HD capture utility
 

ello everybody,

I am a UK JVC GR-PD1 user this is the european version of the HD1, and I have noticed that the capture utility supplied with my camera is called MPEG Capture utility, The HD-1 comes with HD Capture utility, I am wondering if anyone has tried to capture fottage from the PD-1 using the HD capture utility supplied with HD-1's? The reason I want to know is that this version may enable capture of a higher resolution transport file than the European version of the software, it may turn out that the differences between the models is all down to capture software rather than differences in firmwarew on the camera. If anyone could help it would be greatly appreciated, Its a long shot, but if I could download a US version of the software from another owner I could try this one out.

Also does anyone know if there are any firmware updates/hacks to change resolution settings on the PD-1, I know lots of you would be interested in getting a 25fps 720p stream out of your cameras, i want to find out how to do it with the PD-1 cause its almost definitley capeable of dooing it!

Regards,

Sam Sharpe.

PS anybody at NAB this year it seems a bit quiet bar the Alias and Apple noise! Where's the cool new hardware!

RE:
 

I don't claim to be an expert, but I don’t believe that a clip shot at 25p can be captured at 30p and have more real frames then what it was shot at.

Although I know that there's a third party DVHS capture utility available that you can try it with. I’m told works with DVHS compatible playing device.

You can find it at: http://www.yamabe.org/index.html under freesoft, and if you cant find your way around you can translate the page at: http://world.altavista.com/babelfish/tr (it's in Japanese)

I'm also interested to see if the difference between the European and US version is only the firmware, if that’s so it would be probable that someone (more talented then me, possibly JVC) could write a 720p/24 version.

Re DVHS CAP
 

Hello Jeremy,
Thanks for your reply, I have installed DVHS Cap on my pc but when I have my camera connected it says it see's the deck but it says there's no tape, this seems strange to me as it does seem to be connecting to the camera, I'm going to try a re-install of DVHS Cap, ive installed service pack 1a and Direct X 9.

Im led to believe this may be something to do with the stream on the tape allthough the transport stream info in my Moonlight Mpeg Player gives the same format info including headers and bitstream info, also I have been led to believe that 576p is also a HDV standard along with 1080i, 1080p, 720p, 540p so in theory this stream should work. I have spoken to Cineform regarding capture from the GR-PD1 and they said that this format stream is captureable and that a release of Aspect HD will be available.
(Any idea when this may be David?)

It is also interesting to see on the recent JVC pro announcements that the new HDV decks make no mention of support for the PD-1.

I am almost certain that the differences between cameras is just firmware, any electronics programmers out there? Me thinks JVC does have a camera capeable of 720p at 25fps its called the HD-10U the HD-1 and the PD-1, its just a marketing discision to make sure us 'prosumers' dont get the same features as the big cams, just limit us to 30fps at 720p or 576p at 25fps but god forbid you give them the option of 720p at 25fps, you have to spend at least £50,000 for that kind of feature, it costs loads in R&D to make variable framerates - what a load of waffle. i'd bet the price of the camera that you can firmware enable switching between 720p and 576p, Mashisuta (is that they're name) definetly dont want us to do that. Thats what you need HD for aint it?

CapDVHS
 

When I started using CapDVHS I had to install my camera as a generic "JVC Tape Device" in Windows XP, I'm not sure if that's your problem, but I had a similar error before I had my camera installed that way.

You can find some more detailed instructions at: http://www.webtc.com/DVHS/default.htm

Also, when I was using the utility last night I noticed that it automatically detects the fram rate, size, ect, when you hit record.