Recording back to HDV tape

[Ian Sharpe]

Hello everyone,

I have just recently jumped into HiDef from SD. I have the HV30.

I have a problem at the moment that is almost appearing insurmountable & hope you guys can help.

I am trialling a couple of editing programs at the mo, since leaving Pinnacle S9 behind, I havent upgraded S9 because I believe that S10 & S11 are still buggy.

I am trialling VideoStudio11 & Cyberlink PowerDirector 7.

Both capture well, are stable, both provide adequate (for me) features though VS appears at this time (since I only started on PD last night) to have a few more features. Both encode OK, but VS is much much faster at this than PD, it seems.

Anyway my big problem comes when I want to export my edited project back to the Canon HDV tape. Both programs do not fully like the Canon, VS will go OK for about 30 secs, then I lose image (on the Canon that it) for say 20 secs, all I have is blue screen, this repeates itself at random times depending upon the lenght of the clip. End result , I have a clip with lots of missed footage & blue screens on it. PD fares much better, but not 100%, On say a 2 minute clip, I might get 2-3 blue screens about a sec each. Although its better than VS , its still would not entice me to purchase it.

Have you guys tried exporting back to tape successfully without 1 jot of missed footage, if so what programs are you using.

This is important to me, since at this time I dont have anywhere other than my hard drive to archive footage until burners & media drop to an acceptable level.

Hope someone can help,

thanks in advance.

[alanz]

I did this just the other day using Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum version 8.d

With the editor open,
Choose Make Movie from the toolbar at the top of the screen
Select Save it to your HDV camera.
Connect the HV30 via firewire
Set the camera to "PLAY" mode
select HDV-1080-60i output (important)
Select "Crash recording" (so the write to tape will automatically begin after the intermediate on-disk file is rendered.)

The program renders the intermediate file, then starts the recording on the camera and stops the recording when done.

You can choose to delete the intermediate rendered file, or keep it around for subsequent writes to tape.

I hope this helps.

[Redsandro]

Somewhat ontopic:

Does anyone know if I can litterally stream my mpeg back to MiniDV?
Litterally as in not recompressing.
(Avid/AE/Premiere)

[alanz]

Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum (and I assume the regular Vegas Pro) let you choose a file to write to tape. In my example above, the intermediate file is a .m2t, but it gives you the option of using an existing file. So, assuming you have such a file, you can write it back to tape using this technique.

[Redsandro]

That's nice. I keep doubting between hard drive backup or minidv backup. Nice to know that I can upload my hd to tape if I want to.

I wonder what will happen if your mpeg is 1kbps too small or large in bandwidth though.. will it be transcoded anyway?

[Hogangirl]

Alanz, you rock!! I am an extreme noob/learn as I go/fly by the seat of my pants kind of gal and your post helped me out immensely! The steps you outlined above were exactly what I needed. Thanks!!!

[CycleWriter]

As to the OP: I use both of the programs you mentioned (and was an official beta tester for PD7) and have few problems writing back to tape. On the few occasions where I did encounter problems it turned out to be not the video program, but some other process running in the background that caused a momentary interruption in the streaming to camera. It is important when working with video to turn off all unnecessary background processes and programs, especially virus software, because they can cause all kinds of little glitches with video software. A free program like EndItAll can allow you to turn off individual processes prior to firing up your editor. Be sure you research the process first so that you aren't turning off something needed by the OS to function properly. A website like ProcessLibrary.com can help with that.

[kruzer]

I have no problem to export to tape from Edius NEO.
It's a low cost HD editing program that you edit in HD!

[Dick J.]

I am unable to back up to tape on my Canon HV30. I'm using iMovie HD 6.0.4. When I try to export a movie I receive the message "Cannot export to camera. Your firewire camera is not powered on or is not available." The camera is in play mode with a fresh blank tape. I have no problem importing movies from the camera to iMovie with my firewire 400 cable. There are no other devices connected to the firewire. Appreciate any help.

iMac 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 4 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.5.4)

[greytail]

Hello:
Has anyone been able to print to tape from FCP 6.03 using firewire. I can get FCP to recognize the HV20 and I have been using it as a playback deck to get my stuff into FCP. That works just fine, but when I try to go through the print to tape routine...nothing happens. The HV20 and HV30 have no "Playback Record button" as is found on the XHA1 and XLH1....There is nothing in the HV20 or HV30 manuals about "line recording" or recording from its video inputs

greytail

[Dick J.]

I solved my problem. Push the function button and in the Rec Pause menu change the setting from Cancel to Execute. Then turn the camera off and then back on. After this, I was able to export the movie to my camera without a problem. The camera tends to default back to the Cancel setting, so I have to do this each time I want to export a movie. I see nothing about this in the Canon manual, but I'm just glad I was able to figure it out.

[George Tyndall]

I solved my problem. Push the function button and in the Rec Pause menu change the setting from Cancel to Execute. Then turn the camera off and then back on. After this, I was able to export the movie to my camera without a problem. The camera tends to default back to the Cancel setting, so I have to do this each time I want to export a movie. I see nothing about this in the Canon manual, but I'm just glad I was able to figure it out.

