Capturing from VHS
 

Hi
I have connected the video output from a VHS player to a mini DV camcorder with a pass thru facility (converts the analogue signal to digital DV signal) and then from the DV out of the camcorder to the firewire input of the capture card of the PC. When I use the moviefactory 7 to capture the relevant video I can not see the actual video on the display screen of the moviefactory. I can hear the sound though. All the relevant connections are OK because when I use the Windows Movie Maker program it works and it captures OK. Any idea what the problem might be. I tried it with VideoStudio X2 and I have the same problem, black screen.

Stelios

Set aside the analog input for a moment... are you able to capture DV from a tape played back on your camcorder? If you've verified that you can, then try recording your analog input to DV tape first -- and then rewind the tape, play it back and capture it into your computer.

Alternatively, TV capture cards aren't that expensive, you could bypass the camera altogether.

Chris
Yes I am able to capture DV from a tape played back. I will try then your suggestions. I also though got this answer from the Corel Forum:

"A-D (analog-digital) pass-through conversion is not allowed in DVDMF 7 or VS Pro. This is due to the IVI capture plug-in used by Corel. It was developed by Intervideo, replacing the earlier Direct-Show for Windows, that was used by Ulead in versions up to DVDMF 5 and VS10. Corel did issue a patch for VS 11, and I think DVDMF6, however they did not carry this through to the next versions.

Since you are transferring your video using firewire, I recommend trying the free utility called WinDV. It allows transferring via Firewire only, but will allow you to get your videos onto your computer. Once you have it on your PC you can insert them into DVDMF 7 and/or VS Pro"

And the Intensity Pro has a 4:2:2 capture resolution.

VLC also has a capture feature for DV, just dump the raw data to a AVI container. (if you know how to work with VLC's stream output)