6.5 vid capture, how 1

[CLAF3]

I am using premiere 6.5 to try to work on some old vid. Sony DCR-PC1 mini DV is the source. how do I make it capture???

have not touched this stuff in years. THEN I am going to want to dump edited product back onto mini D or at minimum a DVD.

please help. I have read pages of postings, you know your stuff and seem happy to help. thanks in advance.

 

[Akribie]

You need to connect your PC1 to the PC using FireWire.

Inside P6.5, File/Capture/Movie Capture will produce the capture window.

In the capture settings box, Edit if required to set DV/IEEE1394 capture (or possibly a custom setting from the list if you have a capture card).#

In the Preferences box, Edit if required to set the paths for capture and, under device control options, set the frame rate etc.

You should be able to control the camera using the on-screen controls in the capture window.

The red button starts capture and stop stops it.

Or you can delve into Batch capture as described in the help file if you prefer that.

That's the basics. Hope that gets you going.

 

[CLAF3]

thanks for taking your time to help Akribie. the batch capture window did come up but was unresponsive. I am doing everything as I did years before, i think, except I can't remember the sequence. have premiere open, then turn on the camera or vice versa...there was some formula that worked back then. and it seems that I did the batch. however, only movie capture is allowing me to move to the next step. then I get a blank window when I try to capture under "movie". I do have device control, vid rolls but nothing records.
thanks again.

 

[Akribie]

If your computer is not powerful enough, you see nothing on the computer screen during capture. Have you checked to see if there is anything in the files after capture is complete?

If you are able to control the camera, there may be a setting in the capture options somewhere for you to select the particular device (or something similar) to get more control (it's years since I captured with P6.5, although I still have it installed for answering questions - I always use Scenalyzer for DV capture

http://www.scenalyzer.com).

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

CLAF3, are you able to capture video using Windows MovieMaker?



Edward

"Cut a hole in the door. Hang a flap. Criminy, why didn't I think of this earlier?!" -- inventor of the cat door

 

[Akribie]

Using WMM to test the FireWire link is fine.

But be careful!

WMM captures Type 1 DV AVI files, whilst Premiere uses Type 2. This mismatch is a frequent cause of grief and best avoided.

If the Premiere capture module does not work for you, but WMM does, then I would recommend getting a copy of Scenalyzer (test before buy) and use that for capture.

http://www.scenalyzer.com.

But we have yet to establish whether capture is working in Premiere or not. So far all we know is that the capture window goes blank during capture, which is perfectly normal for low-spec computers. We do not know if the resultant files (if any) are OK or not.

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

WMM captures Type 1 DV AVI files, whilst Premiere uses Type 2. This mismatch is a frequent cause of grief and best avoided."

Really? I seem to recall doing this before, as long as I saved from WMM as an uncompressed AVI, I was fine. But (shrug) I might be misremembering.

But mostly, as you've ascertained, I'm just making sure the Firewire interface is even working at all.

I'd also suggest checking some OTHER camera/deck, if at all possible. I screwed around for several hours once with an older Sony camera that SHOULD have worked (I had used it before), before I decided it was beyond me, and took it to a shop. According to them, the motherboard's firewire interface was shot ($800 to replace -- no thank you, not for a $600 camera), but there was no functional indication of that.

If I hadn't tried a different camera, I would never have suspected a Camera Turned Evil.

Edward

"Cut a hole in the door. Hang a flap. Criminy, why didn't I think of this earlier?!" -- inventor of the cat door

 

[Akribie]

DV Type 1 has (from memory) a 1Gb limit. If you save uncompressed, you are not using DV AVI format, but will be using 5 times the disk space.

A FireWire card should be a very cheap thing to plug into a motherboard slot if the on-board is broken (assuming you have a spare slot). Should be no need to change motherboard/buy new computer/make lots of money for dealer.

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

If you save uncompressed, you are not using DV AVI format, but will be using 5 times the disk space."

Yes, that's fine by me. Space is actually pretty cheap, and for such projects, the WMM files have been short clips anyway, because I trim 'em in WMM, too.

"A FireWire card should be a very cheap thing to plug into a motherboard slot if the on-board is broken (assuming you have a spare slot). Should be no need to change motherboard/buy new computer/make lots of money for dealer."

Sorry -- I meant the motherboard of the camera. Apparently the camera's own motherboard went crap, and apparently that shop figured it would be $800 to replace.

My cheaper solution was to buy a crappy $200 secondhand MiniDV camera and use it to transfer video to the computer, while I use my Sony (with the extra lenses and white balance and microphone and such) to do the actual shooting.

Edward

"Cut a hole in the door. Hang a flap. Criminy, why didn't I think of this earlier?!" -- inventor of the cat door

 

[Akribie]

If you have a working FireWire link, then I would expect you to be able to capture into Premiere.

But if not and you've got a workaround, then you may as well stick with something that works.

Have fun !

 

[CLAF3]

Akribi, better late as they say. it was the settings. thank you. now I have a lot of vid to cull. thanks again. next I will focus on my output.

 

[Akribie]

Glad you found the cure. Have fun !