Can no longer capture HDV from Canon H20

[bemused]

This is complicated.

I've read the other "No HDV" threads, but no joy.

Last year my HP Pavillion with Vista x32 and 3G RAM captured HDV from my Canon H20, using Ulead VideoStudio 11+ over a 1394 cable.

Just now, I tried the same setup, but when I plug the 1394 connector into the front of the HP, the camera menu "Playback STD" automatcally greys out, and Ulead reads the device as "Canon DV" rather than "Canon H20" like it used to; and it will only capture at DV, not HDV. Yes, I'm sure the camera is set to "Playback STD HDV", and I've re-installed the Canon Computer software. I've also tried re-booting/re-powering the computer and camera in all configurations. No joy.

Here's the fun part. I thought it was a port problem, so I plugged the 1394 into the port on the back of the HP computer; same problem. When I unplug the 1394, the camera resets to "Playback STD HDV."

Fun part 2. I thought it was a cable problem, so I plugged it into the 1394 port of my home-built computer (XP-Pro), and the camera stays in HDV output mode! Unfortunately, my Blu-ray burner is only in my HP.

From the above, I think the HP-Vista is sending a signal to the H20 telling it that it is only a DV camera and not an HDV camera. But, it worked fine a year ago!

Anybody have any ideas?

TIA,

Bemused

[Megahurts]

Try HDVSplit for capturing and it should say "Canon HV20 camcorder detected". If so, then you may have a Ulead problem.

[bemused]

Thanks Megahurts, but the problem manifsts itself even when Ulead is not running. Nevertheless, Ill try HDVSplit tomorrow and post back.

G'night,

Bemused

[paulw]

Have you been into the menu to check that it's not set to "DV Lock" rather than Auto??

[bemused]

Megahurts, I downloaded and installed HDVSplit. My Canon H20 is not recognized.

PaulW, The Canon H20 menu is set on "HDV Lock." When I plug the 1394 cable into either 1394 port of my HP-Vista, the "Playback STD" (which has been set to HD Lock) greys out. The same thing happens when the camera is set to the Auto mode.

[aedipuss]

start playing the HDV tape. pause when you are sure it's playing HDV and then plug in the firewire cable. might be the tape was used for miniDV before.

[bemused]

Good idea aedipuss, but that didn't work either. I even recorde new HD video, but the HP-Vista stillwill not recognize the Canon HV20 as an HDV source, just DV.

[edDV]

My quick take on this is the HV20 is in DV downconvert mode. Not HVD out mode.

You set recording format in the "camera" menus. You set the output format in the "play" menus.

When I can get back to the camcorder, I'll describe the menu settings.

[zoobie]

perhaps it was accidently shot in DV and not HDV?
believe it or not, it's happened...

[2Bdecided]

My experience is that if the HV20 is outputting HDV, and the computer won't see it as such, then it won't see it at all.

What I mean is: if the HV20 is really outputting HDV when you first connect it, the PC will not see it as a DV camcorder. It'll either see it as HDV, or not at all.

Cheers,
David.

[bemused]

Since my HV20 HDV ,Ulead 11+, Vista, Blu-ray disc recording setup worked a year ago, I checked what's changed since then. On the HP-Vista, Son #1 installed VLC Media Player, and Son #2 installed Windows Movie Maker. Default Programs shows that they are default for most video file extensions. I bet these programs only recognize DV (not HDV), and that's why my computer no longer sees the HV20 as an HDV device. I can only figure out how to change the default program for particular file extensions. CAN ANYBODY TELL ME WHAT VIDEO FILE EXTENSION THE HV20 OUPUTS? If I reset the default program for that file extension type to Ulead11+, maybe it will see the HV20 as an HDV device.

Any other ideas?

Tx,

Bemused

[edDV]

m2t

I agree with 2Bdecided that when in HDV mode, the HV20 has never been detected as DV.

The DV/HDV setting is in the Play menu, Play Out Setup 1. Choices are:

A (automatic)
HDV
DV

A or HDV work for me.

Next setting is Play/Out Setup2, then DV Output. Choices are:

DV (DV Locked) ... this forces an HDV to DV downscale
HDV/DV ... Use this setting.

[bemused]

edDv. It worked! Thanks very much. I was not changing the Setup2 setting, since it greyed-out when I connected the 1394, and I assumed it stayed in DV like Setup1 did when it greyed-out. (I know; dumb assumption.)

Now I'm back where I was a year ago, and can solve the problem I started out to solve: How can I burn a Blu-ray (or equivalent HD) disc that will play HD on my PS3? Last year, I just clicked on the Blu-ray choices in Ulead 11+, and got .dvsd files on a Blu-ray RW disc, they don't play anywhere (except with VLC media Player).

