HVR-V1E Capture Problem

[Ryan Grayley]

After a quiet start, this thread seems to have become quite busy and very interesting. So perhaps I should give an update to help things along.

I still have the same problems that I initially reported but I have yet to try some of the more recent tips here. My V1E still has the original firmware but I don't think I will have the time to have it updated for a couple of months unfortunately.

Could V1E owners with the latest firmware mention on this thread whether they have had Final Cut Pro Capture Now problems or not please? I think that could be really useful information for those of us who are having problems.

Thank you everyone for all your contributions so far.

Ryan

[Nick Fernandez]

Hey guys,

Sorry I dropped out a bit, this capturing started to work and my internet stopped working. BOTH seem to be workign now! It seems I had 2 cross over problems effecting my set up.

I went back to try capturing on different machines but had no luck, so then I tried capturing straight to the hard drive of my laptop, with the camera as the only device. At first it didn't work but then I tried the old "Quickdraw" method, quickly switching the camera from CAM mode to VTR and it worked. So now I am capturing each tape then pulling out the cam and putting in the hard drives, copying media over to media druves, reconnecting media and clearing internal HD. Laborious but at keast I'm up and running.

So it seems that in my case the camera/FCP comes unstuck when there are multiple devices hooked up through the firewire. I was using a firewire bus most of the time, but I had also tried plugging the cam direct into a G5dual 2ghz... maybe I didnt try the fast on/off method as well??? Cannot remember.

Obviously there is a problem there as I still need to regularly hit the on/off technique even now to continue capturing, otherwise the capture will drop out as before. Also, (one for douglas) the camera makes some kind of clunk when the mode is switched over? I guess this always happens but am I likely to cause some damage switching back and forth so often? What is this noise? Are you guys thinking this is hardware or software? I have tried all other devices and cables separately and they seem to work fine, even chained up togehter at the same time to run. I am now even running a new 640GB external drive in addition to the my main old drive.

So can I tell Sony there is a problem with the camera if I need to do the on/off thing? Or is it FCP not seeing the cam? Someone mentioned a potential issue with the power coming in (or was it out) of the device to drive the firewire? Is that possible? What can I do to get this situation fixed so I can capture direct to my media drives?

Happy to be capturing now - but not happy it's a workaround!

Let me know. Thanks again, Nick

[Nick Fernandez]

HI there,

Just wanted to say that for now I guess this is thread is partly answered for me, but I am really keen to hear what people think about this now? Somtimes I need to still do multiple switching off and on to get proper direwire connection. IS this ok... should this be considered normal? SHould I get something done about it?

Please let me know what you think.

Regards, Nick

[Zsolt Gordos]

Originally Posted by Nick Fernandez

Somtimes I need to still do multiple switching off and on to get proper direwire connection. IS this ok... should this be considered normal?

Nick, it seems many of us has (had) the same problem - it still remains a problem. I for one do not find switching on and off too troublesome if that solves the problem, mostly if I compare it to having a job to do and losing days with figuring out what would work.
I guess we see a bug here that would be either fixed with update either at NLE or cam firmware side. if it would be fixed at all...

[Tom Werber]

I've been having the same problem with my V1.

Talked to Sony and the technician reckoned it might be a buffer underrun problem in FCP.

[Kevin Boyd]

Have read this thread with great interest as I am hitting the same issue. I have just bought a brand new Intel Mac Pro OS X 10.4.10, QuickTime 7.3.0 and FCP 6.0.1 with Final Cut Studio 2 with 9GB ram and 1TB internal SATA drives so no other Firewire connected and I have the updated V1E and it still has the same problems as all of you stated!

I did make progress with the HDV capture by setting my V1E's VCR Mode menu option from Auto to HDV in the In/Out Rec menu and this enabled me to use Capture Now, but it won’t work with in/out timecode settings.

So how can we get Sony or Apple to do something about this. Might be time for a petition?

