ADCV-55 playback codec

[Vertuas]

Hi All,

I have a ADCV-55 unit and a Sony Block camera that I am using to capture very good quality video.

The video is stored on the PC in DV-AVI type 1 format (A/V locked).

Now I have noticed that sometimes my files are reported as Microsoft DV Video format and other times as Sony DV.

At the moment, on a particular machine i an having problems with my captured files as they appear the be corrupted. Even media player isn't happy with them, as when I select the clip properties page, WMP tell me that a codec may be missing. The video is reported as Sony Digital Video, by AVI Codec.

Does anyone know of any codec issue with DV video from canopus boxes?
Is the video Micrsoft DV or Sony Digital video and is there a difference?

Thanks

Vert

[GrassValley_KH]

In the end, DV is DV - that data that is produced with the ADVC and written to the hard disk is the same.

In some cases, you may require a codec pack for WMP to properly read the AVI file headers and decode the stream. This is why we, for example, have a Canopus DV playback codec - purely to let you decode CCDV (as opposed to MSDV) headered files on a machine that would otherwise not know what to do.

So in short, if the file is a Sony DV file, you either need:

- a Sony DV codec that is supported and understood by WMP for decoding

or

- Sony software installed on your system, to provide decoding

[Vertuas]

Hi Kenneally

Thank you for your reply.

I think that you misunderstand me. The video data that i refer to is native video captured from the ADVC-55.

Some machines recognise it as Sony Digital Video other as Microsoft DV. I guess it depends on the installed codec but either way the four-cc for both is dsvd.

Since I originally posted, i have found that NTSC video captured via the ADVC-55 does not play properly in WMP.

Would I gain anything in installing the Canopus codec rather that relying upon the MS/Sony ones?

Thanks

Vert

[GrassValley_KH]

It shouldn't. Again, the DV25 datastream that is fed out of any ADVC unit, is essentially no different than if you were capturing from a DV25 camcorder - it's all DV25.

It's all to do with what you're capturing with - the software.

Have you tried the freebie "WinDV" application? http://windv.mourek.cz/


How are you wiring things up? What is your workflow specifically?

[Vertuas]

Hi Kenneally

Again thanks for you time.

We are using the ADVC-55 in an automated system. We have a Sony block video camera connected to the ADVC via an S-video cable, an a seperate microphone and preamp feed audio into ADVC.

The captured video is saved to the HDD and a WMV version made. The WMV can be sent to an FTP server if the user wishes.

When using a PAL camera, everything work perfectly. When using NTSC, the captured video causes issues.

WMP will play the NTSC DV but complains about possible codec issues. The WMV file is way out of A/V sync. I believe the issue to be with the NTSC frame rate and something rounding it to 30Fps, hence the sync issue.

The NTSC DV footage also goes of sync in windows Movie Maker.

Thanks

Vert

[GrassValley_KH]

Can you list your DIP switch settings on the ADVC unit?

[GrassValley_BH]

Some machines recognise it as Sony Digital Video other as Microsoft DV. I guess it depends on the installed codec but either way the four-cc for both is dsvd.

Machines with Sony DV software (notably VAIOs) have the Sony DV codec that "overrides" the native Microsoft DV codec for dvsd clips.

The Canopus DV codec won't help, because that only decodes cdvc clips, and the Four-CC for your AVIs are dvsd, so you'd need to change the Four-CC to have them decoded by the Canopus DV codec (unless you load them into ProCoder or EDIUS, both of which use the Canopus DV codec for decoding dvsd clips).