Vista 64 Capture Problems

Jeff Harper · April 10th, 2009, 08:16 AM

I purchased an used HV30 yesterday and just captured perfectly with it. Absolutely flawless. I love this camera. And I do like the speed of Vista 64 bit.

Davids experience is typical of many people with vista 64 bit. It has been pointed out many times on this forum that most Vista issues are hardware related. This case is no different.

You get what you pay for. There has been case after case in this forum of people experiencing issues with their new inexpensive PCs. With the exception of David, all of them understood the issues were hardware related and dealt with them accordingly.

As Rick pointed out and as I asserted before, when you're dealing with budget hardware it is not unusual that you may have issues. You pay your money and you take your chances.

Yes David you can get in your digs at Vista 64, put in the last word about having put it in the trash where it belongs, and that is your perogative. But those of us who know also understand you are placing the blame where it doesn't belong and misinforming others at the same time.

8.1 is not ready for prime time for many people, that is well documented. It is the first version of Vegas 64 bit, and it has tons of issues for many people, none for others. It also was issued free of charge to all Vegas 8 users.

I am sure Dale it has nothing to do with i7, it is just a beta release. That is why it was free, I believe.

David Rice · April 10th, 2009, 07:42 PM

I have owned seven pc's in my life. Gateway, HP's, Dell's, and Acers. I have found the Acers to be the most dependable over time. The HP's went first.They hardly survived past warranty. Followed by a Gateway. The Dells did a little better. I have found that the Acers are the most dependable, and best of all, when you buy one, they are not bloated with "buy now services" or cheap software offers. Before you make a quick judgment, I suggest that you compare all four computers in a hard working environment.

Vista 64 is the only OS that has interfered with my camcorders video capture. Also, I just found out that a neighbor down the street had to reboot his Vista 64 back down to Vista 32 also, due to the fact Vista 64 would not allow his music hardware/software to work properly(he's a musician). He said it best. "If Vista is so great, then why is Microsoft releasing Windows 7?

Here's a sample of some fast paced footage I recorded the other day:
YouTube - 2009 Sitka Sound Herring Sac Roe Fishery in HD 1080p

Ron Evans · April 10th, 2009, 08:55 PM

My comments were purely on the fact that correct Vista 64 drivers have to be present for the OS to work properly in all circumstances. A great many pieces of hardware do not have the correct drivers and though may work in some circumstances but fail in others. Frankly that is why I construct my own PC's as I like making my own choices for hardware and thus of course have no addition software on the machine at all and a BOIS that comes from the board manufacturer not the PC manufacturer. It also means I can optimize the machine for my purposes. I too have PC's running XP as well as Win2k. Vista 64 is faster and more stable than any of the others. Until recently my main editor Edius was not sanctioned to run on Vista, it did on my PC but I know on others it did not. The latest version V5 does but not all the Canopus Grass Valley hardware has Vista 64 drivers!! Vista 64 also needs to be tailored to your needs too. I have turned off all the fancy graphics etc to the point that it looks much like XP Classic windows. It is well worth finding out how to do this whether you are using Vista 64 or Vista 32.
For the widest compatibility with older hardware XP may be a better choice as it is more likely to have available drivers for almost anything that can be plugged into a PC!!!! There are very few true 64 bit apps so the main reason to use Vista 64 is memory allocations and multitasking of 32bit programs. To take advantage of this then use 8G RAM or more with multi hard discs too. Future proofing is only valid for people who keep their computers a long time!!!!

Ron Evans

John Miller · April 11th, 2009, 08:25 AM

All valid points. However, all brands of FireWire interface have to meet the OHCI specification (that has to be verified by MS) and use the same MS drivers. (Well, no doubt there are some odd-ball interfaces with proprietary drivers such as the old Radius one).

Soeren Mueller · April 11th, 2009, 05:06 PM

Aaaah - finally a DV Info thread on this bug/problem.

David, you're not the only one! And it is not (strictly) related to either the camera or your computer I can assure you.
Never in my life I had any problems capturing HDV on any version of Windows. Until just recently when I had to transfer 3 hours of HDV 25p material from a Canon XL H1 (it was rented and had to be returned the other day) ... and all I had available was a IBM Thinkpad 61p (I used it's internal firewire connection) notebook with Vista 64bit on it. And I had exactly the same problem as you!

I tried everything I could imagine - no capture application could capture HDV, only downscaled DV could be captured. (I tried Premiere, Vegas, HDVSplit, Movie Maker etc.pp.)

