jvc gr-hd1u
 

hello, i am new and from texas, i recently bought two excellent working jvc gr-hd1u' s and recently bought the the avid express pro, but i have not been able to use it with my camera. i finally ordered the original software for jvc for these cameras. i am very new, any help out there on how to use the avid.

May I ask how much you paid for cameras?

I would not waste my time with the origional software that shiped with the cams. It was released only because in the very early days the big NLE's had not yet adapted HDV. The latest editions of Adobe Premiere Pro 1.51 or Sony Vegas 6 would be preferred. Save yourself the pain and grief and do not install the old software.
Maybe contact Avid and see what they can help with in getting your software to be HDV compatable.

Video editing
 

It is right the editing software bundle with the cam is very difficult to use, but the HD Capture tool, also given for free, works perfectly.
When the m2t files have been transferred to your PC, you can use the cheapest ($100.-) and may be the best editing tool called MVW, made by Womble. There is no transcoding and then no quality loss; you can introduce transition, titles, etc..
You edit your HD MPEG2 files like you did with standard applications for DV editing. I bought it and could appreciate its high quality by using many imported m2t files (JVC and Sony).

Unfortunately the HD10u needs a driver to be installed for Windows to recognise the camera... unless you use DV mode, but I'm sure you bought it for HDV.

Be careful with the installation of the driver... many HD10u owners botched up the driver installation and had much trouble fixing it. Read the manual carefully.

I'm pretty certain that there is no NLE that can capture HDV directly from any of the HDV camcorders currently on the market. The JVC Capture Utility works great with the HD10, but won't work with the Sony FX1/Z1 camcorders.

Keep the following advice as a last resort... if you really have trouble getting your 'puter to recognise the camera. Install WinXP Service Pack 2. Better to get things right without WinXP SP2 - but it does come with 'pseudo' support for these newer cameras - so if all else fails....

While I agree with you that one year ago the support for the camera was totally inconsistent, with SP2 all my systems (4) recognize the camera without any problem, they also recognize the D-VHS VCR.

About NLE also, the situation that you are describing is true but old. Vegas Video 6 import/export directly to/from the HD1-10 and the D-VHS VCR. My understanding is that Adobe Premiere 1.51 with the free HDV upgrade does the same thing. With Vegas Video I don’t use the JVC utility anymore since VV does a much better and reliable job in my opinion. What I don’t like in Vegas is the recompression done when final rendering is done. It would be nice if it recompress only the stuff that needs recompression like the JVC SW was doing or like the mainconcept plug-in

What version of AVID Xpress Pro did you buy, Al?