Serious Magic Announces the DVCProHD Decoder for Sony® Vegas® and Adobe® Premiere®

Live capture with DVrack and DVCPro HD thru firewire or USB2?

Live capture with DVrack and DVCPro HD thru firewire or USB2?

I made some tests with FCP capturing live to a G4 powerbook 1.6Ghz and worked flawlessly, we have to select a non-controllable device within FCP and we could capture 1280x720 24-60p without any problem.

How you can do the same with Dvrack to Hard disk on your laptop?

JB
 
This appears to the be the upgrade path/cost for DV Rack/HDV PowerPak users, US$99. <<here>>

Not sure on previous reference to free upgrade, though read it in here somewhere.

The stop motion and time-lapse feature looks awesome, thanks for implementing the request SM guys. :thumbsup:
 
Did you mean to ask can you do the same? Yes you can and I don't have the fastest of laptops, but it worked without a hitch.
 
cinebuddy said:
I have a dual opteron 265 with 4gigs. It runs quite well. No filp feature.
Click to expand...
There is definitely a flip feature. It'll flip horizontal, or vertical, or both (which they call "M2 Mode").
 
Barry_Green said:
There is definitely a flip feature. It'll flip horizontal, or vertical, or both (which they call "M2 Mode").
Click to expand...
Sorry Barry, I wasn't clear the DVCPro codec coverter does not filp. You're definitely correct on the M2 mode.
 
Right -- got it -- that's correct, the decoder doesn't do any type of flipping. It does, however, appear to remove pulldown from 24pA files.
 
Hi everyone,

Sorry for any confusion on all of this - let me see if I can take all the questions one at a time here:

1. The decoder does remove pulldown from 24PA files. It doesn't flip the image.

2. The DVCProHD Decoder will be shipping today. The price is $195, or it will be included at no additional charge with the purchase of DV Rack 2.0 HD.

3. At the 11th hour, just before launching DV Rack 2.0 HD, we uncovered a problem with systems using the Intel Core Duo and Core 2 Duo. From what we know now, it only shows up if the system has 2GB or more of RAM, and it only affects DVCProHD recording. Systems with less than 2GB of RAM are completely unaffected. Systems using Pentium (any type) processors or AMD processors are unaffected. Recording with DV or HDV cameras is not affected.

We believe the problem could be fixed in a new Intel chipset driver at some point, but we aren't going to wait for that. Our engineering team has come up with a fix already, but it's pretty low-level, and will mean a couple of weeks of retesting.

We are going ahead with the launch of DV Rack 2.0 HD today. If your system doesn't have the "magic combination" (using HVX-200 on an Intel Core or Core 2 with 2GB or more of RAM) then there's no reason to wait. If you are planning on running DV Rack 2.0HD on such a system, then I'd recommend waiting to purchase until we announce this is resolved.
 
Karl:

DVRack 2.0 support HDV? or do we have to buy Power pack also.

PS: I bought Power pack in order to have free upgrade to DVCRack as stated in an earlier (several weeks) posts.
 
Barry Green,

Thanks. Greatly appreciated. Have you ever tried the Cineform product? They insist that they have better performance than RayLight?
 
Serious Magic did announce in an e-mail that for a limited period of time (mid-July to August 15th,) if you purchased the HDV PowerPak, we would give you the DVCProHD PowerPak for free. The DVCProHD Decoder was not announced at the time of the special.

At the time we sent out notice of the free HD upgrade, we believed that version 2.0 was still in the distant future. When we began finalizing the release date of the DVCProHD PowerPak, we found out our lead developer had been secretly adding in a TON of new features. In fact, he had basically implemented everything we had on the schedule for 2.0.

That put us in a bit of a bind: we had already declared the free HD upgrade, but we felt like we'd be giving away too much if everyone with the HDV PowerPak got HD support AND the 2.0 upgrade at no charge. So, in short, we decided to charge. I am sorry for the change in plans, but the way things turned out, it couldn't be helped.

We are doing three things that weren't planned before to help "make things right," and honor the spirit of the original special:

1. The price of the 2.0 HD upgrade is regularly $295, but we've lowered it to $99 for HDV PowerPak owners only. This makes it the same price as the 2.0 SD upgrade. So, in effect, all we are asking you to buy are the 2.0 features. To see the new 2.0 features, please check here: http://www.seriousmagic.com/products/dvRack/newIn2_dtd.cfm

2. The DVCProHD Decoder, which was going to be an additional $195 purchase, is now included with DV Rack HD at no additional charge.

