I'm having big problems capturing my 30 tapes shot in HDV to Avid, as the capture tool keeps aborting due to the many blank spots I have on my tapes (lacks of progress), so I want to try capturing using another software and then import it all to Avid. Can you recommend a software that would capture my 1080i HDV nicely and is in a format that Avid would import nicely?

Avid doesn't like when there are blank frames and timecode breaks on the tapes during capture, so I'm hoping for a software that doesn't care and can capture whatever you send it. Is the MXF format that Avid captures the same as the MXF that another software captures and therefore be easy to import to Avid?

(With the help I"ve gotten from the forums, I've already tried many things within Avid to get the capture tool to just capture without aborting so no luck there - that's why I want  to try this route)

Thanks for helping!

Why are there so many timecode breaks on your tapes?  During shooting you should take care not to break the TC and you likely will not have future problems. 

I once used HDVxDV to bring in some nasty HDV footage.  It will capture it and then convert it to a QT (you choose codec etc), it used a lot of disk space to create those QT files, but in the end it all worked.  Granted that was about 2-3 yrs ago and I'm not sure if HDVxDV works on PC or not.

I tried Windows Moviemaker yesterday but I think that you need at least Vista to be able to handle HDV, I could capture all breaks and play it back to tape afterwards, the audio will become 32 khz

edited..  and Avid Liquid can do the same using EZ Capture and then go back to tape

The best is Edius. I have been doing this with Edius for Quite some times now. In terms of HDV Capture even CS5 sucks. The .m2t captured in Edius really fast imports into MC (10 min for an hour of footage)

hdvsplit - old, but run on win7 64bit without problem.

free too!

We have a complete HDV environment Studio and let me tell you HDV is the worst format ever. Although we can get HD cheap but the workflow sucks.

After many years of working with this format I can tell you the best workflow for us is:

1- Buy a Sony HVR memory card recorder, plugs into your camera firewire port, it transcodes as you shoot!

2 - Dump the footage into an archice PC and Fast import into MC.

We still run tapes in our cameras as a backup, and even if we want to digitize them, we connect the HVR to our deck or camera and make clips on the card, then follow procedure 2.

HDV and tapes dont go, it's two different technologies that were never made to run together, so never expect it to act like dv or betacam.

The HVR recorder should cost you about $700 and save you months of tape struggle and digitizing.

I would suggest Eduis Neo ($199). You can also do instant rough cuts on AVCHD natively, then send only what you need to MC for finishing. Hardware agnostic as well.

Hey TVJohn and Jayanta, I took your advice with using Edius 5 to capture my HDV and it imported nicely and quickly into Avid! The problem I'm having now is I can't seem to add effects and transitions to my timeline!! When I drag an effect in between two scenes in the timeline, a box comes up that headlines 'insufficient source' and an option to click 'size to fit' or 'cancel'. If I click 'size to fit', it shows the effect icon on the timeline, but it doesnt actually work. And if I try to put a 'quick transition' in between two scenes, it doesnt allow me to change the duration of frames from 'zero' so therefore that also isn't working. The strange this is though, if I put a gap between two scenes (even a split second of no video and audio), I can then add transitions to the end or beginning of the clip.

I don't understand why this is happening! Any ideas??

(i captured HDV 1080i/59.94, 1440 x 1080 in to Edius)

Weekender, seems like you have some learning curve to go through, the workflow is to go trough the source viewer, create MI and MO and press B or V to place the clips on the sequense, you might have some tutorials to watch to be able to learn this.

When you are using this workflow, enough handles will be created, that is, if you leave enough space for those handles

edited..   you can also, after having made your cut on the sequense, press U to go to the trim mode and use, for example, J K and L trimming to get enough long handles for your transitions

In short, if you are putting a complete clip on the timeline,  there is no "leader" to add transition Fx to. Even with a fade to black there has to be enough footage after the Fx begin for the fade to complete.

Some consumer NLE, when you drop the Fx, automatically position the Fx at a point where there is enough footage. MC does not work this way.

TVJohn:

In short, if you are putting a complete clip on the timeline,  there is no "leader" to add transition Fx to. Even with a fade to black there has to be enough footage after the Fx begin for the fade to complete.

Some consumer NLE, when you drop the Fx, automatically position the Fx at a point where there is enough footage. MC does not work this way.