Yet ANOTHER HDV capture issue...
 

Ok, I'm truly at my wits end! I searched through the forums for about an hour and a half and didn't find anything on this issue. A friend asked me to capture his HDV footage. "No problem!" I said. "I have an A1 myself so I capture HDV into FCP all the time! As a matter of fact, FCP6 will separate it each time you hit Start/Stop! Consider it done!" *more and more promises* . . . . Two weeks later, still not done.... Here's the setup:
I have six (RECYCLED dv!) tapes that a buddy of mine used to capture some HDV footage on an A1. Each tape has 30-45 mins of footage. After much frustration, I discovered, through this forum, that it won't separate the clips at Start/Stop because the clock was not set. Cool, I can deal. Then the TRUE problem began... I hit capture now and it goes through the capture process but never puts a file in the logging bin OR in the Capture Scratch folder. The same result with loggin and batch capturing. Am I missing something here? All Scratch Disks and Logging Bins are set up correctly. I just did the most recent ProApps update but I would think if it was the update, I would have been able to find someone with a similar problem by now. It's driving me nuts... Any help would be MUCH appreciated! *bows to the dvinfo gods*

A couple of thoughts.

1. When I capture HDV I first have to hit the play button and then Capture "Now"
2. What options did you use for your "Capture Preset" and your "Device Control Preset" (under Audio/Video settings in the Final Cut Pro menu)
3. Have you trashed preferences?

Also in the Log & Capture window under "Clip Settings", make sure you've checked the boxes for Audio and Video.

Just a thought, might not have anything to do with your situation, but this was brought to my attention when I was having issues with FCP refusing to capture longer clips: my scratch drive was not properly formatted, and when the file size exceeded 4gb, FCP simply trashed the capture. I had to reformat my scratch so it was Mac OS Extended+Journaled.

Bad and bad. Recycled DV tapes can introduce a lot of HDV dropout. The missing clock is not good either. Consider using DVHScap (a free Apple program) to capture the m2v stream off the tapes and another program to convert the stream into usable HDV. MPEGStreamclip is a free program that does this but ClipWrap which is a low cost program does a much better and quicker job. There are numerous threads here that detail the process.

I'm having this same problem...but with brand new tapes. It goes all the way though the capture process just fine..but at the end of the tape it brings up a general error and I have no captured video. I know its not the drive because I've captured to this drive before.

Any one figure this out?

Jeremiah

General error is a different problem, although I don't grasp the original poster's problem at all. In my experience that error is evil and happens for NO reason. TRASH YOUR PREFS! Use "Final Cut rescue" if you want to make it easier, and try capturing through a new project. General Error has happened to me for no reason, so that's how I fix it.

i figured out my problem...2GB limit. Didn't realize this particular hard drive i was using was still on regular ol' FAT32.

jeremiah

That's why you got General Error? That doesn't make sense -you can still capture over 2 gigs of video with a FAT32 hard drive, I have done it many times. It just creates multiple files automatically which your captured video references. In final cut the video clip functions the same way, you can still have 1 long video that appears as multiple files in your capture scratch, and you would never even know.
I've never captured an entire tape as one long clip though, if that's what your doing?
Also I think FAT32 is a 4 gig limit.