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Using my Canon HV40, my wife has taken about 40 minutes of video during a recent trip she undertook to Indonesia. As with most videos it comprises quite a large number of clips and in this case they are all on one tape. She has her own computer without a capture card and is currnetly putting together a movie of her travels using still photos and short video clips she took with her digital still camera using Windows Movie Maker.

I am going to try and capture her video from the HV40 using VideoStudio Pro X2 on my computer (with capture card) but need to save each of her clips as seperate files so that I can transfer them to her computer so and she can then chose which to insert into her project. I gather that I can break the video into scenes but am not sure that this will enable me to SAVE each clip (scene?) seperately. Can anyone tell me if this is possible and, if so, how to do it?

First, what kind of capture card are you talking about? The HV40 absolutely requires a Firewire card, and no other, if you are going to capture the high definition HDV mpeg-2 properly.

Second, VS won't split HDV by scene, as far as I am aware, in a way which allows you to save the individual files. I use a small, freeware program called HDVSplit which does as its name implies. You will need to Google for it. But again, it only works with a Firewire connection.

Thanks for the prompt reply Ken - as ever very helpful. I am very new to using Video Studio and have had a lot of problems but am slowly getting there, so please forgive any apparent naivety. I will download HDVSplit as you recommend. I was already beginning to form the opinion that VS could not split and save clips separately.

The capture card is a Pinnacle 700-PCI which is connected to the camera via a IEEE 1394 cable 6X4. This hardware came when I purchased Pinnacle Studio Plus software about three and a half years ago in order to convert some analogue video to digital. I haven't used any video capture since until I started using Video Studio Pro X2 a few weeks ago to put together some stills and short video clips. I have very recently bought the Canon HV40 and am now trying to capture video from it.

I think the above-mentioned hardware conforms to the requirements you specified but am not sure - no doubt you will tell me if it is not so.

Since I posted this query I have tried to capture the entire video from the HV40 but it did not capture properly and VS keeps shutting down anway. I have since noted that the VS manual seems to suggest (top of page 53) that I should be setting the camcorder on CAMERA rather than on PLAY. Is that correct? If so that may explain why it won't capture properly. The camera manual says that I should set the power switch to whatever the capture software suggests.

I don't have High Definition so cannot comment on the split by scene function which as far as I know only works with standard definition DV files. However.... To transfer video from ANY camcorder to the computer, you have the camcorder on playback (NOT record).

This is to confirm that your HV40 MUST be in PLAY mode, and not CAMERA mode to capture correctly via firewire. The instruction on the top of p.53 of the manual only refers to capturing *live* video i.e. while the camera is still filming. The actual instruction re capture from a HDV camera such as yours in on p.55.

Now one possible problem you might be having is that your capture device is a Pinnacle device. While it is a firewire device, Pinnacle is (or was) notorious for tweaking its hardware so that it would only work with its software. That should normally not be the case with Firewire, but I suspect in this case it may be. Video Studio has, since VS7 which is the version I started with, always had problems with Pinnacle cards. We normally recommended people capture with the Pinnacle software, and open it for editing in VS. But in this case, the software which came with your card probably predates the HDV format ans is thus probably incapable of capturing it properly anyway...

Anyway, hopefully you have now downloaded HDVSplit, which hopefully you will have better luck with.

Thanks Steve and Ken for your very helpful information and advice. I have downloaded HDVSplit this morning but have yet to run it. I will also look into getting a new capture card to replace my Pinnacle card. Can you please specify fully what I should be asking for i.e brand etc.

First, try HDVSplit with the Pinnacle card. If that works, fine.

If not, then I assume you are talking about an internal card. If so, then there is no particular brand. A decent computer shop will probably have an el cheapo card for around $20 - $25. You just put it into a spare slot of your motherboard, screw things down again, and connect the cable to camera and computer...

Thanks again Ken. I will do as you suggest and try out the HDVSplit first before looking at a new card.