As time was running out I hurried home where I tried to capture the footage on my main workstation (custom built silent PC with an Asus P5Q Pro motherboard - I used the onboard firewire!) where I head several more OS' to choose from... I first tried to capture under Windows 7 Beta 64bit - exactly the same problem! Only DV worked, not HDV... I was nearly pulling my hair out and thought the camera had a faulty firewire connection or something, as I never ever experienced such a strange (hardware) problem with Vista 64bit or Win7 64bit (perhaps I was just lucky? especially Win7 64bit works like a charm from day 1 on).
Since I didn't want to spend the whole night with this problem I was desperately trying everything... until I booted into my old WinXP Pro (32bit) .. where it was absolutely no problem capturing all the HDV tapes from the Canon XL H1 without any dropped frame!!!

So yes - this problem/bug is real! I only ever encountered it with the 64bit OSes so that seems to be one factor. But as there are obviously a number of people out there where everything works fine even on Vista/Win7 64bit it must be a combination of several factors.
Perhaps it's only with some cams when connected to some firewire chips/ports/card? There definately seems to be a bug or perhaps missing driver/feature or whatever that's causing this...
I don't think that the ASUS P5Q Pro board in my workstation uses the same fw chip(set) as my Thinkpad does... but I will have a closer look.

I nearly forgot about this problem, this happened ~2 months ago and since half a year I mostly work with the RED One.. only that day for that job I resorted back to the XL H1.

Cheers
-Sören

Ron Evans · April 11th, 2009, 10:11 PM

My normal routine is to get Vegas to capture both DV and HDV as I like the way I have control. However Edius is my main editor and with all this discussion I thought I would try some of the others to capture some HDV. All will capture but with some differences. Vegas 8.0c will capture DV and HDV with preview and audio, Vegas 8.1 will capture DV and HDV but HDV has no video preview but audio is heard, CS3 will capture DV and HDV and Edius will capture DV and HDV but the camera has to be off when program is loaded and only switched on when capture screen is enabled and no audio or video preview just progress data. At first I couldn't get Edius to capture . The capture utility ran but nothing was captured. Then I switched camera off, reloaded capture utility and then switched camera on and everything worked. I have had this sort of issue in the past where the order of loading is important but the last time was many years ago so had forgotten about trying or suggesting this before. All create normal files that show in all the NLE's.
Although I have Vegas 8.1 I do not use it as my main use of Vegas is for audio after editing in Edius from which I produce a Canopus HQ file which Vegas 8.0c will use but Vegas 8.1 will not since there is no 64bit HQ codec.
I use a very striped down Vista 64, it looks and behaves much like XP Classic, so there may be something in what features in Vista are active or not.

Ron Evans

David Rice · April 11th, 2009, 10:30 PM

I am very suspicious of the Vista 64 Media Center and how it relates to HD Media. Before I changed back to Vista 32, I tried to remove or shut down the Vista 64 Media Center, but it seems to control a lot of what goes on in Vista 64, and it's well entrenched. Even though I would never use it, I could not remove or shut it down.

I'll just stay with Vista 32 for now, and let the pro's and experts figure it out.

Jeremiah Rickert · April 12th, 2009, 12:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ron Evans

I thought you gave up a little while back. The problem isn't Vista 64 its your computer as lots of us have been telling you for a while. I have a Q9450, 8G RAM, running Vista 64 and have no problems running Edius 5, Vegas 8.0 and 8.1, Premiere CS3, Sound Forge, TMPGenc Xpress 4, TMpgenc Authorworks, DVDLab Pro2, DVD Architect 5, Cineform Neo Scene, and many other programs. Ron Evans

I self-built my PC. I have a QX9650, 8gig Ram, and Vista 64, and I can't capture HDV with anything but HDVSplit. If you have some kind of alternative FireWire drivers, can you identify them? Are you plugging into the FireWire slots on your mother board or do you have a standalone capture card?

Vista's autorun will not pop up if my XHA1 is reading "HDV" on its readout. Even if I'm trying to capture regular DV, I have to play the tape for a couple seconds so the readout changes to DV16:9 THEN turn the camera off, connect the firewire, then turn it back on. Only then will the autorun pop up for the camera.

I guess I feel lucky that there's HDVSplit, but it's pretty annoying to me that M$ and/or Sony haven't been able to get their minds around this for the last few years.

Jeff Harper · April 12th, 2009, 05:48 AM

Jeremiah, if you haven't already try make sure no other firewire devices are connected while attempting to capture, particularly FW preview devices such as the Canopus.

