24f Capture Problem

[Sprague Theobald]

An Update:
Now I’m totally confused. When I captured the footage Vegas did indeed capture it as stills, “m2t” format. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated and returned 10 fold!
Thanks again,
Sprague

[Sprague Theobald]

Well, now when I go to playback clips that are in SD and I’ve had no problem playing back before (current projects) I get this message: “An error occurred while starting playback – An invalid device was specified”
S

[John Rofrano]

Hi Sprague,

Sounds like you’re having a tough time there. Let me try and see if I understand what you’re asking:

> Playback in Vegas Pro8b is jerky, as in still frames. The HV30 playback is configured properly. The I’m sure there’s an internal setting on Vegas I need to address but can’t seem to find any info in the book. As I’m sure this has been covered, can someone please suggest a link which covers this issue?

Playback is jerky because your PC can’t keep up with the High Definition footage which has 5 times the resolution of DV and is more highly compressed than DV so that your CPU has to work harder to decompress it. This is perfectly normal depending on the power of you PC.

How powerful is your CPU?
You’ll need at least a 3.0GHz Pentium 4 or a 2.5GHz Dual Core to get any appreciable frame rates.

What are your preview settings in Vegas?
It should be set to Preview (Auto) but you may have to go as low as Draft (Auto) depending on your computer.

> When I captured the footage Vegas did indeed capture it as stills, “m2t” format. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated and returned 10 fold!

M2T is not “stills”. It is an MPEG-2 Transport Stream. This is the container that is specified for HDV tape. All HDV tape cameras will use this format.

> Well, now when I go to playback clips that are in SD and I’ve had no problem playing back before (current projects) I get this message: “An error occurred while starting playback – An invalid device was specified”

I’m confused at what you’re trying to do here. You’ve switched to SD?

If you have the M2T files captured then you’re all set to edit. Just drop them on the timeline. If your PC is having a hard time playing them back, we (VASST) make a script plug-in to Vegas called GearShift that will convert these files to DV Widescreen to make it easier to edit. GearShift will allow you to substitute the DV for HDV before you render so you can output HDV when needed. It was specifically designed for people who want to edit HDV on less powerful computers.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Sprague Theobald]

Hi John,
Many, many thanks for getting back to me on this. Hopefully I can clear up a few things. The computer (tower) is new and am pretty confident it’s as powerful as need be, that’s what I asked for when I had the system built specifically for editing. Pulling the numbers from the invoice it says it’s an “Intel Q6600 Quad Core overclocked to 3.0G”

Here’s how the error message came about: I had a project open (I have 4 working projects in Vegas, let’s call them A, B, C, D.), project A, which up until now has been a SD project (shot in and captured as SD), no problem. I had this open when I went to try and capture the HD footage. That’s when I found that 24f capture was “jerky” and 30f fine. I gave up trying to figure out why, and went back to working with the SD footage in project A. That’s when the error message came up. I couldn’t play the existing footage in the project. I checked projects B, C, & D (all SD) and they all played fine. I have a Focusrite Saffire external sound card. I checked the settings in Vegas and it points to it. I just continue to get the error message for project A only. However (sorry this is so rambling) I find if I unplug the external Saffire sound card and plug it back it, project A plays OK with no error message… until I shut down or switch to another project and come back to it, then I get the same error message. Does this help? (I’ve been eyeing Gearshift; 1) with the computer power I have do you feel I need it and 2) is it idiot-proof? I’m a producer/editor and not too tech savy… yet.
Thanks John

[John Rofrano]

> …project A, which up until now has been a SD project (shot in and captured as SD), no problem. I had this open when I went to try and capture the HD footage. That’s when I found that 24f capture was “jerky” and 30f fine.

Hmmm… not sure if what you are experiencing is the cadence of 24 vs 30 fps which, of course, 24 motion will seem a bit jerky because there are less frames to smooth things out. You are mixing media (SD/HD) and frame rates (24p/60i) in the same project. You can’t expect it to all look the same. Then again it could just be the SD vs HD playback if HD isn’t playing back at full frame rates. You will see the frame rate at the bottom of the preview. On my 2.66GHz QuadCore I’m getting 29.976fps playback for HDV in Preview (Auto) mode.

> I have a Focusrite Saffire external sound card. I checked the settings in Vegas and it points to it.

OK, this is an audio problem. Are you using the Focusrite ASIO drivers or the Microsoft Sound Mapper? (check this in Options | Preferences | Audio Device) I can’t imagine why one project would be fine and another cause an error. Make sure the project audio properties are set correctly. The sample rate should be 48,000 and bit-depth 16. It just seems very odd that this one project is giving problems.

> (I’ve been eyeing Gearshift; 1) with the computer power I have do you feel I need it and 2) is it idiot-proof?

With your computer I don’t think you need GearShift. It’s fairly easy to use but you should be fine without it.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Sprague Theobald]

Things are slowly clearing up for me here, thanks! I’m using the Focusrite drivers. When I go back into work tomorrow I’ll start looking at the audio suggestions. As for project A, I never did actually mix SD with HD. What happened was that as I saw it was capturing it, it was “jerky”. I then stopped the process and set up a new, specific folder for Vegas to capture the HD into. After it had captured say, a 13 second shot, I went to that folder and saw the equivalent of 13 stills. As you can see while I do have a lot of experience shooting and editing in SD, I’m a bit at a loss when it comes to HD. As wonderful as The Vegas books and CDs are, can you recommend a site or link that more of a “Vegas HD For Dummies”? On another note, in past threads I’ve indicated a lot of odd gliches with the program and someone suggested a reinstall. I’m not too sure how to do this (intimidated!). Can you recommend a site or article that will take me through a uninstall/reinstall step-by-step?
Again, many grateful thanks!
Sprague

[Sprague Theobald]

Also, Vegas (or my computer) didn’t recognize and wasn’t able to open the M2T files.

[Sprague Theobald]

Also, Vegas (or my computer) wasn’t able to open the M2T files.

[John Rofrano]

I did some more investigating and it looks like some people are having difficulty capturing from the Canon HV30 into Vegas but others are not. I’m not sure I see a pattern. (I only have Sony cameras)

You might want to disable scene detection during capture and perhaps that will stop what you perceive to be as capturing still images. In the HDV Capture tool go to the Prefs and on the General tab uncheck Enable HDV scene detection. This should capture the tape as one big file. I’m not sure why Vegas did not recognize your M2T files but perhaps it was the bad capture.

As for training… we (VASST) have some books and instructional DVD’s on Vegas and HD. Our book The Full HD will answer many of your questions on HD and if it doesn’t you can always ask us here. Douglas Spotted Eagle, one of our Vegas Forum administrators here at the Cow, is one of the authors. I would also recommend our Absolute Training for Vegas+DVD Beginner Bundle for Vegas Pro training DVD. On this 3 DVD set, Douglas, myself, and Jeffrey P. Fisher, will take you through all of the basics of Vegas Pro and DVD Architect. I’m sure there is a lot of good training material being offered so shop around.

Install/reinstall is as easy as clicking on the Vegas installer all over again and following the prompts. Vegas will see that it is already installed and will refresh the installation keeping all of your personal preferences.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Sprague Theobald]

Many, many thanks!!! By the way, what would you recommend as a “non-problem” playback unit for HD? My main camera is a Canon XH A1 and I prefer to shoot 24f. I’ve a very big HD project coming up this fall and need some confidence that all will be happy.
Thanks again John, wonderful community!
Sprague