3. We are offering these specials to anyone who purchases or has purchased the HDV PowerPak, even if it was outside the 30-day window we originally planned. So, if you didn't take advantage of the original promotion, you can still benefit today.

So, in short, for your $99, you are paying for all the 2.0 features, AND you'll get the DVCProHD Decoder for free. We feel that this is an even better deal than the original offer of the free PowerPak. If you'd like to discuss this further, we'd be happy to talk with you and see what it will take to make it right. Contact Customer Service at 916-985-8050, extension 3, or e-mail at customerservice@seriousmagic.com.
 
Last edited:
Okay, I've got the DV batch recorder... and I've got some questions for those of you who've tried it. I don't have much experience, especially with video on the PC (I edit on Mac).

1) If I convert to AVI -- I try to play using Windows Media Player. It shows back as 4:3 aspect (Barry mentioned this earlier). Does anyone know how to get Media Player to show it as 16:9?

2) Also, the audio in Windows Media Player is bad. Jittery. When I've played before using the P2 Viewer the audio is fine and I can watch full screen without any problems (fast laptop with 1.5gb ram).

3) When I convert to Quicktime, I try to play it with Quicktime on my laptop (which is a PC) but it won't play. A screen appears telling me I may need to install a plug-in to get it to play. A Serious Magician told me none of those would make a difference, that the only way it would play is in FCP.

I edit with FCP, but I'm considering getting Vegas for my laptop -- but before I do, I'd like to get all this straight. At least in my understanding! Thanks!
 
KarlSoule said:
Serious Magic did announce in an e-mail that for a limited period of time (mid-July to August 15th,) if you purchased the HDV PowerPak, we would give you the DVCProHD PowerPak for free. The DVCProHD Decoder was not announced at the time of the special.

At the time we sent out notice of the free HD upgrade, we believed that version 2.0 was still in the distant future. When we began finalizing the release date of the DVCProHD PowerPak, we found out our lead developer had been secretly adding in a TON of new features. In fact, he had basically implemented everything we had on the schedule for 2.0.

That put us in a bit of a bind: we had already declared the free HD upgrade, but we felt like we'd be giving away too much if everyone with the HDV PowerPak got HD support AND the 2.0 upgrade at no charge. So, in short, we decided to charge. I am sorry for the change in plans, but the way things turned out, it couldn't be helped.

We are doing three things that weren't planned before to help "make things right," and honor the spirit of the original special:

1. The price of the 2.0 HD upgrade is regularly $295, but we've lowered it to $99 for HDV PowerPak owners only. This makes it the same price as the 2.0 SD upgrade. So, in effect, all we are asking you to buy are the 2.0 features. To see the new 2.0 features, please check here: http://www.seriousmagic.com/products/dvRack/newIn2_dtd.cfm

2. The DVCProHD Decoder, which was going to be an additional $195 purchase, is now included with DV Rack HD at no additional charge.

3. We are offering these specials to anyone who purchases or has purchased the HDV PowerPak, even if it was outside the 30-day window we originally planned. So, if you didn't take advantage of the original promotion, you can still benefit today.

So, in short, for your $99, you are paying for all the 2.0 features, AND you'll get the DVCProHD Decoder for free. We feel that this is an even better deal than the original offer of the free PowerPak. If you'd like to discuss this further, we'd be happy to talk with you and see what it will take to make it right. Contact Customer Service at 916-985-8050, extension 3, or e-mail at customerservice@seriousmagic.com.
Click to expand...
Sounds fair to me.
 
Is there a PDF or some online manual we can read. I'm curious about how the decoder handles the funky 960x720 & 1280x1080 formats of the HVX. Does anyone know if I can use just the DVCProHD Decoder to convert my 960x720 to 1280x720 and 1280x1080 to 1920x1080 for all the frame rates the HVX records in? or for 1080 content does it convert to 1440x1080 like Cineform Aspect?

I'm most interested in converting 720-59.95p content and would hope this would be a slightly cheaper alternative to Aspect and give full 1920x1080 conversion without having to et Cineform Prospect.
 
telebay said:
1) If I convert to AVI -- I try to play using Windows Media Player. It shows back as 4:3 aspect (Barry mentioned this earlier). Does anyone know how to get Media Player to show it as 16:9?
Click to expand...
I wonder if there's not some aspect-ratio flag that needs to be set in the avi file? Karl?

