There is always Windows Movie Maker. Its free (installed with Windows XP), it has a childishly simple interface, and it will capture DV from most miniDV cams.

Perhaps if you told us what you DON'T like about Vegas Vidcap.

I also use Scenalyzer for some of my capturing but use Vegas' capture for the rest.

A new computer would be at least twice as fast. (With Pentiums, dividing the clock speed is a fairly good aproximation of speed.)

Even if you had a faster machine though, you would still need to wait on rendering... so productivity-wise, you may not gain too much.

Help, Vegas not seeing camera.
 

Hi,

New Sony FX1, all excited and I connect camera to system via firewire, fire up Vegas 6.. And go to capture panel.. and so far it looks like Vegas does not see the camera.. tried to power up and down..restart vegas.. Something i am not doing in preferences..??

mike m.

Hello,

Well this was a surprise to me.. I dug deeper and found in the help file, how i had to go into the new capture panel, and preferences..(looks a lot different) and under the device tab,I select IEEE 1394?MPEG2 -TS-Device.. OK, but the directions say there should be a drop down list of devices.. so far I see the area where it should be, but it does not appear to be active.. Any help here??
Is there something i have to download??

Mike M.

Importing CD Audio
 

Im going to be importing some music being mixed in a studio into vegas 5 to overlay over my video Iv been editing of the live show. Im getting it in both 48 and 44.1 just incase. Is there anything tricky I should know about in trying to match it up. We used four cameras that I sinked up visualy and have been mixing with the audio from my cam on sticks.

Whats the best way to import it?

Is it just a matter up matching up the waveforms as close as possible?

Should I then convert to ac3 for dvd? And does vegas have a plugin that will do this well?

Thanks!

Hello,

So far this s#%$ !1 OK I learned a little more, but i am not where i want to be yet.. I put the camera into the DV mode, and went into Vegas and turned on the external controller.. went into capture, and Vegas does see and control the camera.. but when i turn off the external controller and then go into the capture prefs(HDV capture).. my device type is set to IEEE/MPEG2-TS Device.. but there are still no devices listed and no device properties..Its frustrating, because i am dealing with all Sony products..You think it would be able to see a Sony Camera.. Looks like one hand is not washing the other hand..
Any suggestions..??

Mike Moncrief

You can render the AC3 separately, or tell Vegas to render the video and audio streams both in the render options.

Thanks for the answers.. lol..what I don't like of vegas vidcap?!

It's not a matter of what I don't like in Vegas, but maybe someone more experienced (that's why I made this post) can suggest me an app with more functionality, easier to use, more productive, faster..I don't know.

Maybe there isn't. Maybe there is... u tell me

About movie maker I have it, but has less functionalities than Vegas vidcap, so of course it's not something I would like to transit to.

Thanks again

No (DV) capture application can do this:

- capture faster
- capture with less "quality loss"

Basically the Vegas capture does almost everything you will need.

However, if you are interested in other ways to "capture", look at this:

- a direct-to-disk recorder. This is a harddisk based device you hookup to your camera. This allows you to capture on set directly to harddisk. Saves you time when editing since you don't have to capture anything

- a cheaper approach is to use a program called "DV Rack". It's a Windows program that does the same as a direct-to-disk recorder with advantages like seeing the signal fullscreen on your computer/laptop and lots of other stuff (check it out). The downside is you need to lug a computer around the set

I hope this has given you some more insights.

How about starting a 60i project. Editing the footage. Then when you are
done change the project settings to 24p and render out to 24p?

Thanks for the answer.

I will check both the hardware sountions u suggested. I was actually interested in a software solution.

So I kind of understand that all softwares have the same options when it comes to DV capture?

Sounds strange cause for example Scenalyzer is very different from vidcap interface on Vegas and offers different options.

Yes Rob, this is what I would like to do but...

I have heard a bunch of people say that it is better to CC, add effects, titles, overlays, etc.. in a 24p project when the output will be 24p. So if I do everything in a 60i timeline and then change the project to 24p and render as 24p, the footage will not loose any more quality then if I had rendered to 24p before CC, effects, etc?

I do the same as Edward, certain things get done in Scenaylaizer but virtually all my wedding footage gets captured in Vegas. Since I'm capturing the entire tape at one time, it seems to make sense to me. I've used it for quite a while and haven't had any problems with the interface or how it captures or logs the clips.
As stated, there are no capture programs that will work faster at least none that I know of.

If you could state what it is that you're looking for in a capture utility perhaps we can be of more assistance but frankly between Vegas and Sceneayalizer, you should pretty well be covered.

Don

Noticed some things about Vegas previews
 

1- If you right click video preview, and turn "simulate device aspect ratio" off your previews will go a little faster.

You can also double click the window at the top to resize it intelligently. The smaller mode also goes faster.

2- You can loop a section of video (mark in out by hitting "i" and "o" or by dragging a selection in the timeline; hit q to loop, or click the icon). As it loops, Vegas will save rendered chunks into RAM. If the loop is not real-time, it will eventually become real-time as Vegas renders everything into RAM.

Not sure how useful that actually is, although you could loop something while you tweak filter settings.