TIA,

Bemused.

[bemused]

Problem solved. I was not changing the HV20's Playback Setup2 setting, since it greyed-out when I connected the 1394, and I assumed it stayed in DV like Setup1 did when it greyed-out. (I know; dumb assumption.) Locking Setup2 to HD worked!

Now I'm back where I was a year ago, and can solve the problem I started out to solve: How can I burn a Blu-ray (or equivalent HD) disc that will play HD on my PS3? Last year, I just clicked on the Blu-ray choices in Ulead 11+, and got .dvsd files on a Blu-ray RW disc, they don't play anywhere (except with VLC media Player).

TIA,

Bemused.

[da_dj]

I battle all the time with my HV20 and Premiere. I have some old DV tapes I made with another camera that I was trying to rip using Premiere. The odd thing was that I started by opening a DV project (not HDV) with the old tape in the HV20 camera (4x3 format) and I had no problem capturing about 12 tapes, it worked fine. Then I switched to the native HDV tapes originally captured with this same camera, created a HDV project in Premiere but couldn't get the capture feature to capture the HDV to MPEG. I went into Premiere settings on the capture screen and found DV selected and switched it to HDV and that didn't help. Again I tried a bunch of power on and camera driver re-installation sequences. If finally started capturing the HDV content on the tape to MPEG after a couple of system reboots. Then as I approached the end of my project of archiving raw tape video to BR data disk, I discovered 6 more tapes in the old DV format I had missed but then I couldn't get Premiere capture to switch back from HDV to DV (after changing the HDV/VD selection in Premiere settings).

At last I discovered from these posts the idea of going into the playback mode on the camera and changed it from HDV/DV Auto to DV only. I fired up Premiere with a DV project (not HDV) and the settings set to DV (not HDV) and it started capturing fine. It captures to AVI just like the old DV camera provided from a capture.

Thanks to you guys and hope this maybe helps others who may be capturing old material as well.

[E_D_George]

There is a technical, if somewhat wordy, description I prepared explaining why Canon HVX0 and other cameras that emit HDV protocol streams can fail to be recognized by Windows XP: Canon HDV connectivity issues. It explains the XP driver stack arrangement and exactly where the failure point is, as well as giving explicit directions for the video camera settings to guarantee it will be recognized by an XP (SP2 and above) computer. I hope this may be useful to @Da_dj and @bemused.

[Heimdall]

Hi all,
I don’t think I’ve seen a reply that quite fits my problem. Whenmy Canon HV20 is set-up in DV mode it transfers to the computer (via HDV Split)no problem. But when I set it up to transfer in HDV mode it still recognisesthe camcorder (specifically as a Canon HV20) and can operate all the functions(fast forward, rewind, play, stop etc.) but it just won’t transfer HDV (itstops after 4 seconds complaining about lack of data or something). Now, I’mvery familiar with the camera and was transferring HDV footage for years on myold computer. I’ve tripled checked all the settings (output 1 & 2 (inc.trying forced HDV and the ‘Auto’ option), camera to ‘play’ mode, trieddifferent tapes that had transferred before and so on and so on). So myquestion is this: the only thing different than before is that the old firewirecard doesn’t fit my new motherboard so I got a PCI-E card; is it possible thatthe card and/or the cable just isn’t man enough for the job of HDV transfer? I’dhappily spend more on a better card if I knew it would work, but as everythingis obviously working fine (if only for DV transfer) would I be barking up thewrong tree?

[E_D_George]

Hi there Heimdall. Would you please post the exact wording of the error message you receive when the HDV transfer stops? Also, does HDV Split tell you it is recognizing the camera in HDV mode?

As for your suspicion falling on your new Firewire controller, that may very well be true. The MPEG2-TS data format protocol is approximately 8 times as dense as standard definition. When data is transferred between two devices, the receiving device (in this case your Firewire card) writes it into a buffer that the operating system (Windows) can access. The OS reads the data out of the device buffer as it is writing into the file system. Before the data gets transferred to permanent storage (e.g. your hard drive), the OS writes it into a disk buffer which is read by the disk controller. There are two possible scenarios that can occur. If the disk buffer is in danger of overflowing (typically when it reaches what is called the high water mark, approx. 3/4 full) the OS will stop writing into it until the disk controller drains the buffer down to the low water mark, approximately 1/4 full. (These fractions are typically adjusted dynamically, so don't take them literally, just think of a glass with a hole in the bottom being held under a running tap and you'll get the idea.)

