Adobe Premiere / Analogue Capture

[b4u]

Hi,

I'm in the process of learning how to work with Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5, and I'm just liking what I see.

I'm going to import to pc my DV films made with my sony camera, and so I would like to ask a few questions:

I read somewhere that capture software is very important. That is, if I use a crappy software, I'll not only loose some frames in the import process, but also the compression will not be as good, and so I'll loose quality on the final video. So using Adobe Premiere, which I believe it's one of the best softwares around (correct me if I'm wrong), I will get the best quality a software can get me. Right?

Also, Adobe Premiere doesn't capture analogue video. I have an ATI 9600 Pro with vivo, and a VCR connected on it. The ATI comes bundled with Cyberlink Power Director Pro 2.5, which captures fine in analogue, but as I'm not sure if I get the best quality I can with that software, do you recommend any other software for analogue import? Money is not a problem ... free or payed software count ... just want the best quality around.

One more thing ... going for analogue input, SVideo vs Composite ... which one is the best?

Thank you.

 

[b4u]

* morning bump *

 

[Mitzi]

Can't comment on most of the points about analogue video but I use Premier Pro to capture my DV videos directly from the digital camcorder via firewire. Premier captures the entire tape (1 hour long) without dropping a single frame and the quality is fine as far as I can tell. Because Premier captures directly to AVI files (which are not compressed) you don't need to worry about the quality of compression used. In fact compression only comes into play when exporting your movie onto DVD or whatever (which I use Adobe Encore for).

 

[b4u]

Originally posted by: Mitzi
Can't comment on most of the points about analogue video but I use Premier Pro to capture my DV videos directly from the digital camcorder via firewire. Premier captures the entire tape (1 hour long) without dropping a single frame and the quality is fine as far as I can tell. Because Premier captures directly to AVI files (which are not compressed) you don't need to worry about the quality of compression used. In fact compression only comes into play when exporting your movie onto DVD or whatever (which I use Adobe Encore for).

Thanks for the reply, that's exactly what I wanted ... capture DV without droping frames and with no-compression full-quality video.

Can I ask you something else: I have an mpeg2 compressed video, with about 200mb. I want to include it in my adobe premiere project, but I'm having a problem ... when I Import the file, it takes so much time doing the job that I suspect my system freezes ... I mean, I don't see any HD activity, and I can stay 15 minutes staring at the monitor ... task manager says "Not Responding" ... have you tried it yet? Is it normal to take so much time, or is it probably a system crash?

One more question: So you capture video from DV, and use adobe encore to create the DVD? Does encore have options to create DVD menus, with proper background art, and subtitles? I ask this because many people talks about other softwares like DVD Menu Studio and DVD Maestro.

I'll check about encore, but any info about real personal opinions would be of great help.


Thank you

 

[Mitzi]

Can I ask you something else: I have an mpeg2 compressed video, with about 200mb. I want to include it in my adobe premiere project, but I'm having a problem ... when I Import the file, it takes so much time doing the job that I suspect my system freezes ... I mean, I don't see any HD activity, and I can stay 15 minutes staring at the monitor ... task manager says "Not Responding" ... have you tried it yet? Is it normal to take so much time, or is it probably a system crash?

I've never actually tried to import an MPEG2 video into a Premier Project, all my source files are AVIs though I suspect that you should be able to do it without problems, perhaps its taking a long time because its conforming the video to the correct format. I would suggest leaving it for a while and see how it goes. FWIW, it takes about 10 minutes on my PC to import and conform a 13Gb (1 hour long DV video) AVI file into a PAL video project.

One more question: So you capture video from DV, and use adobe encore to create the DVD? Does encore have options to create DVD menus, with proper background art, and subtitles? I ask this because many people talks about other softwares like DVD Menu Studio and DVD Maestro.

Yes I create and edit my video in Premier. Export to AVI. Import the AVI into Encore (Encore automatically chooses the best settings and encodes the video to MPEG and adjusts the quality accordingly). You can then use predefined menus or create your own in PhotoShop. The results are pretty damn impressive actually. You can download some excellent tutorials from the Adobe Encore Forum.

Have fun

 

[warcrow]

Just so you know, DV is usually imported RAW from the camera's tape. So, in other words....there is a straight stream of the binary data straight to your HDD. Even Studio 8/9, a $60 video editor does this well. I use to use it.

