Scene splitting?
 

Does anyone have a problem with the scene splitting output from HDLink? In that it causes problems in the NLE? I've captured footage from my XH-A1, using HDLink (v3.3) and scene splitting, producing about 160 clips.

If I 'play around' with those clips in Vegas 6d it crashes, not on any particular clip, but at random. Sometimes on the timeline the media shows unavailable - and then crashes. Sometimes when I preview in the media pool and even when I move it from the explorer to the media pool, it often crashes. I've captured twice this way - once with smart render and once without and both have the same result.

If I capture to a single (very large) AVI and use that in Vegas I have no problems - except I've had to chop it up by hand in Vegas, which is a bit tedious. I've also pulled in a load of clips from another project that was done in DV as opposed to Cineform and had no problems with that.

I have submitted a ticket and Jake is trying to figure it out, but just wondered if anyone had seen anything similar.

You can use HDVSplit (freeware) to both capture your HD footage and, if already captured as one large file, to scene split.

Nope. That method doesn't seem to work on my m2t files, it just produces hundreds of tiny files.

I wonder if this is something to do with how the A1 does the timecode?

Sorry, my bad... I thought you have a Sony HVR-A1, which works fine with HDVSplit... if it's a Canon XH-A1, than you're right, it won't work.

I had that problem before with XL-H1, Scene Splitting did not work and I did a ticket with Jake also, but nothing came out of that and the problem was never solved. I just use Vegas7 and that works fine for me.

Capture in either HDLink or HDVsplit as one file then split the file as a 2nd step. This has worked for me every time, I was having similar issues and thought it was a firewire card issue, cam issue, deck issue, etc.

I'm having the same problem when capturing with scene detection ON in Connect HD 3.4.1 and Vegas 7d. I'm doing a simultaneous conversion to medium size without saving the m2t. Most of the clips have the video portion15 frames shorter than the audio. Doing anything on the Vegas timeline with these clips causes Vegas to randomly go poof (shut down).

The clips play in WMP11 but with a strobing flash across the whole screen. The clips crash Nero ShowTime. I have the file types for .avi and .m2t set to Vegas.

I'm going to try delete all the scene detected clips and recapture as one long medium Cineform .avi and see if that works. That'll mean manually cutting about 200 clips.

So far I'm not impressed with Connect HD.

I decided not to experiment with Cineform Connect HD again given a tight deadline on this project. So I simply captured as m2t via Vegas's own capture utility and am happily editing away.

Probably your computer
 

I had a similar problem at first with my old computer. It wasn't fast enough to both capture the m2t and then convert in one step. I then went to capturing m2t only and in another step converting the m2t and the scenes were detected in the second step and were perfect. My new computer (much more cpu power) can capture and convert in one step, never a problem.

I'm having a similar problem. HD Link build 38 (trial), Vegas 7d build 192, E6600 Core Duo, Intel 975xbx2 MB, xp Pro, Evga 8800GTX, 2gb ram, running a 640gb raid0, Canon XH-A1.

If I capture without using scene detection it works great, with the exception of having to split the file manually. If I turn on scene detection it works just as well with the exception that capture will stop in the middle of a scene, at random. Clicking start restarts everything just fine but you cant capture unattended.
One added side note. Using scene detection to capture, Vegas seems more unstable when I use those clips. If I add more than one or two short clips to the timeline, Vegas will freeze or crash. At the same time I can use the one large clip and put it on the timeline an there are no issues.

Bruce, make sure you're running the latest build of Connect HD.

http://www.cineform.com/downloads/Co...D-3.4.2.38.zip

Yup, sure am. In fact I had to unistall 36, reboot, install 38 and reboot to keep Vegas from crashing constantly.
I'm roughing a fun project at the moment and it is all working perfectly, with the exception of the scene splitting. I'm wondering if it could be an anomaly within the xh-a1 that HDLink interprets as a scene cut. I have captured the same footage several times and it will not repeat a stop point, so it would seem to be somewhat random.

You could be dropping firewire packets, producing false scene breaks. If you capture an M2T and convert with scene breaks, does it get it correct each time (if so use a different firewire port.)

I just re-read you message, please confirm 38 is now stable with Vegas 7d?