Hello Ken, This is just to report that the Pinnacle card seems to be working fine now. I have managed to capture and split the video into individual clips using HDVSplit as you suggested. It has dropped quite a lot of frames however - is that normal?
Unfortunately there is no Help file in HDVSplit and I am not sure exactly what settings I should be using. I used the "Capture" mode and the frame size was on 1/16 as the default so I left it at that - should I have used Full frame size? Also what is the "scene splitting" mode for (i.e. the alternative to capture).

Dropping a few frames at the start and end of capture might not be unusual (though I don't get that); but if you are dropping frames in the middle, then no, that should definitely not be happening.

Essentially, I use the default settings. The only thing I change, after giving the files a name and designating the default capture directory, is to use Count rather than date and time. The latter adds a lot of fairly useless letters to each clip's name, whereas Count just assigns consecutive numbers.

Frame size of 1/16 is only for the Preview screen. I tend to leave the Preview box unchecked and just follow the capture from the camera screen. Try that and see if it improves the dropped frame problem... Also make sure the cable is seated firmly at both ends (camera and Pinnacle). And if you have a spare Firewire cable, you might try that to see if it works better.

One other thing: can you right click on one of the newly captured, split files inside Video Studio, please, and copy down all its properties here please. I am worried that the Pinnacle device has a chip in it which converts the incoming video, regardless of source, to DV format. If that is happening, it could account for the dropped frames. It will also mean you are losing the higher resolution of your high def video, which is mpeg-2.

If you are in fact capturing HDV, then the properties that should show will be mpeg-2 1440 x 1080, Upper Field First and mpeg layer 2 audio. If it is DV, it will say DV/AVI, and Lower Field First, and give a standard def frame format of 720 x 576 for PAL and 720 x 480 for NTSC.

As for the Scenes Splitting tab, I have never used it, but I assume it is meant for existing big files already captured and on your computer as a single file (e.g. captured by VS) but not yet split.

Thanks again for that, Ken.
The properties of one of the files are as follows:
FILE:
Format: MPEG-2 (Transport Stream)
VIDEO:
Type: MPEG-2 UpperField First,
Total Frames 363
Attributes: 24 bits 1440 X1080 16:9
Frame Rate: 25000 f/sec
Data Rate: 25000 kbps
AUDIO:
Type: MPEG Auio layer 2 files
Total Samples: 696,960
Attributes: 48000 Hz 16 bit Stereo
Layer: 2
Bit rate 384kbps
It seems to me from your comments that the above properties indicate that it is capturing HDV rather than DV.

You are correct in supposing that many of the dropped frames are near the beginning and towards the end, although there are a few in the middle.

Yes, I thought "Scene Splitting" probably did what you suggested although I tried to put a composiite (i.e. made up of many clips) MPEG file through it but it wouldn't do anything with that file.
I also left "preview" unchecked but I checked "date and time"rather than "count" but will revert to the latter next time.

I haven't got a second firewire cable but could buy one if you think it is worthwhile trying.

Have now had a good look at the clips that have been split off with HDVSplit and there are very few that are usable - presumably because of dropped frames. Many are drastically shortened and those that aren't have glitches (jerky movements or jumps) in the middle.

I suspect the problem may well be the Pinnacle card and or cable as you have suggested Ken so will look into getting new hardware.

I suspect that it is the Pinnacle card also. As I said originally, I thought all of them were tweaked to only work with the software that came with it... You could try loading the Pinnacle Studio software, but it may be too old for Vista... That way, though, you could at least capture then open the captured files in VS for editing...

Ken, I am using XP and not Vista and I have already loaded the Pinnacle software. I am not too sure what you are suggesting. Whilst I could try and capture the video with Pinnacle and use VS for editing, I can't see how that would help me split the the video into clips any better with HDVSplit? Am I being dense?

No -- it's me being dense. I am currently travelling and wrote that far too quickly. Not only is the Pinnacle software old (though no doubt compatible with XP), but it would not be set to capture HDV!! I have no idea whether it could split standard def DV, though it may. But not HDV... Sorry...