HV20 to PC capture

[Abhay Yadav]

This is a repost from the Editing Solutions forum, i just wasn't sure which one to place it in and thought after posting originally that this might be the more appropriate place. If that is not kosher please delete.

I'm trying to capture the video from my HV20 and my computer doesn't seem to recognize the camera. My friends camera was instantly recognized and we pulled off the video just fine. But when connecting mine to the computer with the same 4pin to 6pin cable, nothing happens.

I've installed the software that came with the disk (though i didn't think that would do anything, which it didn't) but i'm really not sure.

[Jim Irwin]

What operating system are you using? What type of camcorder is your freinds?

I'm running Vista and did not install the Canon software. Vista automatically sees the HV20, installs the driver needed.

For some reason I thought the Canon software (see users Manual page 76) does not assist with HDV capture only for pictures. If you computer does not recognize the HV20 camcorder and add the driver then it will not work.

[Abhay Yadav]

I'm using WinXP with SP2. I read on another forum that a guy called Canon Customer support and they determined that it does not function with WinXP (i'll probably call them after work and try to verify this).

Does anybody have any issues with WinXP? And are there drivers for the camera?

[Ray Bell]

I just did this two days ago on a XP pro SP2 system...

all I did was open the "my computer" folder, plug in the camera to the FIREWIRE port, turn the camera on in the playback mode and within a few seconds the camera showed up... not as HV20 but while it was there on the screen I just right clicked the icon and changed the name to HV20.

Turned the cam off and the icon went away... then turned it back on and the HV20 icon showed again...

[Dave Blackhurst]

Plug and play here - XP SP2 + all patches, acknowledges HV20 instantly. Sony Vegas 7 HDV captures HV20 tapes fine.

DB>)

[Mike Scotchinson]

Try going to device manager and uninstall/reinstall your IEEE1394 devices.

[Abhay Yadav]

Originally Posted by Mike Scotchinson

Try going to device manager and uninstall/reinstall your IEEE1394 devices.

I'm going to try this. Maybe it screwed up with respect to plugging in my friends camera first.

[Ajit Bikram]

Abhay,
I connected my hv20 to my computer for the first time today. (win XP sp2) without installing any software. The camera worked flawlessly and could capture clips using HDVsplit. Does not seem to be a problem with winxp in your case either.

I think what you are facing is similar to peter. (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=93045).
You can refer to this thread for a probable solution.

Ajit B.

[Peter J Alessandria]

Yeah, take a look at that thread. You do need to be running XP SP2 (Service Pack 2 provided the HDV drivers from what I can gather.)

But you also need software that can capture your HDV video - Windows XP by itself or even Movie Maker can't do that for you.

My problem stemmed in part I believe from the fact that after initially plugging in the camera in HDV/DV mode and having Windows properly recognize the camera and install the HDV driver, I then had to capture some DV footage. So I put the HV20 in "DV locked" output mode, plugged it in and found Windows installing a second set of drivers - this time for a Canon DV camera. OK, fine. But when I went back to HDV/DV mode, Windows still saw the camera as a DV device rather than an HDV device. (Pure Windows/Microsoft insanity IMO). So no matter how many times I went into the device manager and unistalled the Canon DV camera entry under "Imaging Devices", everytime I plugged the camera back in, Windows loaded the DV driver and Vegas kept telling me I had no HDV device available. Finally, what I think I did was uninstall the DV camera device but leave the camera plugged in and restarted the computer with the camera still attached. Thereafter, Windows would see it as an "AV/C tape device" in the "sound, video and game controllers" section of the device manager. It has worked fine ever since. However, I'm now terrified of putting the HV20 back into DV locked output mode if I need to capture any DV material. Like I said, Microsoft insanity at it's best!

[Abhay Yadav]

The weird thing is that HDVSplit recognizes it and works fine, but Sony Vegasc and Avid Xpress HD do not.

It is located in the Sound/Game section of Device manager as AV/C Device but windows explorer doesn't show it and only HDVSplit will allow me to capture. And unless i'm mistaken, the capture doesn't look HD. The quality of the video looks standard (it's not in 16:9, for example even though it's set to HDV)

The worst, though, is that my computer randomly restarts when i try to run Vegas.

NM, looks like Vegas finds it.

[Larry Horwitz]

I started a thread on the Sony Vegas forum a few weeks back when I was unable to get Vegas to see my HV20 even though HDVSplit and Ulead Video Studio captured flawlessly.

I eventually learned that the HV20 uses a Fujitsu Firewire controller chip which is less capable of managing Firewire port conflicts than the properietary chip used in Sony HDV camcorders, and thus only 1 device, the HV20, should be connected to the Firewire port when trying to capture.

Indeed when I unplugged the other Firewire devices (external diusk, Firewire hub) my HDV captures now work perfectly.

I have since added a 2nd Firewire crad which is dedicated to the HV20 to prevent future conficts without my having to unplug things every time I want to do an HDV capture from my HV20,

Larry

[Scott Turkington]

Is anyone here using premier pro2 to capture video from the Canon HV20? If so what format are they capturing in, avi, mpg, m2t etc. etc.?

[C.S. Michael]

I've captured HV20 video in PPro 1.51 using the Cineform AVI codec. The strange thing is...apparently this codec is free with PPro 1.5 (via the 1.51 upgrade) but it's NOT included with PPro 2. :\

[David Newman]

This is a low end CineForm codec available to 1.5.1 users. The full codec license is within CineForm's Aspect HD or Prospect HD. Only the full version included automatic pulldown extraction. The CineForm NEO product line can also be used to capture from HV20 with pulldown extraction.