Change Video Studio 9 from NTSC to PAL

[GeorgeBW]

Hi Trevor, Ken, Jack

...congrats and well done to Jack.

I think you are right about UVS being directed mainly to DV capture and processing. It does seem to work more smoothly than AV which can be a minefield at times.. This DV weighting is understandable I suppose, with AV becoming less and less relevant ...and what happens when HDV becomes more firmly established...? And it will do soon..

Anyway, we all seem to find work arounds when the need arises, and many... even most are initiated through these pages ..proving their worth.

Incidentally, I am happy to discuss any of these matters off this board by E-mail.. Can always post back relative comment when it emerges.

Cheers all
GeorgeBW

[Ken Berry]

Jack -- a final footnote to you to clear up what is a serious misunderstanding on your part. You said: the "only thing I changed was the fire wire lead from one USB socket to another one". You are talking about chalk and cheese. Firewire is Firewire, and USB is USB and quite literally, never the twain shall meet.

Your camera may have a mini-USB port and a mini 4 pin Firewire port, called an i-Link, but THEY ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE!!! By rights, you should not have attempted to plug a Firewire cable into a USB port -- it should not even have been physically possible unless you really applied some pressure and thus potentially damaged the port and/or the Firewire plug itself. Ditto with trying to put a mini-USB plug into an i-link port, though that is more difficult given the architecture of most mini-USB plugs which tend to have two small phlanges on the sides of the top of the plug which make it a bit wider than an i-link port.

[GeorgeBW]

Hi Trevor, Ken, Jack

Well spotted Ken..

AFAIK, the Sony TRV110E has i-Link connectivity possibly without DV-in... This would make Device Control from UVS difficult if not impossible... but no USB connectivity with this model camcorder. Could be that Jack has a IEEE 1394 interface card (Firewire) with two or three ports.. usually six pin and therefore uses a 4 pin to 6 pin firewire adapter cable Jack pls confirm... solve this mystery, because for sure, you are not connecting a firewire to USB..

Another UVS mystery... I installed the extra content that I still had outstanding yesterday, and guess what..? Empty Templates window in Make movie manager... evidently something has overwritten some of the UVS .ini files.. Back to the drawing board again... I am currently playing around with this feature to try and find out how it is intended to operate.. It's easy enough to create another Normal Template, and you can use the settings from a previous project to create a template.. but if you can have a number of stored templates in the armoury... How do any of these get applied as and when required..? Perculiar..

Best wishes all
George

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi George

The templates you make through movie manager show themselves in the drop down box Share--Create Video File.

Trevor

[GeorgeBW]

Hi Trevor,

Thanks for that.. Yes, I had already discovered that earlier.. Also a (last) chance to "customise" settings. It's just this mysterious comings and goings of the "Normal" ...or more recently Abnormal template.. And, what can be the purpose of having a Template Manager at the front end of the process, if you still need to use File/Project Properties and Capture Options to apply the required defaults... which to be fair is how the manual describes as the correct way of registering your settings for the project in hand.. (p44).

I will have another go at this later today... After the F1GP, and try making up some dummy projects, and see how things pan-out..

Cheers
George

[jacnad]

Hello young men
Oh dear the cat is really among the pigeons i have checked the lead from the camera to the computer it is encased in silver wire with a coating of clear plastic covering the wire, one end fits into the front of the camera marked DV out... the other end fits into a USB port on the back of the computer (H/p Pavilion t650uk) and yes i have transfered a short movie from the camera to the computer using this lead and not forcing anything. So I am now about to save the created movie hopefully to pal and finally burn same to a disc in the format SVCD
i will let you know if it works.
Jack

[jchunter]

Jack,

It may be possible someday to mate a giraffe with a wombat, however, before an urban legend evolves that firewire ports are sometimes compatible with USB (in the UK), lets quash this notion absolutely.

Please shine a very bright light on the connector labels. I think that you will see that either they are both firewire or both USB. If they ARE different, as you asserted, then one of them is mislabeled.

John

[GeorgeBW]

Hi Jack,

The cable you describe.. ie clear plastic over tinned copper braiding, is a dead ringer for the Belkin type 4 to 4 pin, or 4 to 6 pin Firewire... Never seen a USB cable with that description... these are usually black or off-white plastic covered.... not clear plastic that I've ever seen anyway. Also I have the manual for the Sony TRV110E which doesn't show a USB output in the spec... (not that that is anything to go by... Wouldn't be the first time that a manual wasn't up to date).. However I think you may be mistaking the PC end for a USB connection.. Does the DV out socket on the camera have the symbol i written on it.. or maybe alongside the socket, which is on the front. This symbol depicts i-Link which is Firewire. Please look at page 105 in the manual... the section where it says Input and Output connectors. You will see at the top of this section that the camera can output component Y/C video via a 4 pin S-Video port, can output composite video via an RCA phono connector, and further down the list, iDV (Digital video) via 4 pin... which is the IEEE1394 Firewire port. There is no DV in mentioned, although there is a LANC socket for wired remote control.

