NeoHDV & Vista Premium (issues)
 

I was wondering if anyone else here is running Windows Vista Home Premium w/ NeoHDV and having any difficulties? I downloaded the 15-day trial version and consistently run into NeoHDV losing connection with the HV20 during the middle of a capture when it is the ONLY app running.

When it works, it works great. But once it stops working, the app will no longer connect with the HV20 and it requires having to disconnect the firewire cable from the camera, then reconnecting it (for the drivers to unload and load again). Restarting the app after doing that re-establishes connection and capture, but then it's just a matter of time before NeoHDV will stop responding again. This issue happens on both the motherboard firewire and a dedicated firewire PCI card.

In addition, I noticed that after I first installed NeoHDV in Vista, Vegas 7e no longer worked and would stop working before it could fully load. I thought perhaps that NeoHDV might have installed some files that Vegas didn't like, so I uninstalled/reinstalled Vegas and that took care of that issue.

Anyway...is there anyone else having similar issues with NeoHDV under Vista or other versions of Windows.

Yup. I couldn't get it to work at all.

Same problem to me.
 

That's exactly what I experienced several days ago. Now I started to try capturing video using Windows Media Player (Vista Edition). It works fine for me except the odd file format--dvr-ms. I really don't know how to edit it in vegas 7.

Interesting you should bring up using Vista's Media Player for doing captures. Last night when I was surfing the internet, I stumbled upon a post that talked about doing that. In fact, I thought the post even said the Media Player could capture 24p from the camera...but I may be mistaken on that and probably am. I'm going to look into this and experiment.

I like the idea behind NeoHDV, not just for capturing the HV20's 24p but also the idea of working with an intermediate file. It makes for an option to have available and they do seem to put less stress on Vegas to work with them. Not that we can't already create intermediate files from within Vegas after-the-fact, but being able to create those intermediates files at capture (while extracting the 24p) is just a much more efficient work flow overall.

Are you losing connection with the camera if you just capture to M2T? While this is not the preferred workflow, it will help narrow down the problem. The camera connection is using Microsoft system components, it would be odd if that was broken on Vista.

Hey David. I'll look into this more closely. I haven't tried to capture to M2T yet, but was capturing only to the intermediate format, 24p, optimized for Vegas. I'll go look into that now.

And here is something worth taking note of. Under Vista, there is a continuous "COM Surrogate Has Stopped Responding" error message that happens when Windows Explorer is viewing video/media files or when trying to pull the cineform intermediates (that were able to be successfully captured) into Vegas.

I wasn't certain what that error message meant and looked it up online and found a thread that shows how to disable the COM Surrogate from erroring out that way. However, I think in doing that, it also kept NeoHDV from working at all afterwards, so I had to undo what I had done to get NeoHDV working again.

COM Surrogate error results when the explorer is trying to build thumbnails of your video files but fail. It happens to m2t and divx files from what I've seen.

Yes, thumbnails are the issue under Vista. We looking how to address that.

Well, here's my latest assessment of NeoHDV under Vista:

Sometimes the app works as expected, other times it shuts down. There is no repeatable formula that will cause it to shut down, it happens when it happens.

Scene detection DOES NOT WORK for the capture only M2T, nor does it work for the CineForm+KeepM2T.

Scene detection works as expected for CineForm intermediate capture.

In the very first attempt of capturing CineForm+KeepM2T, the app appeared to be capturing (though no scene detection) as expected, but upon hitting STOP and waiting for the program to finish what it does...it never finished. The app locked up completely and was still showing on the desktop. It took using the Task Manager to shut the app down. Interesting to note: I was still able to run a second instance of the app and capture successfully while the previous instance remained locked-up...then I shut it down.

In the second attempt at capturing CineForm+KeepM2T, the app worked correctly though with still no scene detection...though this capture was for a much shorter duration of tape, seeing that I was more interested in seeing if the feature even worked to begin with under Vista.