Wow! You mean you are editing your original m2t footage on the Timeline than exporting the finished movie back to a blank HDV tape?

Do you know if that can be done with Premiere Elements 4.0?

Is the quality of the "backup" tape as good as the original footage?

[Dick J.]

Yes, I am using iMovie HD 6.0.4. I save the original source tape and after editing the movie I export it back to a master tape through the camcorder for storage. I think the quality remains the same, although I'm not an expert at that. Don't know if it works in Premiere Elements, but I don't know why it wouldn't.

[CycleWriter]

The quality will remain the same as it is i your finished video. But if you have edited the original footage, rendered it, recompressed it or done any lossy conversion of it, the footage will not be the same quality as when you captured it from the camera.

[kitty_muntz]

I am trying to export my transport stream HD video back to tape (from Ulead MSP8) so I can watch it on my HD TV - it's 9gb so much too large for a DVD. The problem is it stops displaying on the camera LCD screen after almost 3 minutes and then a blue screen appears - the tape however is moving forward and continues to do so until the recording stops. Rewinding it and playing it though doesn't work - it only plays up to the point that it displayed the blue screen on recording. I have tried different tapes, different rendered clips, cleaning the video heads, and recording to a different part of the tape - same problem in all cases. I can't tell now if the problem is the camera, the tape or MSP8 but it seems unlikely that 2 tapes could be faulty at the same point. Anyway as I said I tried recording further into the tape and had the same problem - so it looks like a fault with my rendered video. Yet I can play it fine with VLC on the PC.

Halfway through editing my project I wrote out about 20 minutes of footage with no problem, but now that the whole project is ready I can't get the writing to work again. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[kitty_muntz]

I solved my problem - it turned out to be chapter point cues in Ulead MSP8. Removing the chapter points and re-rendering allowed the transport stream file to be successfully written back to tape and played on my HD TV. It looks stunning - much better than DVD format of the same footage.

[winston vargas]

From FCP6 you have to go to print to tape and it will render the whole project. In that print to tape screen on the bottom left you will see a command to auto record, mark that and the firewire will turn the camera to the record mode automatically. After the project is rendered it will give a screen telling you to make sure you're camera or recoder is the proper mode, and that's it. The computer will put the camera to the record mode and it will start recording the project, when the project is recorded the camcorder will stop recording. Look at your instruction book, because the preferences have to be set up properly.

[butterflies]

Hello,
Sorry to just hop in somewhere. I have troubles starting New Posts. Each time when I try I get the message that I am not logged in whil eI certainly am. What to do about this??
Thanks,
Rob

[Redsandro]

Log out,
Close this site and go some site else,
Clear all history, chache and cookies,
Close the browser,
Fire back up and login here

does that help?
Or try another browser.

[idPezzo]

Canon HV-30 writing to tape problems
with Studio:
First attempt: 3 min. clip writing OK
Next attempt: 42 min footage - after a few seconds the camera recording stops, signs connection error, but the footage is displayed continuously on the camera's display panel
This phenomenon repeated several times with the same footage.
Next attempt with a 4 min. footage: "not appropriate format" - at the video settings tab shows "Canon DV device" (in the meanwhile, output type and device on the make movie window shows the correct Canon HDV).
And now, neither the capture work... I can chose between DV capture or mpeg capture.
Next day: after clicking here and there, succes with writing to tape with a new 2 min footage (but not with the 42 min footage).
The whole thing (recognition of camera type) seems to be very instable

With Adobe CS3
42 min clip after rendering, approx. 10 mins writing to tape is OK, then blue screen on the camera - no connection

In the meanwhile, capture and the writing to tape with Vegas (demo version) works OK.

But, I have only the Studio and the CS3 full versions, and do not intend to buy a third prog.

How to get Pinnacle and Adobe to work properly?

[Redsandro]

I've experienced many framedrops, stops, errors and the like as well, depending on how I lay out the fire wire cable. It is very sensitive for my television and my amplifier. Sometimes moving it a few inches makes it work.

This is especially true for cheap (eBay) firewire cables.

[aljdvd]

adobe CS3...after 8 - 9 minutes export to tape stops dead in the water. Have same problem with sony vegas trial prog after 5 minutes. PC has plenty of power Core 2 quad, 2 gig ram, 1 tera hard drive , Nvidia 88000 gtx graphics. This problem MUST have a solution.

[Redsandro]

Poor cable? See post above you.

[idPezzo]

In the meanwhile the situation worsened. Now, the PC recognizes the HV 30 only as Canon DV equipment. What happened, and where (in the PC or in the HV30), that after the initial probleme free co-operation between the two equipent:
First time proper HDV capture, write to tape -> then stopping write to tape by Studio and CS3, but working with Vegas -> finally, neither of the progs recognizes as HDV ????

[Redsandro]

I hardly think your issue is similar, but I had the same (DV only recognised) problem after installing a tweaked version of Win XP. Aparently some drivers were stripped out. This worked for me:

http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?p=132814#post132814

If you are sure about your hardware (wiring, firewireport/motherboard) being OK, another possible solution would be a clean install of Windows, and I mean a non-tweaked installation disk, and no upgrade-install.