I am having equally frustrating problems capturing with HDLink (Aspect HD 4.3) on my Canon XH-A1. I get the strobing playback in WMP and within the PPro 1.5.1 timeline it just skips to the end of the clip.

I have tried open trouble tickets with cineform support a few days ago but only recieved a semi-automated response to uninstall/re-install everything which hasn't helped. I realize it was Easter weekend but I need some help as my workflow is paralyzed.

Anyone have similar issues with Aspect HD 4.x? How were you able to resolve them?

BTW, this was a machine upgraded from Aspect HD 3.3. I have made sure to try and clean the o/s of any components left after uninstallation and reinstalled everything from scratch (PPro 1.5, 1.5.1 patch, Aspect HD).

Easter is over, follow up on your ticket as the support staff is here. Send a sample of a strobing clip to support.

I will absolutely do that David as soon as I get home.

I have a quick question about trying the reinstallation on my notebook. Should I deactivate Aspect HD 3.3 before uninstalling and installing the upgrade (4.3) or just uninstall/install?

Thanks David.

I captured m2t's without scene detection, that worked fine.

Converted captured m2t WITH scene detection and they were detected fine.

Captured m2t's with scene detection on and it would miss scenes and randomly stop capture. Pretty much the same behavior as capturing HD Link avi's.

Repeated on a different firewire port. All results were the same.

Unistalled build 38, rebooted, reinstalled build 38, rebooted.

Once I did this every feature worked. Doesnt really make alot of sence to me as that is the procedure I used to upgrade to this build.

After a little more expermentation it would seem to be working just fine.

My trial expires today so I hope it continues to work.

No deactivation required.

Well I'm sorry to report that it things are still not working correctly. It scene detects but occasionally (at random) stops capture.

When I capture one single m2t (no scene detection) and then convert, the scene detection works fine during the conversion.

Perhaps it is an issue with the XH-A1.

I would hate to have to capture the m2t's and then convert. Would trash storage requirements on a large project.

If it wasn't for the superior quality of the end product it would be easy to set this software aside, but damn it makes a good picture.

Bruce,

I capture M2T and then convert what I need. That way I can just back up the m2t and if I ever need the AVI I can easily convert them again. SO while the short term store is larger, the long term is smaller.

I've not had much time to really play with this, but I'm still having the same scene splitting problem as Bruce. I'm not sure what you mean by 'convert as needed'. If I have 1 big m2t file from the capture how do you pick the scenes you want to convert?

I'm currently still doing the scene splitting manually as even when I did it as a second pass I had a couple of crashes in Vegas.

...and your right, the quality and speed is excellent and I don't want to lose that. Just a pain on the scene splitting front.

David - I did file a ticket, but just haven't had the time to try all the possibilities (I've uninstalled, reinstalled both cineform and vegas, tried all sorts of things, but haven't had the time to go deeper yet), and the support people weren't able to establish a particular problem. But I'm sure there is one as I've seen enough comments on scene splitting problems with the XH-A1, I guess the thing is most people don't have the time to try a load of things out to narrow it down.

Oh. Sorry. I have a Sony so I can use HDVSplit to capture M2T files using Scene Detect. I toss out the bad footage and convert the good stuff.

On the other hand, Cineform's HDLink can capture the M2T, and convert them in one step - or - you can choose to save the M2T, which I would do.

I'm beginning to think it is related to the xh-a1. I can use HD Link to capture one big m2t and then convert to CFavi using scene detection and it works great. So it would seem that it is in the stream from camera to computer.

For me personally, capturing one big m2t file and then converting isnt a great option. I would have to at least double my raid array to maintain my current capabilities. But that is what I'll do until this is solved.

My trial expired last night but I'm buying the software as the quality of the end product is excellent, and seeing how Mr. Newman and Mr. Segraves are so quick to provide support I dont see how I can go wrong.

I've worked with HD Connect for a year now - before Sony Vegas could scene detect HDV. I don't think you can go wrong with Cineform. They are always there to answer your questions - real people, knowledgable, English is their native language. A quaint approach in these times. (Damn the sarcasm, a family trait, trying to get over it but....mi culpa, mi culpa.)

