Newbe hitting a wall. Looking for suggestions.

[ZaphodIsDead]

Hi folks!

I'm attempting to capture some MiniDVs I recorded (several years back) from my Canon HDV via firewire and I am having a rough go of it.

Using HDV Split 0.77 I am unable to get a file when capturing from playback. Live recordings captures okay. Switching back and forth between record and play on the HDV will sometimes cause a disconnect or "not recognized" within Split. Once it does that it seems like the firewire connection get hosed. In order to recover from that state takes a lot of waiting or even disabling/reenabling the card.

I've tried two different brand new Firewire cards. Multiple sets of firewire cables. Various other capturing packages. All have the same results.

No obvious events being written. I am able to control the HDV (rewind, play ,etc).

My initial attempts was with elements but move to simplify and went with HDVSplit, for now.

Please let me know what additional information I can provide to help someone help me.


The details of the equation:
Rig: Win7Pro, i7-4969@3.6GHz, 32GB, GeForce GTX 780 Ti, SSD 840 EVO 750GB
Firewire card: Ableconn PEX-FW107 1394b & 1394a 3-Port PCI Express (PCIe)
Camera: Canon VIXIA HV30
Software: Premiere Elements 11, HDVSplit 0.77 Beta

Thank you for your time.

[dellsam34]

Make sure you set the output to HDV instead of DV in the camera menu if you are capturing HDV materials.

[DB83]

Surely MiniDVs are DV and not HDV. Is there a camera setting for that output ?

[Nands67]

Win DV setup to capture all then process

[Barrythecrab]

HDV Split, to my recollection, will NOT capture DV, only HDV.
Do not have the camera powered up when attaching/detaching the camera from the workflow.

[DB83]

If WinDV does not work for you (assuming that these tapes are DV rather than HDV) then an alternative is ScenalyzerLive


But do bear in mind that DV is legacy stuff and only certain software will handle it.

[aedipuss]

in the camera's settings make sure the tape format is set to HDV and the output is also set to HDV. as long as you're sure they were recorded as HDV. the cam was also capable of recording in DV which would require different settings and the use of winDV to get output over firewire.

[ZaphodIsDead]

Thank you all!

It is still wonderful to have that "light bulb moment"... even when it took a group of very helpful people to point you to it!
It was the output format configuration within the HV30 that was the root of my misunderstanding and thus the problem.
This post within Canon's KB was also helpful once I understood enough to look for it: https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index?page=content&id=ART128240

Thank you all for your input. Great forum. I hope to become a useful part of it.

[Eric-jan]

This camera has also component video out ?

[ZaphodIsDead]

This camera has also component video out ?

Yes, it does. The HV30 has a component and AV output ports. Canon included the appropriate cables.

[dellsam34]

This camera has also component video out ?

Component for display purposes, he is transferring the tape so he needs the iLink port to work.

[ZaphodIsDead]

This camera has also component video out ?

Component for display purposes, he is transferring the tape so he needs the iLink port to work.

Yep, that was it. Ended up being my lack of understanding that the camera's output needed to be switched.

Thanks!

[Eric-jan]

This camera has also component video out ?

Component for display purposes, he is transferring the tape so he needs the iLink port to work.

Yep, that was it. Ended up being my lack of understanding that the camera's output needed to be switched.

Thanks!

you can capture from most video output connections, component video out also, but i guess in this case the footage is already encoded into (H?)DV, so the component video output will not be any better, if captured from there,(Intensity Shuttle but it can be done that way, on any current OS, .... easily

There's a nice wiki about HDV, is the footage shot in progressive ? this is an option on your Canon HV30....
codec is h.262 (MPEG2)

What i now understand of it all, the camera had to be switched from component video output to iLink/firewire output ? the format of the footage is HDV, PF24 or PF30 PsF ish... ? is it possible to read-out on this camcorder the actual specs of the recording ? so no mistakes are made while transfering/coding....

[dellsam34]

Yah exactly it won't be any better, just a ton worse.

[Eric-jan]

Yah exactly it won't be any better, just a ton worse.

No, that's already been done by DV anything worse won't even be noticeable after that

[Cornucopia]

Another round of D -> A -> D will certainly soften it up further.

Scott

[ZaphodIsDead]

This camera has also component video out ?

Component for display purposes, he is transferring the tape so he needs the iLink port to work.

