Live Capture

With compatible capture hardware you can scan a tape without capturing it to disk first. (On Macintoshes with internal FireWire interface this capability is built-in. Under Windows a third party VDIG driver may be required to enable the capture capability in QuickTime applications such as CatDV.)

Bring up the capture dialog using the Live Capture menu command or toolbar button. You have the following options:

• Scan Only - scan a DV tape for scene changes and create a log entry with thumbnail for each scene.
• Scan & Build Preview - scan a tape for scene changes as above, and capture a low resolution preview version of the tape directly into the Previews directory at the same time. (This option is recommended for most purposes.)
• Capture - capture a movie from tape to hard disk at full DV quality and subsequently import the captured movie into the catalog.

Enter a tape name, destination file (if relevant) and other options, then press the Start button and start your tape playing to commence a scan or capture. (You need to use the controls on your deck or camcorder because CatDV does not currently provide Firewire device control.)

Use Set Poster while the tape is being scanned to create an additional thumbnail at the current frame and use that as the poster for the scene. (Because the length of a scene is not known in advance during live capture the preference options that let you specify which poster to use have no effect. Instead, the first frame of each scene is used unless you set the poster yourself.)

If necessary, use Power Up to initialise the capture hardware after connecting and powering up your camcorder. Use the Video and Audio buttons to configure the capture source. If no video is recognised when you play a tape try closing the Live Capture window, start the tape playing, and then re-open Live Capture.

If any timecode resets are detected while scanning the tape a new artificial tape name is automatically used for each continuous segment.