VS11+ Vista and USB Hard Drive. Capture problem

[sjj1805]

Purchased VS11+ and spent an entire day trying to get it to run properly on Vista-Core Duo machine with 2mb memory, using 500gb USB storage for capture files. Panasonic 3chip DV camera connected by firewire. Program did not recognize camera when using USB.

Cannot capture beyond 1st :45 segment even though program sees the other clips on the tape when in capture mode. Contrary to what some have written, there is no way to set a bare bones "Video" hardware profile in Vista (yes I read much of what you've written about installing and troubleshooting). Tried rigging the sharing permissions; tried installing to directory other than c:\programs; tried changing permissions on the capture directory. Did not throw program in trash; did not yell at kids; went to beach and contemplated return of entire mess. Before doing so I thought I'd see if you had any ideas because you seem to have a high degree of skill with what appears to me to be a very buggy program. At least I could get Adobe to install. I just couldn't face the learning curve and was hoping this VS11+ would be better. I did not realize that it is not really a Corel program. Had I, I would have passed.

Thanks for any input you might have.

CMV
Honolulu HI

[sjj1805]

Firstly I must once again remind users of the following thread
Private Messages and Emails to Forum Staff

Firstly I am glad to see that you are using a firewire connection.
USB connections are fraught with problems for most users because they cannot transfer the DATA between the camcorder and computer fast enough. They are also susceptible to interference from other USB connections stealing bandwidth. They are OK for transferring photographs or for converting the camcorder into a webcam.

You do not say what format you are using to transfer the video from the camcorder to the computer. Hopefully you are using DV - your camcorder is a Panasonic DV camera and so you should stick to this format and not try to convert it to MPEG2 'on the fly.'

The next item that causes me concern is is the use of a 500GB USB hard drive.
Whilst other members of this forum have had success with external hard drives I can only go by my own experience and have found that capturing to an external hard drive, whether USB or Firewire, has caused me problems. I therefore stick to internal IDE hard drives for capturing and editing video. The problems here are a repeat of what I said earlier about connecting a camcorder to the computer by USB connection.
In fact I have previous connected 2 seperate external drives to my system and found that in both cases during heavy transfer of DATA they connection betweeen the computer and external drive would suddenly be lost. Here I have tried both USB and firewire connections. Perhaps I was just unlucky.

My own preference of mass storage is to use hard drive caddies - these fit into the front of your computer in the same manner that a DVD burner does. The hard drive sits inside the caddy, the IDE cable from your motherboard connects to the back of the caddy. So in effect it is a standard internal hard drive. The difference is that you can turn the computer off, pull the hard drive out of the caddy then slide in another.
Doing this you can not only use several hard drives for DATA storage but can even install alternative operating systems - effectivly giving you several computers rolled into one.

Regarding a video editing profile with Vista - I did install a beta version on one of my hard drives once and very quickly got rid of it. My sister in law has recently bought a laptop pre-installed with Vista and has already started nagging me to help her remove it and replace it with XP. That is another debate and there are already lengthy threads on this forum about this issue and this thread is not the right place to start a fresh debate. Suffice to say I am unable to comment upon the use of the Video Editing Profile I created for XP being used on a Vista system.

[CMV]

Thanks for your reply, Steve. I am capturing as DV, which is the format used by the camera. So, that is not the issue.

I further believe that the USB drive is not the problem, but I'll try to work around this by trying to use my internal hard drive after I partition it so that it reads as a different logical drive.

Vista has mind numbing security issues, but I do not believe these are at play, because the problem occurs exactly the same each time.

What makes me suspect VS11+ is the fact that, while it scans the entire tape, and views all clips, it cuts out at the exact same place each time--the first gap between scenes. Although it reads the scenes beyond this point, it does not capture them.

Sorry for the prior private post. I just didn't think my situation was all that interesting and was probably idiosyncratic to me.

CMV

[lancecarr]

Just quickly from your description above there is a possibility that I can think of.
When a DV cam starts and stops recording it is also recording a time code as well. It is this time code that VS uses to find scenes on the tape and capture. If the time code is damaged or interrupted then VS "thinks" it has come to the end of the tape.
The most common way for this to occur is if you remove the tape from the cam before it is full. When you place the tape back into the cam the cam resets the time base and it is as if it has started again.
I am not at my video computer now but if you look at the "capture: tab there should be a way to force VS to capture all.

[Black Lab]

At least I could get Adobe to install. I just couldn't face the learning curve and was hoping this VS11+ would be better. I did not realize that it is not really a Corel program. Had I, I would have passed.

It's funny that you say that. Many people on this board, including myself, believe this was a GREAT product before Corel bought it. Since then it's been steadily going down hill.

[CMV]

Lance,

I think you might have something. This tape was used, taken out, and used again. The clips I want are in the in the middle, not at either end, and were recorded after the clips at the beginning and end. I'll look for the "capture all" option and see if that does it. Thanks

CMV
Honolulu, HI

[CMV]

Jeff,

My experience with Corel is based on my use of WordPerfect for more than 15 years. It's a terrific product, assumes the users are intelligent and is not dumbed down to prevent you from doing things Bill Gates doesn't think you "really" want to do. It's current iteration is just brilliant, incorporating lots of pdf related features that are extremely useful. Not having used VS+ before, I have nothing to compare it to, except the proprietary software that came with the Panasonic camera, which is primitive but works just fine, or Adobe, which gave me a headache for which VS11+ was supposed to be the solution. I think it's a time coding issue as I've said in my response to Lance and I'll have another go at it this weekend. Sorry to hear you don't like Corel, but I've found their products and support to be way beyond what most companies offer.

CMV
Honolulu HI

[Black Lab]

It's not that I don't like Corel, but Ulead products just aren't the same as before the Corel buyout. Just ask the MSP users how they feel.