Your H/P Pavilion PC is equipped with Firewire (IEEE1394) sockets... one on the back, and one it seems on the front.. These could be 4 or 6 pin. If the wire you use to connect has the same size plug at each end, then it would normally be 4 pin to 4 pin (The camera is 4 pin according to the spec). If however, the plug that connects to the PC is larger than the one at t'other end, then this is likely to be 6 pin.. You can also recognise this by the triangular shape at one end of the plug socket..

As for USB... ? Your PC will certainly have a smattering of these on board, but as the camera is reported by the manual not to have a USB output.. Your connection will be by Firewire... Which is a more satisfactory connection anyway... Technically, a USB port is capable of a slightly faster transfer than Firewire, but the way it handles the data involves more CPU intervention which reduces performance and so the Firewire port scores better overall..

Hope all this makes sense to you..

Best wishes
George

[Ken Berry]

George -- good explanation. But I am sorry that I have to rain on your cable parade. I have at least two silver-braid and clear plastic covered USB cables in a drawer one metre to my right!

[GeorgeBW]

Hey Ken,

good on you mate... I just had a feeling that would come back to me...
I'm mortgaging the farm on the premise that the camera manual is saying that DV out is Sony iDV.. which is Sonyish for i-Link.. No USB listed anywhere, and the other straw that I am clutching at is Jack's statement that you homed in on ..about plugging the Firewire cable into another USB port. We are all certain that can't be right eh? But I could be bankrupt before this thread fizzles out..

Cheers
George

[Ken Berry]

No, George, I think you are right on the main points. However, like you I would be fascinated to learn that there is indeed some hybrid system out there which combines Firewire and USB -- though I would think that unlikely. But recently when I inserted a TV card into my computer, it came with a cable which allowed either composite cables to be plugged into it, or an S-video cable and the audio composite cable; and at the other (i.e. computer) end, the male plug which went into the TV card's female port looked exactly like an S-video plug but actually carried the audio as well. So there are some strange things out there... Unfortunately, I don't have time this morning to do a Google search to see if there might be something similar mating Firewire and USB -- though as I say, I very much doubt there is, particularly if it were nothing more than a 4 pin Firewire plug at one end and a small or large USB plug at the other end and no 'box' or device in between to convert a Firewire-compliant signal (if it can be described as such) to one which is acceptable to a USB port. Anyway, you know what I mean!!

[jacnad]

Hello gentlemen,
Tis I Jack I hang my head in shame acting on Johns advice i shone a bright light on the back of the H/P there are five ports one is a 1394 but they do look similar (says he cluching at straws)and John a giraffe and a wombat no surely not more a lion and a tiger Joking aside i do appreciate the imput and thank you all very much.
Now i have another problem ( oh no they cry not another) yes. i have completed the movie and rendered it, spurred on by this success i clicked on record to disc, I chose SVCD from the caption box that appeared. I was advised as follows DV settings will be disabled 1 motion menu 2 motion menu background video 3 16.9 wide screen yes or no. I chose the SVCD setting as my DV player is - and the recorder as fitted to the H/P is +
can any ond tell me what will happen to the picture if I go ahead and burn the disc.
Once again thank you.
Jack

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Jack

You should have rendered your movie project to Pal-Svcd.
Assuming you did you will have a complete file of your project.( to the Svcd standard.)

Go to file – preferences – tick the box ‘Show messages when inserting first video…..’
Start a NEW project
Insert the Svcd file to the timeline, you will get a message box—select details.
Do the video details show Svcd-Pal. (right panel)
If yes
Select ok--the project properties now match the clip properties.

DELETE the file from the timeline—you now have an empty project.

Go to Share – create disc—
Svcd should be automatically selected in the ‘Output disc format’ (The burner module reflects the main project settings.)

Now ‘Add Video’ – select the Svcd you made earlier.

Continue to create your menu-

Burn a CD.

Hope this Helps

Trevor

[GeorgeBW]

Hey Jack,

Welcome to the maze of idiosyncrasies otherwise known as computers.

Seeing as we have finally confirmed a DV capture.. Why not go the whole 9 yards and burn a DVD...? at worst, you can stand your teacup on it... At best it it could be played back in the DVD player under the TV if you have one... In any event it should play back ok in the player that burnt it.

The -DV player and +Recorder are a couple more red herrings eh Jack..?

The + or - that you see as in +R/RW or -R/RW is the recordable media (disk type) that you are using. Most DVD recorders can use either. A consumer DVD player that you might have connected to your TV system may play back SVCD, but is probably more likely to play back DVD+R or DVD-R... I should point out that there are a number of manufacturers who do not enable their DVD players for recordable media and there isn't much you can do about that unless your burner is equipped to apply a Book Type lead in modifier to the recordable +R disk.. This fools the DVD player into seeing the +R disk as a DVDRom. The Good news is that the DVD or SVCD that you burn, should play back in the recorder that created it.... and you won't know until you try it..

Good Luck
George