Scene detection is not enabled for M2T capture, not really a bug. Your tests don't address the question whether you have an issue with your Firewire port. If you capture M2T without converting to an AVI, you can test the interface between the camera and PC without loading the CPU will MPEG to CineForm conversions. This will tell is your PC/camera is working at a basic level. You can then test converting the capture M2T to an AVI, to test the compression stages. If all works we need to see why doing both at the same test causes issues for your PC.

While Vista is a pain, we don't believe there are inherent capture issue with Vista. So there might be something with your setting we can address.

David, okay you've pointed out that scene detection is not implemented for M2T captures. Capturing with the "M2T only" preference doesn't appear to be an issue under Vista, the program seems to work well for that selection.

Something else is at work here though, because the app will often stop working after just clicking on its icon to start it. No sooner do I start the app then it will immediately give me the error message that HDLink.exe has stopped working. Then sometimes after clicking close and restarting the app, it will appear to open successfully and detect the HV20, but then none of the transport controls will work. At that point, I have to shut the app down again, remove the firewire cable from the camera, reconnect, then restart the app. Then it will run.

It seems to me that capturing to the CineForm intermediate is where the hit and miss issue occurs under Vista. I'm wondering if the scene detection could have anything to do with this?

I think this is definitely more of a Vista issue than NeoHDV. Vista is just so new and works so differently than XP in many areas. Do you know if Vista keeps a log of these error reports that I could grab and pass along to you for investigation?

And to update...scene detection did work successfully for two captures under CineForm+KeepM2T.

Just to keep passing along information. I just started the app, it detected the HV20, the preferences were set for CineForm intermediate, I pressed play on the apps transport button to make certain the camera responded (which it did), then pressed stop...then pressed start to capture...and instantly get HDLink.exe has stopped working. Successful app+camera connectivity is random under Vista, but as I said, I think this has everything to do with Vista and hardware, rather than NeoHDV.

So the issue here would be to determine what is happening underneath Vista's hood to cause the app to sometimes fail during the middle of a successful intermediate capture, and also why the app will stop responding when first started, or stop responding after it starts, but before capture occurs.

Using the app to convert the captured M2T files appears to work without any issues under Vista (at least not yet)...however, I noticed the converted files were placed back into the folder of origin (alongside the M2T files) rather than be placed into the destination folder I had selected. I assume that the Folders tab button under Convert is for choosing a destination folder for the converted files, but nothing was written to that folder at all.

Addendum: Is it possible that the HV20 needs to be the "only" firewire device connected at the time of capture? I ask, because I also have a MOTU Traveler firewire audio interface connected to the same firewire card as the HV20. I tried an experiment by turning the MOTU Traveler off during an NeoHDV capture and is caused the app to stop working (HDLink.exe has stopped working error). So I'll have to experiment doing more captures with only the HV20 connected to the firewire card.

Firewire bus will be the likely source of problems. Like we don' recommend capturing to a Firewire drive from a firewide camera, whereas a USB2 drive would be fine. Try with HV20 camera only.

Sorry I was mistaken in typing.
 

Sorry, It was not Media Player; It's Windows Movie Maker(Vista Version). And as far as I know, the dvr-ms file it produced can only be edit using Windows Movie Maker either.
You have mentioned intermediate file. While, it's a great idea, but my system simply didn't work with NeoHD, and I was skeptical that the intermediate file was much more larger than original m2t or dvr-ms file. So if you succeded in capturing intermediate file using Neo, let me know the file size please.

I've been very successful capturing with NeoHDV under Vista, it's just that the program stops working on occassion. You asked about files sizes, so here you go since NeoHDV has one option for capturing both an M2T and CineForm Intermediate file at the exact same time, it's real easy to see how much larger the CineForm files actually are:

M2T = 14,288 KB
NEO = 55,528 KB

M2T = 135,877 KB
NEO = 824,625 KB

M2T = 74,260 KB
NEO = 290,711 KB

That should give you a good idea of the file size difference. Even though the CineForm files are much more larger, the advantage is seen in Vegas working with the intermediate files because playback can be smooth and without any difficulty for the cpu/graphics card to handle, whereas with the M2T files the file format seems to put more of a strain on the cpu/graphics.

