[b]Capture Issues with Adobe Premiere 1.5[/b]

[daveinuk]

Hi All.

im running windows XP Pro SP2 and I have adobe premiere pro 1.5 on my computer. All I want to do is capture video from an analogue camcorder via my composite connection. I have an AVC-2310 capture USB connector and that does not seem to talk to Premiere and premiere does not recognise it at all. I today went out and brought a Dazzle video creator 90 and that does not seem to talk to Premiere either...

What am i doing wrong?

Thanks. David.

 

[electronicsfreak]

Certain programs are real picky on capturing through firewire. My advice if possible try capturing through svideo. I used to have a similar problem with adobe premiere on a camera that wasnt supported through firewire. Switched it to s-video and then used audio to rca coverters for sound to record the video. If you cant get svideo to work try the audio/video to rca inputs. Not as good as the others but they can still work.

 

[electronicsfreak]

I forgot to mention something, certain ones are picky because they only support certain brands and model numbers of cameras for direct capturing through firewire. Sorry about that.

 

[kiddpete]

Premiere Pro will capture from a firewire interface. However, firewire is digital and your composite connection is not. You will need a piece of software or hardware to convert the analog signal to a digital format. After that, Premiere Pro will be able to work with the material.

 

[felixc]

Why do you want Premiere to control the capture? Didn't you get utilities with your Adaptec card to capture from the camera into MPG files? Then you can use these files directly from Premiere. I am sure that Premiere can open mpg files. This how I work with Studio9. Even if I can capture directly from a card within Studio9, I prefer a little utility to do the capture, as it uses less system resources and reduces the odds of getting dropped frames.

As electronicsfreak says, if you have s-video available at the camera, use it, the difference is worthwhile.

 

[kiddpete]

You want Premiere to do the capture so that it is not working with compressed files from the get go. It will produce a much higher quality video if it's not handicapped by mpeg files. Software is software. If one will drop frames, the odds are that the other will also. Actually, capturing without converting to mpeg is LESS likely to drop frames. Rendering to mpeg is a VERY intensive load on the CPU. Capturing in something like AVI is not.

 

[felixc]

The external boxes that capture throught the USB port are usually integrating a hardware MPEG encoder, to reduce the burden on the system. The bandwidth required is in the range of 5Mbits per second. Usually no problem for most systems.

Raw video is 28MBytes per second. Not much data to process, but quite a huge requirement for the I/O subsystem, if you add the protocols and the software layers involved in I/O transfers. Software, again. I would not bet on USB2.0 to do that, as it is not a real synchronous bus, and its software stack is a monster. Firewire is designed for isochronous from the start. So yes Firewire is the way to go, with digital video.

Does Premiere support capture from a card like the All-In-Wonder?

 

[kiddpete]

I don't know if Premiere will capture from an AIW, but, if not, the AIW itself can do the capture. The AIW mpeg is not too bad, but has some sound/video synch problems. Its AVI is terrible which I do not understand.

Sony Vegas, which I use at home, can capture from the AIW card. That makes me think that Premiere Pro can probably do the same.

 

[felixc]

I guess it depends on which AIW model is used. I have an AIW9600XT. Using the S-video from my once hi-tech Hi-8 camcorder, I never had any problem of syncing video and sound. I use the ATI utilities to capture the video, this is what I was referring above. Never got a dropped frame or sync problem. I did get some when I was capturing directly from Studio9.

When capturing in mpeg-2 the video quality is as good as the max that I can get from a Hi-8 tape and an S-video interface. I clearly see the difference with the composite input, and I also see the difference between what I recorded on 8mm tape and the Hi-8 ones.

I never tried to capture in AVI. I'll give it a try.

 

[kiddpete]

I have an AIW 9700. For some reason, if the ATI software plays back the recording, you don't see any synch problems between video and audio. However, if I pull the same file into Vegas, the synch problem is present.

I don't go through the AIW anymore except for broadcast TV. VHS goes to the computer by using a Sony digital camera to convert the data to firewire digital. Vegas captures this from the firewire port. I also go through an HP dc5000 if I want a direct conversion to DVD.

 

[felixc]

You can do this with the Sony camera? Wow, this is clever!

 

[kiddpete]

Yes, just make sure there is no tape in the camera, and it will do the conversion. I use a DCR-TRV17, but I think newer cameras also support this operation. It's called pass thru. I connect a super vhs vcr to the camera through the S-video and audio ports. The connection from the camera to the computer is firewire.