Cannot capture anything worth keeping with Aspect HD 4
 

I've just tried performing my first capture since upgrading from Aspect HD 3.4 to v4 from my Sony HDR-FX1E.

I will very soon be upgrading Premiere Pro 1.5.1 to v2 but for this problem that is not the issue as I haven't got as far as Premiere yet before the problems kick in.

So, using HD LInk v4 build 52 I try to cature form my FX1e. The results are absolutely terrible. I've captured over a dozen (small) clips and they are all the same. I view themn in Windows Media player 10.

There exists severe horizontal scratching across the top 1/3rd of the picture. And the rest of the picture looks like I've applied an old film 'add scratches' all over it. Also, the captures that I do get tend to freeze frame on playback after a random time as well.

Is HD Link v4 incompatible with the Sony FX1e? Am I missing something simple here.

I tried this capture tonight because a colleague says he got the self same thing from the same type of camera but from the v4 trial version.

This is a complete show-stopper for me. Is there a fix or how do I go about acquiring a re-fund?

For the record, version 3.3 and 3.4 were fine. I will be upgrading to Premiere Pro 2 within the week so v4 is a must for me. Oh and preferences set as follows...

Capture source lists only "Sony HDR-FX1E - Microsoft AV/C tape Subunit"
HD File Size - medium
Frame format - Interlaced.
rate Change - no change.
maintain Audio pitch - ticked.
split fiel ion scene changes - ticked.


edit: On further tests I've noticed that some of the playbacks of the AVI files in WMP 10 give an error as follows:

Window title - Cineform HD Decoder
message - The Cineform decoder encountered an error.

Don't know if this might help.

I got that "scratching" effect when I tried out the Aspect 4 demo with PPro2 on a low-power computer (a 3.0GHz Celeron).

Whereas on my 3.0GHz P4 Northwood and my AMDX2 4200+ everything is working fine.

I'm a member of this club as well, but it happens to me on a well-equipped dual core machine: AMDx2 4400+ with 4 gig ram and a nice big RAID-0 scratch drive. But if I found that if I reboot the machine and try it again, things are fine. So my guess is it happens when resources are low. (Do resources get low with 4 gig ram?) I didn't have this problem when I was running Aspect HD 4.0 on PP1.5; it's only occurred a couple of times since going to PP2.0.

As far as the WMP error, I don't get this on the 4400+. But I get this error every time I play a CFHD avi on another machine (4200+) on which I only have the ConnectHD codec. (I can't afford 2 copies of Aspect HD until Cineform runs a special on second copies for current owners -- hint, hint.)

>>> until Cineform runs a special on second copies for current owners

Yeah! GREAT idea!

Guys, there was a bug that cropped into the encoder in Aspect HD v4.0 a while back that occured somewhat randomly and manifested itself as an occasional frame corruption. We just posted an update to AHD yesterday (build 53) that fixes this problem.

Unfortunately if you have clips with this problem you'll have to recapture those clips with the new release.

We apologize for this - we know it is a nuisance....

David.

I'm not sure this will fix the same problem that I was having (although I'm always happy to get an update to the software). Mine disappears after rebooting -- I don't have to recapture the file, just re-encode.

Great Michiganders (and Spartans) all think alike!

Unfortunately this bug was somewhat insidious in that it was not totally repeatable. In fact if you did a recapture (re-encode) you might have gotten a clean clip because the bug only happened randomly and on a low enough percentage basis that you could almost blame something else! Your procedure was certainly the brute force workaround, but the good news is that it should be fixed now....

Right! First things first. I feel Imust apologise fromy original post. It was late and I was getting a little stressed. the tone of my orginal post was unkind and undeserved to say the least on reading it again today. I know better than that! An unreserved apology to Cineform support for their, once again, great support.

And now the good news. Build 53 seems to have cured my problems. I've just done a few test captures of a few minutes in random spots on a convenient tape. No such problems today. I vote this fix of the day! Thanks.

And once agian, apologies for the poor tone in my original message.

Alan

Alan, don't think twice about it - we're glad you've confirmed that it works so we can now move on to the next thing!

Quick question -- when installing the incremental updates (e.g. build 51 to build 53), do we simply run the setup file or do we need to uninstall the current version first?

Earl, you can simply install the update version over the top of the old version.

Same problem cost me several days of agony and was fixed with the new build. I wish Cineform would spend more time on product quality and less on hype.

Wayne

"Hype", I wish we could afford hype. :) Bugs can happen becuase we try and serve our customers as responsively as we can. We don't have a 12 months release cycle, we keep release cycles as short as possible to offer the newest features when they are asked for.