Sony TRV-900 - Problems with PAL DV capturing

yuriblus wrote on 5/12/2003, 2:35 PM
I have Sony TRV-900 Mini DV camcorder (NTSC). During my shows (I'm a musician) in Europe I filmed myself on my camera and in addition another mini DV camcorder (PAL) was used - from different angle. I copied PAL tapes via firewire on my TRV-900 and was able to play them without any problem.

Now I'm working on a concert video clip using VV4.
I cannot succeed with feeding PAL recordings via firewire to my computer -
the image is jittery and fragmented. At the same time I have no any
problems doing the same procedure with native NTSC recordings.

What am I missing?

Regards,

Yuri

Comments

DaveF wrote on 5/12/2003, 3:31 PM
You're trying to mix both NTSC and PAL clips on the same timeline? Is that doable - or is that your question?

What is your project set up as? If its NTSC, that may explain the problems you're having.
yuriblus wrote on 5/12/2003, 7:33 PM
Yes, the idea is to use both recordings in the same project on a separate
video tracks.

Changing project settings as well as DV Capture settings to PAL did not solve the problem.

Anything?
FuTz wrote on 5/13/2003, 6:04 AM
"I cannot succeed with feeding PAL recordings via firewire to my computer -
the image is jittery and fragmented."
You mean: the original PAL recordings? You shouldn't have any problems capturing those as far as I know... Except I guess you'll have to set your project in PAL.
AND play these clips on a PAL camera for capture.

If you mean that you are trying to capture PAL files *transfered* on your NTSC camera (so: NTSC tape), maybe there's been no problem from cam to cam but after the transfer, getting into Vegas may mess the things up a little since you probaly rocked the whole thing a little bit too much. In an ideal world, that shouldn't be, I know (we could all be shooting PAL if it was so ideal too, from my point of view...). It's getting too technical for me if that last scenario is the case, though. We're getting into different frame rates, frame size, etc...

But for editing, what I'd try to do when you fix it all up is render all the stuff you've got in the *same format* (uncompressed), that will be your *final format* (probably NTSC judging by your post). I don't know if you plan to use PAL and NTSC on the same timeline but (and I figure out you already know but I tell you anyway) if you plan to do so, you're probably running after more trouble.

Sorry if that didn't help too much.
It's a good one, man. That'll probably be the "story" I'll follow the most today...

God, I need another coffee...

SonyDennis wrote on 5/13/2003, 3:01 PM
I don't think you can capture PAL tapes on an NTSC camera, and vice versa.
///d@
john-beale wrote on 5/13/2003, 4:48 PM
I'm not a Vegas expert but I am familiar with the TRV900. The NTSC version of the Sony TRV900 does have the capability to playback PAL MiniDV tapes correctly on the viewscreen, and apparently out the firewire port as well. It was one of the selling features of this model and I have confirmed myself that the NTSC model camera does play PAL MiniDV correctly on the internal viewscreen. (The NTSC model does not record PAL natively, the tape I used was shot by a PAL version TRV900E sold in Australia.)

I've never had the occasion to edit PAL so I don't know what is happening with firewire, but Jerome Maro, a contributor to my TRV900 FAQ http://www.bealecorner.com/trv900/dvfaq.html#PAL reports that it works OK. I don't know what software he used to test it.

It is possible that Vegas (or a firewire driver) detects the TRV900 as native-NTSC and refuses to accept a PAL DV stream from it, even if the camera itself is sending the PAL DV correctly. (?)

john beale
www.bealecorner.com