I've used both cards and integrated FW controlller, but I hear the integrated are more reliable for capturing.

If HDV split can read your camera, great. However if Vista is not seeing the camera, then Vegas is not at fault. It cannot be expected to read or see a camera if Windows is not seeing it.

While these problems are real and painful for those that experience them, I still don't understand them. I have captured with four different models of camcorders on several different configurations of Vista 64 bit and never had a capture issue except for a very brief issue with PP, and it turned out the issue was my Canopus card; it needed to be disconnected for Vista to see the camera. This is a common issue/fix that was told to me long ago and I had forgotten about it.

It is super important if you have capture issues to make sure all FW devices are disconnected during the process of getting camera to be seen.

Ron Evans · April 12th, 2009, 07:36 AM

My Vista 64 system has no add-in cards other than the video card. IEEE1394 is off the motherboard. I have no external 1394 drives. All external drives are either USB2 or eSATA. When capturing no external drives are connected, the camera is the only external device connected to the motherboard and there is no other activity on the PC. I do not have any virus protection or firewall on this PC.

Ron Evans

Jeff Harper · April 12th, 2009, 10:49 AM

I too use a lean running Vista 64 bit. I have power settings set to not only high performance mode but I customize the power settings for HDs, multimedia, and everything else to never turn off.

Indexing is off, remote connections off, hibernation is disabled, system restore is off, I could go on.

When I first used Vista I didn't know about those settings and it caused me some issues, specifically the HDs shutting down every 20 minutes, which drove me crazy not knowing what was going on.

Rick Diaz · April 12th, 2009, 12:41 PM

Well, you guys are going to hate me after this post. Reading your comments, I must have some kind of super-anamoly PC. I have an HP Media Center PC running Vista 64. It has an Asus mobo, Core 2 Quad processor, 6gb of RAM, an ATi 4670 with dual DVI out and dual LCD monitors, a Hauppauge digital TV tuner card, a ViXS analog/ATSC tuner card, Vegas Pro 8, Cyberlink's PowerDirector 7, and I use the onboard Firewire connector. I have modded the case to fit 3 SATA drives, I have a USB external drive, an internal LG BD burner, analog and digital coax inputs for HD and SD TV signals and zero problems with any of it. I can capture analog and digital inputs with PowerDirector, I can capture my HV20 in both 32- and 64-bit Vegas versions, scan with my Canon 4600, output 5.1 audio with the onboard Realtek chipset, make phone calls with my MagicJack, use the HP as a printer sharer, record TV programs with Media Center and then stream them wirelessly to my Linksys extender hooked up to my 46" Toshiba LCD in the living room, play an occasional game, surf the internet, digitize my vinyl records with my Technics turntable connected to the Aux in on the PC, and I almost never turn it off or reboot it. According to David, I must be a fluke. :)

April 10th, 2009, 08:16 AM	#61
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	I purchased an used HV30 yesterday and just captured perfectly with it. Absolutely flawless. I love this camera. And I do like the speed of Vista 64 bit. Davids experience is typical of many people with vista 64 bit. It has been pointed out many times on this forum that most Vista issues are hardware related. This case is no different. You get what you pay for. There has been case after case in this forum of people experiencing issues with their new inexpensive PCs. With the exception of David, all of them understood the issues were hardware related and dealt with them accordingly. As Rick pointed out and as I asserted before, when you're dealing with budget hardware it is not unusual that you may have issues. You pay your money and you take your chances. Yes David you can get in your digs at Vista 64, put in the last word about having put it in the trash where it belongs, and that is your perogative. But those of us who know also understand you are placing the blame where it doesn't belong and misinforming others at the same time. 8.1 is not ready for prime time for many people, that is well documented. It is the first version of Vegas 64 bit, and it has tons of issues for many people, none for others. It also was issued free of charge to all Vegas 8 users. I am sure Dale it has nothing to do with i7, it is just a beta release. That is why it was free, I believe.

