Problems with my HV10 and HDV capture....
 

I have about had it with my HV10. It is a great little camera to shoot with, but it handles poorly as a deck for HDV.

I shoot with my new A1 and I thought this would make an excellent deck. Well either I got a lemon or it really isn't a good deck.

I can easily ingest DV, but when I try to capture HDV footage it loses time code quite frequently causing a break in my clips. It never really happens in the same place, so I can go back and capture a 'bridge' piece, but this really sucks.

When I ingest the same tape with my A1, I have not had a single problem.

At first I thought it was the long GOP structure of HDV - as stated in other posts - but now I am not sure.

Can anybody offer insight? Is this a lemon or a common issue with this camera?

I use Panasonic AY-DVM63MQ tapes only.

What program are your capturing with? Spec of your PC and most importantly are you capturing to a fast HD seperate to your O/S?
Also I assume you have disabled your A/V software.

To me it sounds like your PC / Hard Drive is struggling to cope.

I do not believe it is my computer. I use a new Intel iMac 2.0, 2GB Ram, 500GB 7200 rpm drive, FCP 5.1.2.

If it was my computer, it would chug on the projects I have loaded with my A1. The HDV loads just fine from the A1.

Anybody with an HV10 capturing HDV having this trouble? If not, I guess I will send it in for repair.

I've had absolutely no problems capturing HDV from the HV10 in my Edius Pro editing program. The computer has 1 gig of ram and is a dual core AMD.

Do you use the same firewire cable for both cameras/capture sessions?
I had some problems losing video on my DV captures while ago, and turned out to be flaky firewire cable.

I haven't had any trouble capturing on my 2.8GHz P4-HT WinXP box, w/ Ulead MSpro... not the fastest editing, and it won't show the live video in the preview window during capture, but it hasn't lost anything. (MSpro captures raw m2t file, no transcoding/intermediate codec, so that helps.)

Very strange that the XH-A1 captures fine, but not the HV10... would seem to imply your computer is OK.
You might try capturing on a friend's computer?
Also, you could try dubbing from the A1 to HV10 via firewire, and vice versa, if you have a 4pin-4pin cable.. that might help confirm the HV10's firewire is messed up.

Cody, try and see if iMovie (free with your iMac) will capture from the HV10, if it captures fine this may indicate a HV10-FCP problem.

I have no trouble capturing HDV to FCP and iMovie from my HV10 on a G4 (800mhz) a G5 (Dual 2ghz) and my girlfriends new iMac (don't know the spec but it is the new 24" screen version).

Good luck.

Pleased to hear that someone else is using Edius, just means I shouldn't run into problems when I get to play with my cam at Christmas. Out of interest what settings are you capturing in and what is disk space like. I have already hinted to my partner that I may need a new HD lol.

Yeah Jonathan, I've used Edius since it came out and really like it. I've got a 500 gig HD and I don't recall what that gives you in HDV. I still use Edius primarily for DV work when I'm doing video professionally. The HDV is still for fun. But you should have no problems with Edius in HDV.

FCP handles HDV like a champ as well. I am convinced it is my camera now. My A1 still has no issues, but the HV10 will drop time code about 4-5 times in an hour's capture.

FYI: HDV = 13GB hr (approx)

Hey Cody, we're exeriencing this problem as well, about 3 times or so per tape, this was on a tape running continuous time code (free run time of day) The only issue I've had with HV-10 and record run time code is everytime the camera stops a new clip is made, which is pretty much to be expected.

Sorry, Cody about your camera dropping codes as you import HDV, I use iMovie 6 on a G5 1.8 Gz with only 500 ram to an external LaCie 7200 rpm and I have not had any problems, sure it never does real time but once the buffer is complete all of my movie is there ready to edit.

I also think you are wrong in your HDV/Hr. of disc space.
The amount you quoted is for DV. As I understand it, HDV is something, close to 4x that of DV........ so you're looking at close to 38-50 GB of disc space per hr. of HDV. (discussions.info.apple.com/)
Thank You
Luis

My raw m2t files are around 31.55 mb for 10 seconds. That comes out to around 12gb for 1 hour. Footage was captured on a PC using Vegas 7 s/w.

Anybody else?
 

Interesting. Any idea why it does it?

Does anybody else have similar experiences?

Hmmm. Well I could be wrong, but that is how big my HDV QT files are. HDV takes up about the same space as DV about 12-13GB per hour. You might be thinking about DVCPRO HD or something like that.

I think this reference is specific to the issue of broken or dropped time codes and it may help you directly on understanding your problem.

"iMovie HD 6 and iDVD 6" by Jeff Carlson. Peachpit Press.©2006
Specifically Chapter 2, pages 20-21.

"If you were shooting with the camera (any camera) and started at zero on the tape, if at any point you stopped and rewound the tape to review some footage, you inadvertently broke the time code. If you continue to record after the review, the camera starts over at zero again.

It also discusses time code in FCP vs iMovie Time code.

Hope this helps.
Luis