Hi there,

I hope someone has a suggestion, because I've got a hundred of these tapes to capture - - I want to be able to hit Record at the top, and then just let it go, right to the end.  But Avid always stops recording somewhere after the 45-minute mark.  

I've checked all the settings I can think of (a few of you did say to get these settings figured out early on), with no luck.

Any suggestions?

Thanks, malcolm

 Hi

Do you capture to local disk or to a UNITY storage?

In one places I used to work there was a bug in some version (that is similar to yours when capturing to a UNITY worksapce. 

I was solved I think only by software upgrade

In project window:

Settings/MXF Media Files

Set Maximum (default) Capture time to e.g.120.

Or, do you use DVCAM? There tapes stops at 48 min because DVCAM use 1.5 the tape speed as DV does.

Hi Dor and berga -

capturing to SATA drives.

... they're just mini-DV tapes... I'll check the mxf media files settiing/capture time this aft.

Thanks for the tips, Malcolm

Just checked... MXF Media Files default capture time is set to 64 minutes, so I don't think it can be that.   Also in Capture Settings, 'Stop capture if a bad frame is detected' is unchecked, which I think is correct.

I'll try the next tape.  I have 95 more to figure out the problem.

Cheers, Malcolm

 Can You capture a second time from 48 min?

Yes, but it means I have to take two passes for each tape... same thing happened again, by the way, at the 42-minute mark.

Odd, eh?

Malcolm

In my experience, it is often difficult to capture DV-tapes. I can not remember one full DV-tape whcih I have capture without any problems. Babysitting is often a must. Small breaks in time code is there always. Do you know if the time code is continoues?

Last time, I use capture across timecode breaks in Settings/Capture/General and Enable detection of small timecode breaks in Settings/Capture/DV&HDV Options and no scene extractions. Using crash record, setting the first frame in the vcr, no times in the caputre window and hit the read buttom and let it run. An it work, despite some small timecode breaks.

Hi hamilton,

These DV tapes wouldn't by any chance have been shot on a Canon XL1 series camera.

Steve

Hi again,

These tapes were shot with a few different mini-DV cameras I've had over the years, all Sony.

Berga - - time code is continuous, from what I've seen (and I've specifically checked those places where Avid stops capturing, and the time code has been uninterrupted in each case).  It's something about the 40-something minute mark.  I think it might be that, the longer I'm capturing, the more 'lag' there is between playback in the camera, and capture into Avid... and at some point this lag actually stops things.  Does that sound possible?

Anyway, if I have to baby-sit, I guess I have to baby-sit.  Thanks for your patience.

Malcolm 

Batch it in 30 minute chunks... should work better.

Yes that makes sense.  Then at least I'll always know where the break is.  

Thanks for the suggestion.  Malcolm

If you're going over FireWire, this won't help, but if you're using an analog pathway to capture, it sometimes helps to run it through another device, such as a DVD recorder or VCR.  The device will stabilize the signal and essentially act as a time base corrector.  I've used this technique to capture really old VHS tapes that have degraded and have bad frames that cause Avid to choke, but if it's not stopping at the same point on each tape this probably isn't the issue.  Nevertheless, it might help with what you're trying to do--sometimes fluctuations in the signal can be the problem. 

Does it pop up an error message when it stops, or does it just stop and act like it completed the capture?