April 10th, 2009, 07:42 PM	#62
David Rice Major Player Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Sitka Alaska Posts: 470	I have owned seven pc's in my life. Gateway, HP's, Dell's, and Acers. I have found the Acers to be the most dependable over time. The HP's went first.They hardly survived past warranty. Followed by a Gateway. The Dells did a little better. I have found that the Acers are the most dependable, and best of all, when you buy one, they are not bloated with "buy now services" or cheap software offers. Before you make a quick judgment, I suggest that you compare all four computers in a hard working environment. Vista 64 is the only OS that has interfered with my camcorders video capture. Also, I just found out that a neighbor down the street had to reboot his Vista 64 back down to Vista 32 also, due to the fact Vista 64 would not allow his music hardware/software to work properly(he's a musician). He said it best. "If Vista is so great, then why is Microsoft releasing Windows 7? Here's a sample of some fast paced footage I recorded the other day: YouTube - 2009 Sitka Sound Herring Sac Roe Fishery in HD 1080p

April 10th, 2009, 08:55 PM	#63
Ron Evans Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 4,220	My comments were purely on the fact that correct Vista 64 drivers have to be present for the OS to work properly in all circumstances. A great many pieces of hardware do not have the correct drivers and though may work in some circumstances but fail in others. Frankly that is why I construct my own PC's as I like making my own choices for hardware and thus of course have no addition software on the machine at all and a BOIS that comes from the board manufacturer not the PC manufacturer. It also means I can optimize the machine for my purposes. I too have PC's running XP as well as Win2k. Vista 64 is faster and more stable than any of the others. Until recently my main editor Edius was not sanctioned to run on Vista, it did on my PC but I know on others it did not. The latest version V5 does but not all the Canopus Grass Valley hardware has Vista 64 drivers!! Vista 64 also needs to be tailored to your needs too. I have turned off all the fancy graphics etc to the point that it looks much like XP Classic windows. It is well worth finding out how to do this whether you are using Vista 64 or Vista 32. For the widest compatibility with older hardware XP may be a better choice as it is more likely to have available drivers for almost anything that can be plugged into a PC!!!! There are very few true 64 bit apps so the main reason to use Vista 64 is memory allocations and multitasking of 32bit programs. To take advantage of this then use 8G RAM or more with multi hard discs too. Future proofing is only valid for people who keep their computers a long time!!!! Ron Evans

April 11th, 2009, 08:25 AM	#64
John Miller Major Player Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Hillsborough, NC, USA Posts: 968	All valid points. However, all brands of FireWire interface have to meet the OHCI specification (that has to be verified by MS) and use the same MS drivers. (Well, no doubt there are some odd-ball interfaces with proprietary drivers such as the old Radius one).

April 11th, 2009, 05:06 PM	#65
Soeren Mueller Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Düsseldorf, Germany / Denver, CO Posts: 137	Aaaah - finally a DV Info thread on this bug/problem. David, you're not the only one! And it is not (strictly) related to either the camera or your computer I can assure you. Never in my life I had any problems capturing HDV on any version of Windows. Until just recently when I had to transfer 3 hours of HDV 25p material from a Canon XL H1 (it was rented and had to be returned the other day) ... and all I had available was a IBM Thinkpad 61p (I used it's internal firewire connection) notebook with Vista 64bit on it. And I had exactly the same problem as you! I tried everything I could imagine - no capture application could capture HDV, only downscaled DV could be captured. (I tried Premiere, Vegas, HDVSplit, Movie Maker etc.pp.) As time was running out I hurried home where I tried to capture the footage on my main workstation (custom built silent PC with an Asus P5Q Pro motherboard - I used the onboard firewire!) where I head several more OS' to choose from... I first tried to capture under Windows 7 Beta 64bit - exactly the same problem! Only DV worked, not HDV... I was nearly pulling my hair out and thought the camera had a faulty firewire connection or something, as I never ever experienced such a strange (hardware) problem with Vista 64bit or Win7 64bit (perhaps I was just lucky? especially Win7 64bit works like a charm from day 1 on). Since I didn't want to spend the whole night with this problem I was desperately trying everything... until I booted into my old WinXP Pro (32bit) .. where it was absolutely no problem capturing all the HDV tapes from the Canon XL H1 without any dropped frame!!! So yes - this problem/bug is real! I only ever encountered it with the 64bit OSes so that seems to be one factor. But as there are obviously a number of people out there where everything works fine even on Vista/Win7 64bit it must be a combination of several factors. Perhaps it's only with some cams when connected to some firewire chips/ports/card? There definately seems to be a bug or perhaps missing driver/feature or whatever that's causing this... I don't think that the ASUS P5Q Pro board in my workstation uses the same fw chip(set) as my Thinkpad does... but I will have a closer look. I nearly forgot about this problem, this happened ~2 months ago and since half a year I mostly work with the RED One.. only that day for that job I resorted back to the XL H1. Cheers -Sören

