Capturing with HDVSplit vs Vegas
 

I am new to video editing and currently reading lots of posts and experinmenting with HDV camera and Vegas. I can see that many people use HDVSplit to capture video from camera, and then uses Vegas to edit it. But Vegas has capture posibility as well. What is the reason that people use HDVSplit rather then Vegas for capturing?

Reading Vegas manual it explains that "if any captured clips go offline, you can recapture the clips using you video capture application" What does "clips go offline" means? Does it means clips that would have dropped frames? clips that can not be opened for editing?

I actually captured video with HDVSplit and got many m2t files, that I tried to open/import with Vegas. Most of them were opened succesfully, but others I could not open in Vegas. What could that be??? Is recapturing the only solution to get it opened in Vegas? Seems like a lot of work to find and recapture those clips that I can not open.

And last question, which probably have to be first. I read in manual instruction to connect camera to video capture card before you beging capturing. I wonder if there are some special capture cards and if there is any benefit in purchasing them. I connect to IE1394 connection on my PC that is wired to motherboard directly. There is another IE1394 that is on sound card, but I didn't use that. There is no IE1394 connections on my graphic card.

Thanks for helping with those newbie questions.

HDVSplit scene splits the m2t files upon capture. Vegas will capture all the footage as a single clip. Be aware that Vegas can handle about 90 m2t clips on the timeline at once before it crashes so doing a project with lots of little m2t clips is not a viable approach with Vegas currently.

Vegas 6.0 supports nested projects - is this a way around the problem?

So far I have not reached 90 m2t files in one project, but that is a valid point to be aware of. Ok, then I understand capturing with HDVSplit would allow me to split video file during capture, where with Vegas I would have to do split after capture is finished, right? Does splitting long m2t file captures with Vegas take a long time?

I still can't understand why can't I open some of the files captured with HDVSplit. Wonder if I could end up having the same problem when capturing same video with Vegas. I understand there was some kind og error while capturing, or perhaps even error on the tape. If error is already on the tape, by splitting files while capturing I run into problem with little part of total video project. If I capture whole video into one file, and there something wrong on the tape, I will probably be not able to open the whole video file???

Arunas,

1. Clips going offline: In Vegas, if you open a project file (a .veg file), and any of the media is not found (e.g. the files got deleted off your disk) they show as “offline”. If you simply moved the files to another location you can tell Vegas where they now are, but if they are totally deleted you can recapture them from tape. This is nothing to do with dropped frames.
2. I only tried HDVSplit once, and I got clips which caused Vegas to crash. Others have used it fine, and there have been fixes in newer versions.. but it is possible that you are seeing a problem with HDVSplit. Dropped frames is something you want to avoid, but they wouldn’t stop you opening the file.
3. As for the time to “manually split” from a single large file – this really comes down to an editing preference. There is no need to split into separate clips, though it can make editing easier. Either way you need to edit. I tend to capture as a single file, and I edit that from the timeline – manually splitting it into events (but always a single media file per tape).
4. For capture you want to use a IE1394 connection to the PC, there is no need for a special capture card.

Mark

Mark,

Thanks so much for reply. Crisp and clear!

Recapturing offline files. Is it possible that Vegas can find missing parts and recapture it from tape automatically (looking at time stamp or some other method) ir is it just a wishfull thinking? I think I am looking into recapturing the whole tape with Vegas. Searching manually for missed parts (I got close to 25 m2t files from one tape) seems like pain in the neck...

Arunas,
Vegas can't recapture HDV with frame accuracy, because of the way HDV's T/C works currently, but you can of course, recapture DV this way.
Vegas will indeed look for files if you've moved a hard drive, and once it finds one file, it will usually recognize that they're all in that location (if indeed, that's where they are).

I don't think Vegas can help you with this, as it didn't do the capture (and if it did, you'd just get one big file as it doesn't support generating a file per scene with HDV). I think capturing in Vegas as you suggest is the thing to do. At least see if you can get the whole thing. You can always try and split after you have captured (with HDVSplit).

Mark

There is a good chance that it was the fact that you had many small clips after capturing with HDVSplit that caused Vegas to crash rather than any other aspect of the clips captured.

When I tried using HDV split, just adding a single clip to the timeline caused it to crash. As the scene splitting is not so important for me I didn't have the patience to figure out why.
Mark

It took a while for me as I decided to get a new HDD and get a fresh install of XP and Vegas 6. Just to be sure no other drivers are messing up the capture. So, I did fresh XP install and Vegas after that. Started Vegas, upgraded to 6.0d. Followed procedure to install camera on page;
http://hdvforever.com/hdv/hdrhc1/fre...re/default.htm

Started Vegas. New project, selected 1080 50i as my Sony is for European market. Selected File- Capture, went ti Capture Preferrences selected HDD that is separate from where Vegas is installed. Under Device section I found Sony HDR-HC1E as expected. Click Apply and OK. Vegas freezes..... And I did it three times with restart of XP...

What is wrong now?

Apperantly file mfc71.dll was missing in Windows\system directory. Whatever it is. I spotted that when I test run HDVsplit with this brand new XP installation... it sugested this file was missing (Sony Vegas did not suggest potential file missing). After I downloaded file from :
http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?mfc71
both HDVSplit and SonyVegas started capturing. So I start my Vegas capturing now....

What is Vegas doing after capture is over? I have started capturing 60 minutes material right after my last post. After capture was over, Vegas started doing something... CPU is loaded 100% and it does not stop. Looks like it is reendering something, but all I wanted at this stage, was just to capture video into one file...

Anyone else experienced that PC works extended time after capture is finished? Is it reendering video? I just want to capture, without reendering as I understand that would be the last step to reender.

What did I do wrong?