Kevin

[Max Volki]

If you have the possibility to use a system with Win-XP or Vista, try this:

http://strony.aster.pl/paviko/hdvsplit.htm

HDVSplitt is free; it works outside of any NLE-software. Later you can import the captured files in your FCP

**I don’t know MAC and FCP, so read the "how to do it" first**
-------------------------------

When I started using my Sony V1E, with Avid Liquid 7.2, I had the same problem. Today it is solved.

Maybe if you try it this way, you might solve the problem with FCP as well:

1. Clean and Delete all Sony camera drivers on your system.
2. Set your Camera to DV/DVCAM only (!!)
3. Connect camera with system, Camera on, then start your system
4. let your system recognise camera as Sony device
5. shut down system and camera
6. set camera to HDV (not auto)
7. start system new, it will now recognise camera as HDV

This is the way; I was successful with Sony V1E and a PC with XP-pro
Now Liquid see’s the camera

volki

[Kevin Boyd]

I can see that's one way to go Max but to be honest I want to be able to log shots into FCP as I shoot films and so all the shots are logged and I need the flexibility of FCP encoding a series of clips using timecode. The very function I'm not getting with this problem.

Just spoke to Sony UK Tech support and they said the V1 uses the same firewire commands as any other camera like the Z1 and PD150 and so it's Apple's problem! So then I asked Sony could they talk to Apple and see if they could find a solution and they said they would pass my comments on to an engineer who may talk to Apple about the issue.

So a slim chance then that this may get resolved in a update to FCP.

[Max Volki]

Kevin

Solution 1 is just a way outside of any application

have you tried the 2 step-way, first DV only and then HDV?

in our group quite a few user have solved it this way

volki

[Kevin Boyd]

What does "Solution 1 is just a way outside of any application " mean ?

I have set my V1 VCR menu to HDV only instead of Auto and that gets video in via Capture Now but it still fails when you use time code via Loging a clip which is what I need to work.

[Max Volki]

Solution 1 means, that by using “HDVSplitt”, it don’t matter what NLE you use, but you need a PC, not MAC. (Wouldn’t know, if it is different with Intel-MAC)

“HDVSplitt” captures M2T files directly. The hole tape, or with scene-detection, and those files can be imported to most NLE-applications. (Don’t know FCP)

If you know or remember “Scenalyzer”, “HDVSpitt” is about the same, but for HDV, not DV

volki

[Kevin Boyd]

Well good news! I tried the sugestion of boot-up FCP6 with the V1 in camera mode then switch to VCR mode while also having my VCR mode set to HDV in the V1's VCR menu and it started to work!

I also noted that I was trying to make the camera rewind to time code 00:00:00:01 and this just does not work with FCP and the V1 (maybe not with any camera?). If I start with a time code of say 00:00:10:00 then FCP quite happily rewinds past the start time code and then still frames up to the 10 second mark.

So trying to make FCP go to the very begingn of the tape was compounding my problems.

Kevin

[Max Volki]

Originally Posted by Kevin Boyd

Well good news! I tried the sugestion of boot-up FCP6 with the V1 in camera mode then switch to VCR mode while also having my VCR mode set to HDV in the V1's VCR menu and it started to work!

I also noted that I was trying to make the camera rewind to time code 00:00:00:01 and this just does not work with FCP and the V1 (maybe not with any camera?). If I start with a time code of say 00:00:10:00 then FCP quite happily rewinds past the start time code and then still frames up to the 10 second mark.

So trying to make FCP go to the very begingn of the tape was compounding my problems.

Kevin

Try it this way

If you have factory new tape
First let the tape run forward in play modus for 20 sec. As it will have no TC, use your watch.
If your camera is set to HDV, start now recording, maybe with colour bars on, some 1-2 minutes. Then rewind

When you use this tape for real recording, let it run first forward in play modus, until you have about 20 sec of colour bars in front. Now start your real recording.

The first 20 sec without TC are just space, because here the tape is used mechanically. The next 20 sec with TC and colour bars, let’s you camera or recorder find the entry point.

All cameras and recorder need a little time to synchronise. If it is to short, you get an error message


volki