Messages posted by Delta

Quote I think it was like PD10 when that approach stopped working and you get the tape error.

I'm old school, I still use Windows Movie Maker and it's very robust for this type of capture.

Jeff

Thanks for your suggestion. I went looking for it and found that it's no longer supported, but the website offered 5 alternative programs that they said were even better. I'll try some of them.

I'm using a Canon DV camera as a passthrough. I've set the camera's settings to AV >DV ON, and it's in tape mode. The video actually plays in the PowerDirector 14 program, so I know it's getting the data, but when I click on the "Record" button, a box pops up saying "The DV tape is either missing or write protected. Insert a tape . . . . The tape is a home video, and the quality looks good, so why is PowerDirector giving me this error message and not capturing the data it is receiving?

What other software can I use that will capture the data in a quality format that PowerDirector can use to edit?
Thanks for suggestions.

Thanks for replies. I downloaded WinDV, and was capturing without any trouble in one minute! Thank you so much, SoNic67.

I had to upgrade to PD14 since I upgraded to Windows 10. Previously I've used a Canon digital camcorder with pass through feature to convert VHS tapes to digital files (using another capture program), and now I want to use PD14 to convert my analog 8 mm tapes to avi files before my ancient analog camcorder dies or the tapes disintegrate. The analog camcorder only has RCA Video & Audio out, and I have a cable that came with my digital camcorder which has RCA plugs on one end and an AV plug on the other end which plugs into the digital camcorder. I have a firewire cable going out from the digital camcorder to a firewire port in my computer (I had it custom built to be capable of capturing and editing.) I'm able to play the analog video through both camcorders and have it appear on the PD14 Capture screen, so the signal is getting there, but when I click Record while the video is playing in PD14, an error message says, "The DV tape is either missing . . . Insert a tape." It will not record anything. How do I get PD14 to capture the signal it is getting instead of looking for a tape in the DV camcorder? I cannot open PD14's Settings to configure them, maybe since it's already recognized what it needs because it has "Canon DV" in the space beneath Settings. The Profile is set to record to AVI > DV > and DV-AVI standard format. Under Capture Preferences, I have no time limit nor size limit. I am not able to select "Non real-time" which the User's Guide says to use. I am not using DV Backup nor any batch capturing. Thanks for your help.

Xerox, Thank you for your response and image, but your suggestion did not work for me. I'll give more details of what I'm doing in hopes that someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong. I find it hard to believe this program creates a burn-to-folder named My Video by default with no option to change it.

I clicked on the ". . . " in PD11's Final Output window so I could browse to the folder where I wanted the burn folders (AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS) to be placed. See my image of what I did and the result. I'm trying to put the burn folders on my external drive (J:\) with this path as follows: Within J:\ is a folder creatively named "My Videos" which contains all the other videos I've authored, with descriptively named folders. It is within that folder I want the latest authored video to be placed in it's own descriptive folder name--in this case the video is my grandson's baseball game, and the folder I want the burned folders to be placed in is named "2013 Carter baseball."
Here is where I have experimented with two methods of entering the burn-to-folder's name:

(1) After clicking the ". . .", the Browse For Folder window pops up. I browse to my My Videos folder, and since the unique folder name I want is not there, I click on the window's Make New Folder button and type in the name I want and click OK. This gives me the Folder directory: path as seen in the uploaded screenshot (J:\My Videos\2013 Carter baseball). After the burn to folder is task is completed, the path is as shown in the screenshot (Computer > J: > My Videos > 2013 Carter baseball > My Video) Why does PD11 create a My Video folder inside my named folder?

I thought that maybe I shouldn't create the folder myself and let PD11 do it for me, so I tried experiment (2)
Instead of clicking Make New Folder as above, I stop the browse for folder at My Videos. Then in PD11's Folder directory path that only has "J:\My Videos" I type in "\2013 Carter baseball". PD11 pops up a window that asks, "This folder does not exist. Would you like to create it?" I click Yes and it starts the burn.

I still get the same path as shown in the uploaded screenshot: Computer > J: > My Videos > 2013 Carter baseball > My Video no matter which method I use.

I know I can move the TS folders into the named folder I want and delete the empty PD11 My Video folder, but those two steps are a waste of time and would be unnecessary if PD11 would just use the path and new folder name I want for the burn-to-folder. Why can I not get this program to stop putting the burn files into a folder named My Video every time?

In the Final Output window, I name the Disc volume label something identifiable to me. If I burn to disc, I have no problem. If I want to burn to a folder, the only way I see of doing that is to checkmark Create a folder. The problem with that is, PowerDirector 11 names the created folder "My Video." Surely there is a way to name the burn-to-folder something other than My Video, but I can't find how to do it. Please tell me how to get PD11 to burn to a folder with a name of my choosing without creating the folder named My Video.

If there is no way around the burn-to-folder being named My Video every time, how do I request a design change so that the program offers two options: (1) Burn to disc and (2) Burn to folder instead of Create a folder. Then if the user chooses the Burn to folder option, there should be a place provided to type in whatever name the user desires for the burn-to-folder.

Barry, thanks for the tip. I already burned to disk with the SmartFit, and it turned out to be 4.2 GB. Am I correct in thinking that it wouldn't hurt to check SmartFit every time--if it fits the quality will be the highest and if its a little to big for the disk, the quality will be a little lower? If you don't check SmartFit and you try to burn more video than the disk will hold, does it just truncate the video on the disk--or do you get an error that ruins the disk with no video at all?
Also, if I had to re-edit the video, cutting out some footage to make it fit at highest quality, would I have to re-position all my chapter markers on the timeline?
Thanks for your answers.

Hal,
Thanks again for your reply. I'm finally realizing that I do not have to choose between DVD-Video and MPEG-2--both are the defaults for recording to DVD disk. In fact, after choosing the disc type and size (DVD video), the only video choices I have are 4:3 or 16:9 and SmartFit or not.

Hal,
Thanks for such a quick reply. I saw that SmartFit but did not know whether the MPEG-2 would work in my DVD player. (I know it won't play dual sided disks.) What is the difference between DVD-Video and MPEG-2? Does MPEG-2 produce VOB and ISO files on a disk for play in a DVD player?

This is my first project in PD 11--I'm very pleased with how the video I authored turned out. I want to burn it to disk, but PD says the video is 5413 and the disk capacity is 4700, and it asks are you sure it will fit. No, I'm not sure, and I don't want to waste a disk finding out it doesn't fit. I don't want to re-edit the video, so can't PD just compress it some more to make it fit? I see the option for Smart Fit under the MPEG2, but not under the DVD Video creation. I just want a DVD disk that I can put in my DVD player and play it to view on my TV with all the authored Menus and chapters. I know such a disk needs VOB files which are, I think, a wrapper for MPG2. I don't understand all that stuff--what's the difference between DVD-Video and MPEG2? Which one do I need to pick for what I want?

A side issue is: If I had to re-edit the video, cutting out some footage to make it fit, would I have to re-position all my chapter markers on the timeline?

Do I need to burn the PD file with other software? I used to use Premiere Elements and would burn to a folder, then use ImgBurn to make the DVD disk files when I also wanted to add other files to the disk, like jpgs. Can I still do that with PD files?

I appreciate your time spent answering questions from an amateur like me.