Yep, that was it. Ended up being my lack of understanding that the camera's output needed to be switched.

Thanks!

you can capture from most video output connections, component video out also, but i guess in this case the footage is already encoded into (H?)DV, so the component video output will not be any better, if captured from there,(Intensity Shuttle but it can be done that way, on any current OS, .... easily

There's a nice wiki about HDV, is the footage shot in progressive ? this is an option on your Canon HV30....
codec is h.262 (MPEG2)

What i now understand of it all, the camera had to be switched from component video output to iLink/firewire output ? the format of the footage is HDV, PF24 or PF30 PsF ish... ? is it possible to read-out on this camcorder the actual specs of the recording ? so no mistakes are made while transfering/coding....

I had a couple of things going on. My first issue was that the tape I was working with was NOT HDV but rather DV. I have two cameras that I have shot video with, one is an older model JVC that only does DV. My newer HV30, as many have said, can do both. Plain and simple... I didn't actually look and see the big "DV" on the HV30's screen as the tape was playing back. I just "assumed" it was in HDV because I had it in the HV30 not remembering I shot it with the JVC.

So with the recorded video in DV I had the output from the HV30 set to HDV and I was using HDVSplit to try and capture it, I had all manner if issues. Once I set the camera to output DV and used appropriate software... boom, Bob's your uncle.

That does explain why I had no trouble capturing LIVE output from the HV30 using HDVSplit.

I still wish to understand the technical details DV/HDV. This site is proving invaluable in my education!

[Cornucopia]

The similarities:

They both use the same size (but not metallic formulation) of tape.
They both run at similar speeds and use a similar overall data throughput bitrate.
Use 8bits per pixel color primary.
They both have "dv" in their name.

That is where the similarities end.

Dv is (not counting pro versions - dvcam, dvcpro, dvcpro50, dvcpro100, dvcpro-hd):
Standard Definition - 720x576 (PAL) @25fps or 720x480 (NTSC) @29.97fps, always interleaved
Usually 4:3, but occasionally letterboxed to 16:9, and rarely true 16:9 anamorphic
4:2:0 (PAL) or 4:1:1 (NTSC) subsampling
Iframe-only 5.5:1 DCT-compressed video
32kHz 12bit 4ch, or 44.1kHz or 48kHz 16bit stereo LPCM audio
Interleaved along with timecode & aux user data in proprietary muxed packet "dv" format data stream.
Constant 25mbps.

HDV is:
High Definition - 1920x1080 or 1440x1080 @24, 25 or 29.97fps interleaved or progressive, or 1280x720 @24, 25, 29.97, 50 or 59.94fps progressive (though there is in theory a std def option)
Always 16:9
Always 4:2:0 subsampling
Short GOP (6-15frames, closed) MPEG2 compressed
384kbps 48kHz 16bit stereo mp2 (mpeg1 layer2) audio (lpcm is a rare option for 720 versions)
Multiplexed into an mpeg TS (transport stream) formatted data stream (or file)
19mbps for 720 versions, 25mbps for 1080 versions.

It is the rare app that can do capture of both kinds.


Scott

[dellsam34]

I though HDV was always 1440x1080, I had both the pro Sony FX1 and the consumer (Sony and Panasonic) and they all recorded @1440, Do you know of any hardware that did 1920x1080 in HDV format?

[Cornucopia]

There were only a few late models, and I don't know how they did it, that claim that. Most 1080 ones ARE 1440x1080 as you experienced.

Scott

[dellsam34]

I believe if I can remember correctly it was done in pass-through mode via SDI, HDMI or component but if recorded on tape it gets down converted to 1440 to keep the bandwidth within the DV standard limit which is 25Mbps. I remember reading about it at avsforum.

[Eric-jan]

Canon cameras are weird things, having one here, that's already fullhd digital records on SD card, or internal, records interlaced, but can be transfered in progressive by USB.
i guess it's good to know what type of recordings are made, and reading the manual for each camera model, since there are a lot of differences for codecs and resolutions, the miniDV cassette was used for a lot of different devices, consumer and pro, DV has limited support on the MAC OS i discovered, and if it has, it's very hard to decode to a good quality, because it's very hard to read the metadata for resolution, etc...
I have to dust of a windows pc here that has firewire, for the few miniDV tapes i have, or i should use my ES35V that has also a DV input ..

btw. a nice feature of the NTSC HV30 is, that it also records at 24fps