that is not the issue...

I've captured many, many hours of 25mbps video on external 5400rpm drives without dropped frames. It's much more likely the firewire connection.

Alistair, try a different firewire cable; be careful to connect it with the camera
switched off and carefully push the little pluggers right in.

Maybe this sounds wierd, but still I have to mention a few experiences from the past:

A good friend has a normal PAL camera from Panasonic. When capturing video from the camera, placing it nearby a monitor (with normal TV Tube).
The magnetic signals who surround the monitor had strong influence on the capturing. Many dropped frames etc...

He started using a more expensive and shielded cable. The problems almost went from 100% to zero. Almost. After that we changed the shielding on the 230 Volt outlet. Better ground and from there on all problems were solved.

The same problems can occure when a PCI card is used for capturing. On older machines the speed of some cards are not good enough. These days the built in 1394 are much better.

On laptops there is the issue of using 16 bits or 32 bits slot PCMCIA cards. Some of the cards are not fast enough.

At home I use a AMD X2-4400 PC system on a Asus A8N-SLI Premium motherbord with 2 Gig memory.
When connected to the 1394 on the back. No problems. But, in my Cooler Master Stacker tower there is also a 1394 on the front. The cable on the inside has (i think) some shielding problems and when I use this connection, some problems are: dropped frames.

Yesterday I built a new PC for a friend and he has almost the same hardware as my computer. Only difference: new Stacker tower and Core Duo PC. We did some capturing on that: no problems. We captured 30 minutes of footage.

The only strange thing: Adobe Premiere does not show a 'live' screen when capturing HDV. Pinnacle Studio 10 does.

I think overall you could say it all counts up: cables, hardware and software.