Problem recognizing Pinnacle Studio AV/DV E4

[f@chance]

I tried searching but couldn't find a satisfying answer. Ihave installed in the Dell workstation the Pinnacle System Studio AV/DV E4 capture card. Pinnacle Studio 9 works fine with it no problem recognizes the card and I can capture from my VCR.

However I want to capture not in uncompressed video but want to run an on the fly compression preferably XVid encoder. So I tried VirtualVCR but when starting it, it complains no capturing device available. Same when starting Vegas Video it can find no capturing device.

Is there any magic to make this card visible to other sotware OR can Pinnacle Studio 9 use XVid as encoder?

Thanks for any help.

P.S. The user forum for Pinnacle realy suxxs and is about the worst I have seen for a company that has that many products on the market and now needs to offere User fedback.

[mic]

You probably won't want to use Vegas capture, designed around DV transfer, so I wouldn't worry about that.

Vegas aside, if you google on: AV/DV E4 I see a LOT of driver prob reports. Many concern the device and drivers showing up in Device Mgr. with prob.

Might try following those to see if anyone got it working... Might also try complete uninstall, including registry (possibly from restore point?), & re-install in safe mode without anti-virus, anti-spam etc. Might try updating individual devices in Device Mgr. manually, pointing them at correct driver files.

[f@chance]

Thanks for the reply mic. Yeah I saw that myself and found out in the meantime that for example Adobe Premier can't detect the Analog part of the Capture card and you have to use MS's DV drivers. Pinnacle kind of hinted that other programs will have a problem detecting the card when they said that the relationship between the card and Studio has been optimized for capturing. To me that means propriatory interface and thus no one else can see it.

Also finally in version 10 of studio you can encode to DivvX. Looks like Avid the guys who bought out Pinnacle are trying to whip them into shape.

Still haven't gotten the card to work with Virtual Dub in capturing VHS tapes from the tape deck.

Bummer, still any ideas anyone?

F@Chance

[mic]

When I was looking earlier I *Think* there were some recomendations to use older driver versions. 2nd *big* guess: Debugmode.com has a virtual frame server -- don't know if it's output is fast enough, but... capture isn't as challenging as it used to be. From the readme:
"This has been tested with many third party software, including

Sony Vegas 6.0, 5.0, 4.0/SonicFoundry Vegas Video 3.0
Adobe Premiere 6.0/6.5, Premiere Pro 1.0/1.5, Premiere Elements 1.0
Ulead MediaStudio Pro 7.0
Ulead VideoStudio 8.0
Pure Motion EditStudio 4.1.3
Windows media player
VirtualDub
Avisynth
Procoder
Cinema Craft Encoder (CCE) 2.5 to 2.67
TMPGEnc 2.510
and many more..."
The author is really a great guy, and if possible might add support if not already there for Studio.

3rd big guess would be to determine chip/chipset used and look for other drivers based on that -- if they used off-the-shelf, chances are someone else uses it too.

[f@chance]

Thanks for that tip on the virtual frame server. Yes if it supports Studio then I am set. If not then I may go for the Studio 10 version. This is not for myself I work for a non-profit organisation and this has to do with Bristish Sign Language projects and wanting to save the captured footage in small file sizes. If I would go for studio 10 then requisitions have to filled out and reasons why this is needed and a whole bunch of other hazzels so that the charity commisioners are kept happy in case of audits. If it where for me no need to post job done either better card or studio 10.

Thanks again and I will find out if there is support for studio 9 with the virtual frame server.

[f@chance]

mic,

I checked with the virtual frame server home page and many requests for plugins for Studio 9 and always the same answer. Proprietory file system and there is no SDK that allows passing of in/out parameters. No can Do because of Pinnacle. Studio 10 which is coming out in October will allow creation of DivX files, so I guess it is wait until then. Getting their card to be recognized by other NLEs or Capture programs is one task I couldn't do.

Thanks for the link though very interesting that site.

[mic]

Oh wellll... Trying to look for a bright spot, maybe in the time remaining until Oct. release they can be persuaded to give you a copy as it's for a non-profit & all the trouble you've been through. :)

Sometimes asking you'll find nice people & surprise yourself. :)

[f@chance]

Thanks for that suggestion and I will try this and see if they have a heart for the British Sign Language group that is using studio 9.