2) Also, the audio in Windows Media Player is bad. Jittery. When I've played before using the P2 Viewer the audio is fine and I can watch full screen without any problems (fast laptop with 1.5gb ram).
Click to expand...
I didn't encounter this, and I'm in a hotel room in Dallas right now so I can't test it; but I would expect that you removed pulldown from your file (i.e., a 720/24p file or a 1080/24pA file). There's probably some way to use the audio folder's audio files instead of the embedded audio in the video MXF file. I didn't see a user manual for the decoder... is there one? Is there some way to instruct it to use the full audio file?

3) When I convert to Quicktime, I try to play it with Quicktime on my laptop (which is a PC) but it won't play. A screen appears telling me I may need to install a plug-in to get it to play. A Serious Magician told me none of those would make a difference, that the only way it would play is in FCP.
Click to expand...
That's a limitation in the Windows version of Quicktime. Apple doesn't allow DVCPRO-HD quicktimes to play in Windows. If you're using Avid or Canopus you can import those files and they'll work. I think if you download the Avid DVCPRO-HD codec, you can probably view the files in Vegas and it'll know to use the Avid codec.
 
First let me say, HD 2.0 amazing, amazing amazing. I am running it with 1 GB ram on a 1000$ macbook with a 7200 HD and it works flawlessly, i stopped recording at 25 minutes. It is sooooooo worth it. Now i dont need to drop 190$ for P2log, i can run two types of monitors out of the HVX at the same time (DV rack and SD), i can get away with only one 4 GB P2 for those times rec. to DV rack is impractical, i cant see how you can critical focus with anything once you have tried DV rack (especially for M2 users), i switch from PC to mac in a matter of seconds and open the quicktime files in final cut and can start editing immediately.....the list goes on. It is one of those rare things that actually really work, and once you have it is hard to think about life without them. Ipod, Blackberry, mac, HVX...

As to a few issues i have-

-The fan of the macbock goes on without warning, i dont know if this is because i am using it with DV rack, but i see this as a potentioal problem for sound. Is there an override?

-The current 1 gig ram limit is annoying as it would be nice to have more for FCP.

-the decoder for some reason is not installing on my macbook? But the very helpful SM customer service is on it.

Otherwise :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:
 
Barry_Green said:
I wonder if there's not some aspect-ratio flag that needs to be set in the avi file? Karl?


I didn't encounter this, and I'm in a hotel room in Dallas right now so I can't test it; but I would expect that you removed pulldown from your file (i.e., a 720/24p file or a 1080/24pA file). There's probably some way to use the audio folder's audio files instead of the embedded audio in the video MXF file. I didn't see a user manual for the decoder... is there one? Is there some way to instruct it to use the full audio file?
Quote:
3) When I convert to Quicktime, I try to play it with Quicktime on my laptop (which is a PC) but it won't play. A screen appears telling me I may need to install a plug-in to get it to play. A Serious Magician told me none of those would make a difference, that the only way it would play is in FCP.
Click to expand...

That's a limitation in the Windows version of Quicktime. Apple doesn't allow DVCPRO-HD quicktimes to play in Windows. If you're using Avid or Canopus you can import those files and they'll work. I think if you download the Avid DVCPRO-HD codec, you can probably view the files in Vegas and it'll know to use the Avid codec.
Click to expand...

The pixel ratio flag is set in the AVI and QuickTime, but only Premiere for AVI and FCP for QT recognize those flags. We've spoken with the folks at Vegas, and they tell us that it does not yet interpret those flags.

The converter will pull down all duplicate frames from the MFX file. The converter will not convert audio files from the camera and currently will not recover the audio from 24PN clips from the camera.

On the playback in QuickTime, Apple does not provide a DVCPro 100 codec for Windows. The codec comes with Final Cut Pro--not sure about QuickTime Pro. Also, note that the Apple codec is broken in PAL.
 
the_other_Mark said:
The converter will pull down all duplicate frames from the MFX file. The converter will not convert audio files from the camera
Click to expand...
So, I guess that means that we will have to separately import the audio into our files?
 
Dunno. I was just taking dictation from Benoit, and he's now gone for the night. I don't think that's what he meant, but I'll check with him tomorrow.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top