Cannot Start the capture graph???

[dpriest]

I am trying to capture from a Panasonic pvgs 500 camcorder (minidv) using vs11+ I am using a firewire. My system is a Pentium4 3.4 ghz with 2gb ddr ram. As soon as I hit capture, the following message appears saying Cannot Start the capture graph. I never had a problem using vs10+

Please help!!!

[Ken Berry]

Are you capturing from the camera's mini-DV cassette? Or are you using the camera as a pass-through device, having an analogue camera or VCR attached to it for conversion of an analogue video to digital?

If it is the latter, then VS11+ has a confirmed bug which does not allow capture from an analogue source. It was caused by a new capture plug-in that came with VS11+ and replacing the former Direct Show plug-ins which worked quite happily in all previous versions, world without end, amen...

Corel is supposed to be working on a patch (it is nearly 3 months now!) but we have no idea when it might emerge. In the meantime, the number of unhappy users is growing!!

[dpriest]

I am capturing directly from the the dv cassette to the computer.

[Ken Berry]

Have you tried the variants of connecting your camera, turning it to Play mode, and then started up VS11? Or conversely, start VS11, then turn on your camera? Does Windows see the camera in My Computer/Windows Explorer?

I am assuming that there is nothing wrong with your Firewire cable and that the Firewire card is firmly seated, since you say it works with VS10...

[dpriest]

That did the trick. I started vs11, then turned on my camcorder. A couple other questions. 1.) Is there any advantage in capturing with vs11 instead of vs10? 2.) How do I change the capture properties in vs11? I want to change the bit rate etc.

[Ken Berry]

1. As far as I am aware, if capturing DV from a digital source, there is no difference between capturing with VS10 or 11. (In fact, more usually, I use the tiny freeware program WinDV to capture my DV video.) The only difference I noticed was that on my Vista Home Premium computer with VS11+, I definitely needed 2 GB of RAM and extraneous background programs turned off. On my XP Pro machine which also has 2 GB of RAM, VS11+ has no trouble at all with a variety of other programs running. I find WinDV, because it is so tiny and undemanding of system resources, is far better for my Vista machine. Then I open the captured files for editing in VS11+.

2. VS11 is the same as VS10 and preceding version if you are capturing in DV format. The only thing you can change is whether you use the Type 1 or Type 2 Encoder. Otherwise, the properties for DV are fixed and immutable. We generally recommend people use Type 1 as it causes the least problems. But you can of course experiment to see if you computer has any trouble with Type 2. Generally, if your computer is not up to it, you will get jerky video and/or audio if you use Type 2. To change the Encoder type and with DV selected as the capture format, on the Capture page, click the Options cogwheel icon. Then change the Encoder type.

If you want to capture in some other format, you do as you do in VS10 and simply select the capture format on the Capture page where DV is set as the default. The only difference is that, behind the scenes, Corel has replaced the variety of earlier Capture Plug-ins (which normally changed automatically when you selected a different capture format) to a single IVI Capture Component. As I said, this cannot capture from analogue sourced material.

[akos]

I also experienced with VS 11+ the "cannot start the capture graph" syndrom. So far - I joined VS at version 8 - I have had no difficulties in capturing at least (VS 10 DVD authoring was a disaster). I asked for technical assistance from Coreal team, they answered that I should use VS 8 for capturing. But it also does not capture now at all. I downloaded WinDV as suggested, Windows Moviemaker capture also works fine.
What I find discouraging that I would prefer to use one solution for all video capturing, editing and authoring tasks, and VS 11 pretends to be one. And I suppose we cannot get a partial refund if not all the functions work properly we have paid for... Eg. DV quick scan looks fine, but cannot be used. (My system: Camera: Canon MVX 250i miniDV, PC: Asus Striker Extreme mobo, nVidia GTS 8800 graphic card, Intel E6300 Core 2 Duo processor, 2 GB branded RAM, four HDDs of which one 7200 rpm dedicated only to capturing)
On another token: VS 10 introduced smoothed menu transitions for DVD authoring, but I never succeeded in writing the DVD, as the conversion step always stopped because of unkown problems (especially when using new filters and menu transitions introduced with VS 10). Do you have any experience if this problem still pertains in VS 11, or did Corel / Ulead fix it?