April 11th, 2009, 10:11 PM	#66
Ron Evans Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 4,220	My normal routine is to get Vegas to capture both DV and HDV as I like the way I have control. However Edius is my main editor and with all this discussion I thought I would try some of the others to capture some HDV. All will capture but with some differences. Vegas 8.0c will capture DV and HDV with preview and audio, Vegas 8.1 will capture DV and HDV but HDV has no video preview but audio is heard, CS3 will capture DV and HDV and Edius will capture DV and HDV but the camera has to be off when program is loaded and only switched on when capture screen is enabled and no audio or video preview just progress data. At first I couldn't get Edius to capture . The capture utility ran but nothing was captured. Then I switched camera off, reloaded capture utility and then switched camera on and everything worked. I have had this sort of issue in the past where the order of loading is important but the last time was many years ago so had forgotten about trying or suggesting this before. All create normal files that show in all the NLE's. Although I have Vegas 8.1 I do not use it as my main use of Vegas is for audio after editing in Edius from which I produce a Canopus HQ file which Vegas 8.0c will use but Vegas 8.1 will not since there is no 64bit HQ codec. I use a very striped down Vista 64, it looks and behaves much like XP Classic, so there may be something in what features in Vista are active or not. Ron Evans

April 11th, 2009, 10:30 PM	#67
David Rice Major Player Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Sitka Alaska Posts: 470	I am very suspicious of the Vista 64 Media Center and how it relates to HD Media. Before I changed back to Vista 32, I tried to remove or shut down the Vista 64 Media Center, but it seems to control a lot of what goes on in Vista 64, and it's well entrenched. Even though I would never use it, I could not remove or shut it down. I'll just stay with Vista 32 for now, and let the pro's and experts figure it out.

April 12th, 2009, 05:48 AM	#69
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Jeremiah, if you haven't already try make sure no other firewire devices are connected while attempting to capture, particularly FW preview devices such as the Canopus. I've used both cards and integrated FW controlller, but I hear the integrated are more reliable for capturing. If HDV split can read your camera, great. However if Vista is not seeing the camera, then Vegas is not at fault. It cannot be expected to read or see a camera if Windows is not seeing it. While these problems are real and painful for those that experience them, I still don't understand them. I have captured with four different models of camcorders on several different configurations of Vista 64 bit and never had a capture issue except for a very brief issue with PP, and it turned out the issue was my Canopus card; it needed to be disconnected for Vista to see the camera. This is a common issue/fix that was told to me long ago and I had forgotten about it. It is super important if you have capture issues to make sure all FW devices are disconnected during the process of getting camera to be seen.

April 12th, 2009, 07:36 AM	#70
Ron Evans Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 4,220	My Vista 64 system has no add-in cards other than the video card. IEEE1394 is off the motherboard. I have no external 1394 drives. All external drives are either USB2 or eSATA. When capturing no external drives are connected, the camera is the only external device connected to the motherboard and there is no other activity on the PC. I do not have any virus protection or firewall on this PC. Ron Evans

April 12th, 2009, 10:49 AM	#71
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	I too use a lean running Vista 64 bit. I have power settings set to not only high performance mode but I customize the power settings for HDs, multimedia, and everything else to never turn off. Indexing is off, remote connections off, hibernation is disabled, system restore is off, I could go on. When I first used Vista I didn't know about those settings and it caused me some issues, specifically the HDs shutting down every 20 minutes, which drove me crazy not knowing what was going on.

April 12th, 2009, 12:41 PM	#72
Rick Diaz Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 146	Well, you guys are going to hate me after this post. Reading your comments, I must have some kind of super-anamoly PC. I have an HP Media Center PC running Vista 64. It has an Asus mobo, Core 2 Quad processor, 6gb of RAM, an ATi 4670 with dual DVI out and dual LCD monitors, a Hauppauge digital TV tuner card, a ViXS analog/ATSC tuner card, Vegas Pro 8, Cyberlink's PowerDirector 7, and I use the onboard Firewire connector. I have modded the case to fit 3 SATA drives, I have a USB external drive, an internal LG BD burner, analog and digital coax inputs for HD and SD TV signals and zero problems with any of it. I can capture analog and digital inputs with PowerDirector, I can capture my HV20 in both 32- and 64-bit Vegas versions, scan with my Canon 4600, output 5.1 audio with the onboard Realtek chipset, make phone calls with my MagicJack, use the HP as a printer sharer, record TV programs with Media Center and then stream them wirelessly to my Linksys extender hooked up to my 46" Toshiba LCD in the living room, play an occasional game, surf the internet, digitize my vinyl records with my Technics turntable connected to the Aux in on the PC, and I almost never turn it off or reboot it. According to David, I must be a fluke. :)