When the OS is transferring data say from one drive to another it is in control of both the source and drain, and so can arrange that nothing gets lost. However when an external device is supplying the data the OS has less control. HDV Split is supposed to control the transfer, stopping and re-starting so that the Firewire buffer does not overflow. But with the increased data density it may be that the handshake between the OS and HDV Split is too slow to avoid a buffer overrun when the OS momentarily stops reading it out. The second scenario is that HDV Split handshake with the camera is too slow, and the in-bound stream overwhelms the card's buffer.

If either is the case there are a couple of things you can do. Open your Task Manager and look at the active processes and the performance graphs. Spot the HDV Split process and watch how much CPU time and memory it's using. If it is running out of memory or using huge amounts of CPU time, this could indicate a thrash condition where it continually attempts to write to a buffer but is denied and eventually gives up. It's this type of evidence we'll consider when you post back.

Could you also include the version of Windows you are using with the revision level, the make and model of your new motherboard, the SATA type of your disk controllers, and the make and model of your Firewire PCI-E board?

These are very nasty problems to diagnose and cure. I hope the error message will shed some light on the issue. Look forward to hearing from you.

[aedipuss]

heimdall - all canon hv20/30/40 don't record to the first second of tape. at the beginning of a tape let hdvsplit stop and then click record again. hdvsplit will then start capturing the tape.

in dv mode hdvsplit doesn't work at all. for dv you need to use dvavi.

unless you have recorded dv on a tape first and then re-recorded hdv on it, then you can confuse both programs and will need to start capturing after playback has started on the tape.

[aedipuss]

p.s. heimdall please don't graverob old dead threads. please start your own from now on.

[Heimdall]

E_D_George

Thanks for getting back to me. HDVSplit just says Canon HV20detected (it doesn’t refer to the mode). When I hit record it says capturing startedthen after 4 seconds, ‘INFO: No more data is received from camcorder. Capturestopped.’ The components you ask about are:

Motherboard in my new computer is an ASUStek P8H61-MX R2.0.

Intel 6 series/C200 6 port SATA AHCI-1CO2

StarTech.com 2 port PCI Express 1394a

Task manager CPU usage never goes above 1% (memory is 1.91GB– if that helps).

Aedipuss

I do try capturing multiple times but it stops every 4seconds. As for the DV capture it may have been through Sony Vegas (now I thinkof it – and Vegas doesn’t detect the camcorder in HDV mode, only DV). Also, I neveruse tapes more than once (and I never have the camcorder’s record mode in DVanyway).

As for posting on a new thread, there was so much related infoon this that I didn’t want it all repeated on a new one, especially the basicstuff (“have you turned the camera on?”, “is your camera in ‘play’ mode?”). I’mnot knocking it (we’ve all made basic errors in the past) but in this case I justwanted to get straight to the nub of my problem.

[aedipuss]

take the tape out. hook up via firewire to computer. start hdvsplit and set it to record to the name/directory you want. turn on hv20 in camera mode(recording). when hdvsplit finds camera press record. record a couple minutes and press stop. does it work without a tape?

[Heimdall]

Hi aedipuss,

Yeah, it worked - weird! Still won't transfer the tapes but the card and cable can obviously handle the data stream.

[aedipuss]

either the tape is bad or the tape transport is dying. try fast forwarding and rewinding the tape a couple times to loosen it up. if it doesn't work then and new tapes do the same thing the cam is dead.

[Heimdall]

After trying your suggestion I tried some tapes I'd successfully transferred before as well as the one I need to transfer for editing, but no joy. Like most camcorders it has a display screen and playback seems absolutely fine on the camera (and when I hook an HDMI from it to the 47" TV it shows no playback problems at all - no dropping frames or irregular speed), so I don't know what the problem is.

[aedipuss]

while capturing with hdvsplit when it says no more data does the tape stop or keep playing? is the video still visible in the cam's display?

if the tape keeps playing, about all i can think of is that part of the signal is getting lost, maybe try a head cleaning tape.

[Heimdall]

For the 4 seconds it tries to capture, the audio and visual can be seen and heard from the camera display. After 4 seconds HDVSplit decides it ain't getting anything and stops the camcorder. I have a head-cleaning tape somewhere so I'll dig it out and try that.

[aedipuss]

is the output section of the cam set to HDV? not auto.

[Heimdall]

Hi aedipuss

I just thought I'd let you know that I solved the problem at long last. I installed the driver from this link and job done:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericSoftwareDownloadIndex?cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&sof...reg_R1002_USEN

[aedipuss]