Thanks for your data.
 

Thanks for your data, I'll try it later.

I couldn't get it to work successfully either, Neo HDV kept crashing "stopped working" error under both my PC's with vista - oh well it was a good codec if I could use it.

Hope they fix it, for $250 I expect it to work when I purchase it. Right now it's not worth more than $50.

Same problem to me.
 

I've the same problemn with you. I've downloaded the latest trial version from the officail site and installed on my Vista Ultimate. I opened HDLink program and converted the exsist video, it's OK. But when I connected my HV20 to the firewire port, the program crashed and then must be closed. I still don't know how to work it out.

I wonder what the issue is, because as I said, I can get it to work many times under Vista without any problems but then sometimes it stops working as soon as I start it, or stops in the middle of a capture. I'm kinda thinking like both of you, I'd love to continue using it, but I'm not willing to spend $250.00 on software that works intermittently and can crash often enough under Vista...which is my editing system.

Once the 15-day trial is over, that's it. There will be no way for us to check out the program if they release an update for it for Vista, unless any updates allow for another 15-day trial to make absolutely certain it will run on a given Vista system.

When I ask support if there are Vista issue occurring, I was told no one has filed any reports like this. Now it does seem that there are a few of you with Vista issues, do yourself a favor and file a trouble ticket with www.cineform.com/support, we might find there is something similar between your PC, as this fault is not widespread. Please make you reports as detailed as possible about your camera, setup and how to reproduce the fault. If we find a fix, we can extend your trail, but if we don't know who you are we can't, working with support helps both of us.

Well I fixed my problem. Try going into Neo HDV with your HV20 powered off.

Then once you're in, turn it on. Solved my issue. If I have the Hv20 on when I start Neo HDV it crashes (HVLink.exe stop error in Vista)

Interesting, can others confirm?

didn't work for me - still crashes...

Try going a fresh restart and doing it right-away. Do not go into any other software that could control the HV20.

Still craps out...

Well, I went ahead and did as David suggested and went to the CineForm website and filed a trouble ticket. Obviously there are Vista issues taking place and hopefully CineForm can get to the bottom of them soon enough. I'm still convinced that there is something intermittent occurring within Vista that is causing a communication disruption with the camera driver, but what this is specifically who knows...Vista is still so new, so there's bound to be issues like this that come to the surface.

NEO HDV Crashes with Vista
 

I have the same issue. I created a ticket 611-4875795 with Cineform. Unlike David, I don't think it is a Firewire issue, because I did not have this problem before I installed NEO on my machine - Premiere Capture worked just fine. And I'm getting these crashes either when the camera gets connected or after several clips get captured.

My Encore and Premiere started crashing too. It may or may not be related, but I suspect the problem is in one of shared components that NEO installs. I provided Cineform with some additional data that could help narrow the problem down to a specific module and code.

"Well I fixed my problem. Try going into Neo HDV with your HV20 powered off."

I can't confirm this. If I do this, it crashes when I turn the camera on. It is intermittent, but it still happens. I tried to run the program in XP SP2 compatibility mode, I tried to run it in elevation, nothing really helps.

Have you downloaded the newest version of NeoHDV? I believe they posted a new version in the past couple days, try that version and see if it helps.

Yes, I used the newest version, it did not help.

Hmm...Cineform has sent me the update attached to email since I had previously filed a support form, but that was for their trial version which has long expired, so the update they sent does me no good. But...lately I've been having Vegas 7e crash on me when auto-previewing .m2t files in the Project Media folder. It's super annoying since I don't know when it will happen, so I think today I may just shell out the cash and get NeoHDV thinking that using the Cineform intermediates may not cause Vegas to crash when auto-previewing clips as I've been doing. I'm going to test this with some of the Cineform files I had captured during the trial period and see if auto-preview remains stable in Vegas.