DV Master NT Software 1.5
For optimum performance of your DV Master, we recommend that you print out this ReadMe file and read it over carefully to familiarize yourself with these important issues.
1. Installing, Troubleshooting
2. Features, Capabilities
DV CAM
MultiPlayer
PowerPlay
DV Audio Tool
3. Tips And Troubleshooting In General
1. Installing the software:
To install the software, simply start the SETUP.EXE program. Backup copies of the drivers will be installed in the DRV subdirectory of the path where you have installed the DV Master software. You can use them to manually reinstall individual components. To install the drivers manually, launch the multimedia control panel, display the 'Devices' page and click on 'Add...'. Choose the first entry named 'Unlisted or Updated Driver' and click 'OK'. Either enter the correct path or locate it using the 'Browse' button. Now you see a list of all DV Master drivers and you can reinstall them.
Troubleshooting:
First of all check if the DV Master kernel driver has been started properly. Launch the control panel and double-click on "Multimedia". Display the "Devices" tab sheet and select the
"DV Master kernel driver" under "Other multimedia devices". Press the "Properties" button. Check if the "Status" line states that the driver is enabled and has been started. If this is not the case (for example: driver is enabled, but has not been started) refer to problem 1 below.
1) Message "At least one service failed or driver failed on system startup" appeared:
Launch the Event Viewer and check if the DV Master kernel driver "dvmdrv32" failed to start. Try to use another memory base address (see below how to do this).
2) DV Manager or VidCap: Unsupported video format:
Refer to problem 1.
3) DV Manager or VidCap: Unable to draw this data format:
4) Jerky playback:
Try to play back the file using DV Manager. If this doesn't solve the problem, the sustainable data rate of your hard disks is too low to play back the file.
5) System does not boot:
You have either conflicting IRQ settings in your systems CMOS setup or a resource conflict (IRQ/memory) under Windows NT. Simply remove a PCI card (not necessarily the DV Master) and reboot again. Now resolve your resource conflict, reinsert the card and reboot again.
6) After starting DV Manager, the connected device shows no
reaction on any play command (play, rewind, ff):
Please ensure that the connected device is switched on and
restart DV Manager with selcted DV input, where this device is connected to.
7) DVCAM record / playback:
For correct ACM initialization and proper DVCAM playback
it is first necessary to playback a clip in the desired
sampling rate before recording in this sampling rate.
E.g. record in 32 kHz 16 bit stereo DV Master ACM;
playback this clip once.
After playing back this clip, ACM audio driver is
correctly initialized in 32 kHz 16 bit stereo.
Otherwise, there might be noisy audio playing back clips
in this sampling rate.
If you need to change the base address of the DV Master card, start the control panel Devices. Select the Device "////FAST DV Master", click the Startup-Button and choose Startup Type Manual. Now when you reboot your system, DV Master will not be started.
Open the multimedia control panel and display the 'Devices' page. Select the DV Master kernel driver under 'Other multimedia devices' and press the 'Properties' button and the 'Settings' button in the next dialog box.
Now you can change the base address of the card. To change the interrupt, please do so in your systems CMOS setup.
You don't necessarily have to reboot your system. Don't forget to reselect the Startup Type of the "////FAST DV Master" Device back to Automatic.
2. Features and Capabilities
Changes and new Features in version 1.5:
- AVI scrubbing within DV Manager interface
- Single Frame Capture from any live video source
- Automatic sorting and renaming of clip sequences
AVI-scrubbing
To scrub within an AVI file select the preferred AVI with mouse click. Move the slider in the control panel of DV Manager. For stepping frame by frame in forward or reverse for a selected AVI video clip, press the buttons besides the slider.
Single frame capture within DV Manager
Single frame capture from live source:
Now you can create still images for graphics and more with a few simple steps. To capture a frame from a live video source (camera, VTR, VCR) connect to one of the inputs of the DV Master, press the single-frame capture button next to the 'regular' capture button in the control panel of DV Manager.
Every captured frame will be named as 'stillxxxx.bmp' and then stored into the actual directory that is selected in DV Manager‘s directory tree. The same function can be found under 'clips\single frame capture'.
Single frame capture from an AVI clip:
Select an AVI in DV Manager and move the slider to the selected frame. Press the right mouse button to enter the name and where to save the selected frame as a bitmap image. The same function can be found under 'clips\save as bitmap'.
Renaming a clip sequence
Sometimes it's necessary to quickly reorganize your captured clips and/or to rename them and place them in a different alphabetical-numeric order for importing into your particular editing program.
Therefore please change to the 'detailed view' (either by pressing the details view icon in the control panel or under 'view\details'). This view allows you to move clips to another position by a simple drag & drop.
Once you're finished reordering the selected clips, mark all clips that should be reordered by clicking the left mouse buttons with the ctrl-key pressed. Once all clips are marked, use the renaming sequence as discussed above.
Remarks for version 1.0
· DV Master runs on Multiprocessor platform
· Ulead Media Studio Power Play - play DV Master projects directly from the timeline.
· DVCAM support - DVCAM support for rendered files in Ulead Media Studio and Premiere (PAL only).
· DV Manager – completely new appication for Capture, Playback as well as organizing your DV files. In addition, DV Manager offers a full set of Device Control functionalities utilizing FireWire embedded commands.
