Studio - Capture

Re: Analog capture time delay

Jean Manthei — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 02:39:06 GMT

I haven't experienced problems with time delay during import in Studio 14 Ultimate Collection, but I have an open case now where they told me to download a 710 USB driver at pinnaclesys.com (downloads under drivers). It might be having that driver could work.

Re: Analog capture time delay

bsdennis — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:03:12 GMT

If you're talking about VHS videotape - Just cue up the VCR at the very begining of the tape in the Play mode but Paused. When you have a good signal passing through to Studio, AND once the capture actually begins - press Play on the VCR to begin playback....and there you go.

Now all you have to do is clip the paused section off the timeline when you start editing. \

IMO, believe me, it's the easiest workaround. I "do" 6 or 8 of them per day, 5 days per week.

Re: Analog capture time delay

David Hunt — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:43:40 GMT

Before you carry me off to the nuthouse, you might just give a little consideration to this one.

At the start of the tape there is a small length which never gets recorded on (between the reel and the head). If you can access this and splice in an additional length equivilant to a bit more than 2 seconds then you will be able to capture the whole thing. Be careful not to splice too close to the recording.

I just hope there are not too many tapes like this.

Re: Analog capture time delay

Link'sMastermind — Fri, 22 May 2009 21:41:03 GMT

You know I gotta idea that might work, especially considering you know exactly how long the capture delay is. This idea will work without any expert experiance. It's rather simple really, if the delay is an exact time you could do something like I dunno...start capturing that amount of time BEFORE you actually want to start capturing? I mean seriously, if it's something like three minutes or even seven. You can just trim the excess footage off in edit mode...duh... of course this trick really only works in some things. Like there's a five sec delay when I record from my wii. So insteada making myself vulnerable for five seconds I just start capturing when the screen is loading the match. Of course this really only works with games and movies, but hey that's two cents for ya.

Re: Analog capture time delay

tguernsey — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 19:36:39 GMT

I had the same problem. I have found that I am only successfull when recording directly to my computer drive. Any time I record to a perifrial, I get the delay. Since I do not have a large enough hard drive to capture much video, I then transfer the files from my c drive to my external hard drive. Once I have my movie created, and I want to burn it to disc, which is also a perifrial device, I have to use a powered USB port, like Belkin, and or make sure I have direct power to my external disc writer.

Re: Analog capture time delay

Marc P. — Fri, 09 May 2008 02:46:38 GMT

Nice topic discussed here. Pinning this in the Capture section. Good points there guys.

Re: Analog capture time delay

Fisherman-13 — Wed, 07 May 2008 17:21:32 GMT

30 seconds..I have only been burning about 5 to 10 seconds at the beginning of my miniDV tapes. I guess maybe I will burn a bit more before I start shooting important things.

I think you have hit on a potential problem. I was capturing some miniDV tapes using the auto scene detect and I think that is still active. I will give this a shot when I head home tonight.

Is there a time delay using automatic scene detect when capturing miniDV tapes?

Voxmagna:

There's also some delay in synchronising to the Mpeg transport stream. You will often see this on broadcast mpeg when there's a signal glitch. What does the camera do on its own preview? Does it start at the beginning or not?

I know there's an issue with newer Sony cams when you start with a blank tape. Now I put 30 seconds of colour bars on a blank tape.

But you have old tapes. If you can see the start from first recorded frame on the camera replay, then you can safely assume the delay is synchronising as it goes across the link. Have you tried turning off 'automatic scene detect' in Studio, starting the capture manually by pressing play and seeing what you get?

The other thing to try is not using firewire and feed the camera composite analogue output straight into the vid and sound input of your GFX card. I haven't checked to see if Studio will capture that way, but if it doesn't, a utility with GFX your card, your camera or others might.

Re: Analog capture time delay

Fisherman-13 — Wed, 07 May 2008 17:19:04 GMT

Thanks for the good info. I will give this a shot.

pinshel:

I have a different capture setup - 710 via USB, but have experienced the delay before capture commences.

The workaround that I use is to play/forward the tape for a distance (based on the typical delay before capture), then as the capture button is pressed, I simultaneously start to rewind the tape. Studio recognizes the rewinding input and eventually starts capturing after a delay. I have a bit of rewinding video captured at the beginning of the captured video file (simple to remove if need be) but otherwise the capture works well.

Re: Analog capture time delay

Fisherman-13 — Wed, 07 May 2008 17:17:56 GMT

Thank you all for the good information.

jjn: Unfortunately, I am still operating in S10. I skipped S11 waiting for S12 to come out. Right now, I am thinking that wasn't a good idea.

