VS X2 Pro crashes every time I try a non-DV capture

[nb51]

On both of the computers I have VideoStudio X2 Pro installed on (one XP Pro SP3, the other Vista Home Premium SP1), every single time I try to capture video in MPEG2 or DVD format, the program crashes almost immediately after I press the "Capture Video" button on the "Capture" tab. This has always crashed VS X2 Pro since I've owned it, so I've been reluctantly forced to use VS 11.5+ which always works fine, even when I use the exact same settings for both programs.

My capture device is a Canopus ADVC-55 and it works flawlessly. Also, if I capture to DV-1 or DV-2 format, VS X2 Pro works fine. It's just when I try to capture in non-DV mode that X2 always crashes. But DV mode is overkill when I'm merely capturing videotapes, and I don't want to wait all those hours to render all that DV to MPEG2/DVD format later.

I've already installed the X2 Pro patch from November 2008, and to the best of my knowledge there have been no patches since then. Does anyone know of any later patches?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

[mitchell65]

I don't know if this will work but have you downloaded the latest Direct x from here:
http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?t=35049

Worth a try!

[DVDDoug]

Analog capture is tricky, and you've actually got a pretty-good set-up!

The following are my just my thoughts about capture. I don't have a "solution" and I'm not trying to tell you what to do.

I'm pretty sure Canapus makes a capture device that's got a built-in MPEG-2 hardware encoder. (I have a Hauppauge capture card that has a hardware MPEG encoder. It works great, but wish it could capture to DV!) A hardware encoder is usually the best way to capture to MPEG. It puts almost no load on your CPU, and since you're transferring pre-compressed data, there is less load on your data bus. This means you have less chance of a glitch or dropped frames caused by multitasking, background OS operations, etc. (Just beware of "cheap" capture devices with built-in encoders... They can be more trouble than they are worth!) For people in business (where 'time is money") a hardware encoder or a stand-alone DVD recorder might be a very good idea.

It's generally best to use the capture software that comes with your capture hardware. (I use the software that came with my Hauppauge card.) Your Canapus device may be an exception, since it's rated to work with several different software packages. Maybe one of those other packages can capture to MPEG?

It's generally best to capture to DV. It's the most trouble-free format. It seems like about 80% of the problems reported on this forum are somehow related to one of the "more-advanced", more-compressed,formats... People who work with DV files rarely have trouble! And, DV can usually be easily converted to any other "final distribution" format.

MPEG can sometimes be "difficult" to edit, and most "real editing" requires a 2nd lossy encoding step. You can also (theoretically) get better quality if you do file-to-file encoding/transcoding, rather than on-the-fly encoding. For example, file-to-file encoding allows you to use two-pass variable bitrate encoding. And with file-to-file encoding, you have a 2nd chance if choose the "wrong" bitrate. With VHS transfers, you might not be looking for the "absolute best" quality, but if you've got a long program, you might want the best quality for a given file size.

[nb51]

Thanks for your thoughtful and helpful reply, DVDDoug! I've always been grateful and impressed by board moderators for the amazing amount of time and effort they voluntarily contribute to help everyone. A tip of the hat to you, sir. Now, to my issue...

As you recommend, I use DV capture every time I want the resulting edited material to be of the best quality. Long source material burns up disk space awfully fast that way, but as we all know, hard disk storage is astonishingly cheap these days, so when I want the highest quality output I make room.

But more often, I just want moderate quality to capture clips from standard definition TV programs (mostly talking head news shows and the like) that I've previously recorded on DirecTV's built-in DVR. Since I have the luxury of rewinding and fast-forwarding the DVR'd material, I never need to edit the end product before burning it to DVD. I don't press "Capture" until the desired segment begins and I press "Stop Capture" when it ends, so I don't have to edit out commercials and the like. Thus, capturing directly to MPEG2/DVD compressed output is ideal.

Fortunately, VideoStudio 11.5+ does this just fine every time. But if I had not already owned that and had only purchased X2 Pro, I'd be pretty angry. And since there are likely others who only own X2 Pro, resolving this crash problem will help them, too (note that the exact same crashing problem occurs on two different computers with two different operating systems, so it's unlikely that I'm the only person with this problem).

By the way, I did report this problem to Corel Tech Support, but I've not received a reply yet.

As for purchasing a different capture device that encodes to MPEG2 in hardware, that's just not in the cards for me. The Canopus plus the often-needed external power supply cost me a bundle already.

Finally, your comments regarding the value of capturing to DV were enlightening and alerted me to issues I'd not considered before, so thanks again for your reply!

[Ken Berry]

One other thought -- though I hasten to say from the outset that I have no proof of any of this... But as you may be aware, with the advent of VS11, Corel changed the capture plug-in to one from another company they had just taken over (InterVideo, which had previously taken over Ulead, which used to make Video Studio and other products on this Board.) With VS10 and earlier versions, there were a variety of capture plug-ins, all of which seemed to work OK.

In the 'bad old days' of VS8 and earlier, some people trying to capture direct from a DV source (including from Canopus devices) in DVD/mpeg-2 format, had the same sort of problem you do now. We never ever got to the bottom of why this was. It seemed to be a computer architecture problem as well as the fact that, in those days, many computers simply were not well enough resourced to be able to maintain the (then) very demanding process of capturing to mpeg-2 on the fly. We invariably -- well, almost invariably -- recommended they capture in DV format. But your computer would appear to be quite well enough resourced for this job.

Then, as I say, in VS11, along came the new -- single -- capture plug-in: the IVI [InterVideo] Capture Component. And frankly, it screwed things up terribly in the DV -- and DV capture device -- area. You could not capture anything via firewire: either from mini DV camera, Digital 8 camera connected via firewire, or either of these devices used as pass-through; nor from devices such as the Canopus range. Period. There was an outcry, needless to say (from me, among many, many others). And Corel eventually brought out a patch for VS11, included in VS11.5+, which only seemed to fix both direct capture from a DV tape in a mini DV camera or from a Canopus-type DV capture device. But it did not fix the pass-through issue (which particularly annoyed me since I had specifically bought a Digital-8 camera to play my old analogue 8mm tapes directly from the Digital 8 via Firewire to my computer...) And frankly, I don't know if it fixed any problem of trying to capture direct to mpeg-2 from a Canopus device since I don't recall anyone reporting having that problem in the first place (most people with such devices preferring to capture in DV format...)

The same capture glitches were carried over into VS12/X2, and worse, I am not sure they included the code even for the patch for VS11 into VS12, let alone fixed up the remaining DV capture problems. In other words, I am not particularly surprised that you can use your Canopus for direct mpeg-2 capture in VS11.5+, but not in VS12. I am afraid that I think this is now the nature of the beast, and Corel has made it pretty clear they just don't care about this (to them) one small glitch when there are a number of (to them again) more serious and more 'modern' problems with their program, including its inability to handle the increasingly popular, but incredibly demanding, AVCHD high definition video format...

In other words, count yourself lucky that you have VS11.5, because I would not be holding my breath that Corel is going to bring out a patch for this one, let alone do anything about it in future versions.