Capturing HDV with Vegas 8 - Where is the Time Code??
 

I'm now in the process of capturing fifteen 60-minute tapes of HDV documentary material with Vegas 8b. I'm currently running the 10th tape on a HDV deck via firewire to my computer and suddenly I realized that I can't see the original recorded time code running anywhere in the Vegas window. I then imported one of the clips into the timeline and still could no see any indication of the TC!! Am I doing something wrong? Is there some setting that I've missed to enable seeing the TC??

Is it possible that Vegas doesn't see the recorded time code for HDV???

Hi Adi. Have you tried applying the VideoFx filter called Timecode? This displays the clip timecode rather than the timeline timecode but I haven't tried it with HDV files yet.

Richard

Options | Preferences | Video | Show Source Frame Numbers on event thumbnails as | Timecode.

This will show you originally camera generated timecode as long as you don't use Cineform to encode your M2t files. Cineform ignores all of your original camera timecode and generates its own for each clip captured.

IT DRIVES ME MAD!!!

Seth, thanks! Found it.

Is that true? So if I wish to encode my files using Cineform I lose the timecode indication? Thanks for warning me. What are the major differences between editing the M2t files in Vegas as they are as opposed to converting them to Cineform encoded .avi files? Maybe I can manage without Cineform.... ?

1. Repeated and successive renders in the .m2t/HDV format can result in deteriorization of the image.

2. In my opinion, the Cineform codec is easier to apply color correction and filters to.

3. In addition, editing in Cineform is easier on your processing requirments for your system.

Yes I'm afraid it is. Admittedly, I've not read any Cineform update material for quite some time as we have been so busy shooting and not editing. Maybe they've sorted it out. We'll be in edit for 3 months as of October so I'll see if it's changed.

I learned the hard and expensive way of this ridiculous quirk! We shot for several days with a PA employed to log timecodes etc. It was only once I'd spent many hours digitising all the footage as one large file for each roll that I noticed sync errors. Cineform acknowledged the error and suggested that from then on I use the 'Split Scene' function (which cured the sync error)

It was only after re-digitising all the tapes again with Scene Detect on, that I noticed that each new scene had it's own newly generated timecode. I could have screamed! 4 days PA logging camera tape timecode for nothing! And of course we have to pay the poor woman! (who was equally pissed off).

Uggh! Hopefully you were able to keep the log and just change out the timecodes? I've had a few boondoggles like this myself.