I am operating in Windows XP so I will have to try and capture part of the movie via Window's Movie Maker.

jjn:

If I capture using my DV camera as an analogue pass through source, there is about a 5 second delay! If I capture analogue with my 700PCI there is also about a 2 second delay. In both cases though, I can get round this by starting with a still frame, starting the capture and then pressing play. I'd guess that your DV camera doesn't see the still frame from your Hi8 as stable enough to allow passthrough - for tests I used the output of a DVD player as I don't have the adaptors to hand to plug up my VCR. For analogue capture from my VCR I almost always start from a paused frame, so I know that works.

Using DV passthorugh, I did a test with Windows Movie Maker, and the capture start delay for this is just a few frames. If you still have XP, use that for the first part of the tape

I then tried the Amcap tool that comes with S11. That seemed instant.....

So certainly partly to do with Studio, but maybe the still frame from you Hi8 isn't very stable, either?

I'd start by trying Amcap - it should be in Start/All Programs/Studio 11/tools

Re: Analog capture time delay

Voxmagna — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:46:01 GMT

There's also some delay in synchronising to the Mpeg transport stream. You will often see this on broadcast mpeg when there's a signal glitch. What does the camera do on its own preview? Does it start at the beginning or not?

I know there's an issue with newer Sony cams when you start with a blank tape. Now I put 30 seconds of colour bars on a blank tape.

But you have old tapes. If you can see the start from first recorded frame on the camera replay, then you can safely assume the delay is synchronising as it goes across the link. Have you tried turning off 'automatic scene detect' in Studio, starting the capture manually by pressing play and seeing what you get?

The other thing to try is not using firewire and feed the camera composite analogue output straight into the vid and sound input of your GFX card. I haven't checked to see if Studio will capture that way, but if it doesn't, a utility with GFX your card, your camera or others might.

Re: Analog capture time delay

pinshel — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:44:23 GMT

I have a different capture setup - 710 via USB, but have experienced the delay before capture commences.

The workaround that I use is to play/forward the tape for a distance (based on the typical delay before capture), then as the capture button is pressed, I simultaneously start to rewind the tape. Studio recognizes the rewinding input and eventually starts capturing after a delay. I have a bit of rewinding video captured at the beginning of the captured video file (simple to remove if need be) but otherwise the capture works well.

Re: Analog capture time delay

jjn — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:27:25 GMT

If I capture using my DV camera as an analogue pass through source, there is about a 5 second delay! If I capture analogue with my 700PCI there is also about a 2 second delay. In both cases though, I can get round this by starting with a still frame, starting the capture and then pressing play. I'd guess that your DV camera doesn't see the still frame from your Hi8 as stable enough to allow passthrough - for tests I used the output of a DVD player as I don't have the adaptors to hand to plug up my VCR. For analogue capture from my VCR I almost always start from a paused frame, so I know that works.

Using DV passthorugh, I did a test with Windows Movie Maker, and the capture start delay for this is just a few frames. If you still have XP, use that for the first part of the tape

I then tried the Amcap tool that comes with S11. That seemed instant.....

So certainly partly to do with Studio, but maybe the still frame from you Hi8 isn't very stable, either?

I'd start by trying Amcap - it should be in Start/All Programs/Studio 11/tools

Analog capture time delay

Fisherman-13 — Wed, 07 May 2008 05:17:33 GMT

I am capturing my Hi8 tapes through my camcorder (analog to digital conversion) via firewire into Studio 10.7.

After playing the tape, there is about a 2 second delay before studio begins to capture the video. I tried to start the capture process 5 seconds before playing the tape but the results were the same. I even paused the video (hoping a still video image would trigger the software to capture the movie), started the capture process then unpaused the video and still have about a 2 second delay.

Questions:

1. Is this normal?

2. Best quess, is this a software (Studio), tape or player (camcorder) issue?

3. If I am able to track down a Hi8 VCR deck, might this solve the issue?

On some tapes, they 2 seconds doesn't matter but one some it really does matter. These tapes are from the early 90's when I was new to camcorders. I have sinced learned to "burn" a couple of seconds at the beginning of the tape and haven't had a problem since. Any suggestions?

In the end, I might be able to go to my local video transfer business and see how much they would charge me just to transfer the tapes to a portable HDD. Maybe they will let me transfer the tapes myself and only charge me computer time. I don't think they would but it is worth asking. I am desparate and can't afford to spend $20 per tape 30-40 tapes that I need to transfer.

If that is an option, do professional software packages like Adobe Premeire, Final Cut Pro, etc capture in an .AVI format that I can use in Pinnacle?