Looking back. I threw away a lot of m2t files for space when I should have archived. I only kept the tape.

Hey Simon,
Try this work flow and see if it works.

1 - Using HD Link, set preferences to capture m2t only, WITHOUT scene detection, then capture what you need.
2 - Click the convert tab, then select the file you just captured. Make sure that the split scenes box is checked. Click start.
3 - If you open the log you will see the scene detection taking place, along with the separate scene files being generated. This will give you CineForm avis with which to work. You can then delete the large m2t if you choose.

Following this procedure has eliminated all the issues I was having with Vegas crashing and freezing. It does still hiccup every now and then, but it never shuts things down.

A suggested work flow.

Capture the .m2t files with Vegas 7 with scene detect selected, works just fine.

View the split .m2t files in Vegas and delete the junk ones.

Use HDlink to convert the remaining .m2t files into .avi then bring .avi files into Vegas for editing.

I don't know how I missed this, but there is a post on this forum that told us that HDVSplit is now available for the Canon. I highly recommend it. It is free, easy to use, and for people like me who shoot a lot of wasted tape, it makes it easy to toss out bad m2t files and just convert the rest with HDLink. Saves time, drive space, and works for underpowered PCs.

If you have the room and the processor power, capture with HDLink and save the m2t files for archiving.

I don't like to say it too early - but I've just tried the latest version 3.4.2 build 38 and now Vegas doesn't seem to crash anymore - even using files that I'd split using the old version...

I had just had a go with HDVSplit too and that seems great. But I'm even happier if I can do it all in HDLink. (Vegas 6d by the way)

Just thought I would pass along that I upgraded to NeoHDV yesterday and it works fantastic. Scene detection works as does all other functions. A definite must have.

hmm. i upgraded to neo hdv and every conversion longer than a few 100 MB terminates early with a "convert done" message. and each time producing different amounts of data. anyone else tried to convert a 1gb or > file with neo hdv on canon m2t files?

i'm going to downgrade to the previous version to get work done while i'm still waiting for a useful response from my cineform tix.

"downgraded" to connect HD 3.4.2 build 38 and things are working fine again.

You shouldn't have to wait long. My experience is they are one company who listens to the customer and fixes what is wrong. I recently picked up the Adobe Production bundle and Aspect. What Aspect does is like magic. Cineform rewrote the engine of Premiere to fit their codec and it DOES run real time - several layers and effects. After running 1440 X 1080 on low resolution to see it run at all and sometimes still not know if you are in sync (both in Premiere and another NLE), this is a huge step forward.

Ali,

The capture engine should be the same between build 38 Neo HDV. Please try again.

the first thing i'd want if i was a cineform software engineer and a customer had a problem like mine would be to have the actual source for the conversion. the recurring problem though i'm sure is that it's not easy to send very large (>1GB) files other than through postal mail right now. i can't imagine how much useful debugging you could do based on probably not-complete technical descriptions of the problem from customers.

i'd lobby cineform to produce optional much more verbose debugging output, maybe a skeletal codec stream symbol dissasembly--would also by useful by itself!--and parse and wavelet engine state information... that part could be obfuscated or encrypted and compressed to protect intellectual property.

whenever i had a problem, if i could invoke the "debug" version of the cineform code instead, then send a codec symbol binary and a cineform debug stream binary to cineform that would make both customers and software engineers happier. it also maybe wouldn't matter at all that i can't cut and paste the log output. :)

anyway just a suggestion! the codec is so good that obviously i'm willing to put up with my local bugs (all my problems could certainly be from my setup).

with definite respect to your technical ability, it's not possible to *really* be sure they end up operating the same with different code wrapped around them, right? so something between the way i installed neo or in the code around it and the way it's interacting with my setup is causing me some problems that the cineform QA group hasn't seen yet. i wish i had more information to give you all. i'd love to be able to say "this is the screwy thing about my setup, and here is a script and some source files to include in your regression suites from now on." what is your suggestion? the first thing i should do is send the actual source that is a problem.

Ali, I did have an issue with conflicting updates (using Prospect). I had to manually remove the drivers, files, and regs from a previously bad install. Something to check for while you wait...