· MultiPlayer allows you to play back multiple video files together in a single sequence. Each clip in the sequence can be of up to 2 GB in size, this feature effectively overcomes the VfW time restrictions (typically about 9 minutes of DV audio and video) and allows for the creation of long format movies.
· The famous Media Cache technology from FAST has been intregated in DV Manager, allowing you play back files smoothly even with non AV-optimized hard disks.
· Improved Device Controls in DV Manager to control DV devices
· Improved device controls for Ulead Media Studio 5.0 and Adobe Premiere 4.2 for batch capturing
Use of DVCAM with DV Master
There is no restriction to capture data from the DVCAM tapes. You can use both Consumer DV as well as DVCAM devices to transfer the DV data onto your hard disk. However, there is a difference with recording back to tape with DV Master. The Sony DSR 30 and DSR 200 units originally have been restricted from allowing to record data through the Firewire Input, which would not bear a header marking it as DVCAM data. To do so, the DSR devices would check for the track pitch of 15 Micrometer whereas consumer DV has a track pitch of 10 Micrometer.
We have been informed, that there is a way to modify these units with a Sony service remote control. Also, according to Sony, the newly built DSR devices will not have this restriction.
However, FAST can not be held responsible to assure the correct functionality of these devices. Therefore, we recommend you contact your dealer or Sony directly to get more information on this issue. Though we tested several functions with modified and unmodified units we currently can not guarantee the unrestricted use of DVCAM devices with DV Master. We will continue testing – please refer to our web site to get an update.
To enable DVCAM support enter DV Manager and select DVCAM support in the Video Output dialog box.
By enabling this software switch, the DV Master ACM will create locked mode audio for:
· PAL, 48 kHz, 16 bit
· PAL, 32 kHz, 12 bit
· NTSC, 48 kHz, 16 bit
All other audio formats will be created as unlocked audio, which cannot be recorded to DVCAM devices. DVCAM VCRs will reject recording when the audio format is not one of the above and guaranteed to be locked.
Hints
As a general rule, if your DVCAM device does not record your AVI file, a conversion of this AVI file to a DVCAM compatible audio format is necessary:
1. Load the AVI file into Media Studio 5.0.
2. Create a new video file using the DV Master audio codec as audio format and select a DVCAM compatible format (48 kHz 16bit or 32 kHz 12 bit).
3. Render the new file. Image data will be copied, but audio data will be rerendered DVCAM compatible.
Adobe Premiere NTSC users can also use the DV audio tool provided with this version to rewrite the files after making movie.
Here are possible configurations of how DV Master AVI files can be created.
Tape: consumer DV
DVCAM
Playback device: DV Drive, PC 7 or other consumer DV device
DSR 30 or other DVCAM device with DV output
DV Master input: DV (digital)
analog
Software version: DVCAM option enabled
Audio: PCM audio
DV Master audio codec
Here are the types of files which require a conversion to DVCAM audio format:
- files using PCM audio format
- files from consumer DV devices
- analog captured files without DVCAM support enabled
Here are the types of files which do not require a conversion to DVCAM audio format:
· DV Files captured from DVCAM tapes
· analog captured files with DVCAM option enabled
(enable DVCAM support in DV Manager\options\Video output)
· files rendered with DVCAM option enabled
MultiPlayer for Long Format Projects
FAST provides you with the new multi-file "Play List" capability in this software release, that allows you to link a sequence of AVI files for playback. This capability makes it possible to create long format videos comprised of multiple shorter AVI files linked together into one seamless video during playback/output to DV or analog recorders and your monitor.
See "DV Manager" for details.
NOTE:
The MultiPlayer function can only be used with clips that all have the same audio sampling rate and CoDec Type. This means that you can not mix clips or movies together if they were rendered with different audio sampling rates or captured with different compression CoDecs.
DV Master PowerPlay for Ulead Media Studio 5.01
You must have installed Version 5.01 (or higher) of Ulead Media Studio.
Overview
The preview player hooks itself into Ulead Media Studio. When you start a preview, all the clips on the timeline in the currently selected preview range are played back. Only the parts of the clips which have been modifed (with transition or effects) are rendered, all the unchanged parts are taken from the original clips. This reduces disk space requirements and rendering time. On demand you get a dialog box for beginning the Playback after all preview-files are build and the playback-cache is filled.
What to do
Launch the "Preview options" from the "View" menu. On the "Video editor" tab sheet select "Best preview" and "General" tab sheet either "Video only" or "Audio and video". "Audio only" is not supported. Select the correct frame rate and video format. In order to be able to scale the preview window independantly of the preview video dimension, go to the "File" menu, select "Preferences" and on the "General" tab sheet, enable the "Keep preview window size independant of perview options" check box.
When you now start a preview, Media Studio renders the transition effects of video filter and then starts the preview using the preview player. You can tell if Media Studio is playing the preview with the new player, when you see a DV Master bitmap in the preview window before the preview starts and after the preview is done. If you don't see the bitmap you have most likely some wrong settings in Media Stdio (frame rate, video dimension, etc.). See also the section "Troubleshooting".
Preview settings for DV MASTER PowerPlay:
Video editor: best preview
field-order A
General:
TV Standard: PAL NTSC
Frames per Second: 25 29.97
Image Size 720x576 720x480
Advanced:
Audio-Interleave:...
kolare