 

[b4u]

Thanks for the replies so far.

I have many questions, so I'll start with just one ... eheh, they'll never end, now do they

I capture a movie, using Cyberlink PowerDVD 2.5 which came with my ATI 9600 Pro VIVO card. The source is a VCR (VHS) input, connected through S-Video, and cyberlink captures a mpeg2 movie.

Now I do a similar capture using VirtualDub, and it captures an avi file.

Then I use GSpot Analyser to get info about the 2 movies. The mpeg2 says it's interlaced, and the avi one doesn't say nothing (not interlaced nor progressive). Why is that?

Shouldn't avi also be in two flavors? Interlaced or Progressive? Or does int/prog only applies when converting to a final movie format like mpeg2 for dvd?

 

[duragezic]

I think Premiere just has problems with editing mpeg2. I would capture in mpeg1 or straight to divx avi. I used the ATI capture program when I had my original Radeon VIVO. S-video is better quality than the rca plugs, but if it's coming from a VCR it might not make a difference. Why can't you just hook your video camera up directly? I used to just hook up a Sony camcorder to the component in on my Radeon and use the ATI software to record, usually in mpeg1 or divx avi. If you got a lot of hard drive space then just make your original recordings as high of quality as possible (lossless codec w/ not too much compresson, I used huffyuv years ago, not sure what there is now) and do the editing then output to divx probably.

Basically, if you want some good quality recordings prepare to spend a lot of time trying different settings and codecs... it took me a long time to figure out everything but was worth it in the end.


edit: I dug up some old PMs I had with a guy here on the forums helping me with capturing a couple years ago....

After much trial and error I ended up doing:
"But I ended up capturing at 720x480, 15mbps, 15mb (max) motion estimation, I frames only MPEG1, then using VirtualDub to convert to 720x480, 6000kbps divx low motion. The file sizes are about 45mb/minute, and about 40% of the mpeg1 files."

This however, is from a Sony Hi8 camera which is 400 lines, so those settings might not work for you, but it was about the best I could do back then.

 

[b4u]

I have about 2 types of media to capture:


1st: I have some VHS tapes, from recent ecography (sp?) and old home made movies.

Right now, I'm thinking the best option to be (until any further testing/info changes it for the better):
Capture with VirtualDub, at 720x576, 25 frames per second, straight to avi file. I'll then import into Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5, and do some cutting, even some effects added. Then output the result to a 720x576 mpeg2 file, ready for DVDing.

Tests made, results achieved:

- It apparently seems that capturing at 15 fps will ignore frames, and so drop quality, capturing at 25 fps will apparently retain all frames, and so quality will be great, and capturing at 50 fps (testing it) will give me info about lost frames (ok, so I'm asking for more frames than media can give me), but the resulting quality feels like when capturing at 15 fps (image transitions through fade will appear more like slideshow, as opposed to the smooth fade transition made with 25 fps capture). Why?

- Also, capturing at 720x576 appears to capture all info from media, and even a bit more ... I think I'm getting a bar with some black pixels at the right of the movie. Uhm, does it means my aspect ratio is not as stored on original media?


2nd: I have a new Sony HC-85E, with some recent home movies.

Right now, I'm thinking the best option to be (until any further testing/info changes it for the better):
Connect to a firewire port on my PC, then capture as a 720x576 avi file, using Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5. As above, I'll do some cutting, even some effects added. Then output the result to a 720x576 mpeg2 file, ready for DVDing.

Tests made, results achieved:

- Not many tests made, I just tried to capture from sony camera, not playing from tape, but directly from what camera is capturing. All seemed correct, do you know of something I might check? Any test I should make?



Additional questions:

Question1: Capture in AVI will give me a HUGE file, but will I store MAX QUALITY?

Question2: After burning to DVD (mpeg2), if I recapture from the DVD will I retain the same quality before I convert to DVD, or will I loose some info? (That is, will DVD drop any quality?)

 

[Mitzi]

Right now, I'm thinking the best option to be (until any further testing/info changes it for the better):
Capture with VirtualDub, at 720x576, 25 frames per second, straight to avi file. I'll then import into Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5, and do some cutting, even some effects added. Then output the result to a 720x576 mpeg2 file, ready for DVDing.

Sounds fine though I don't see why you can't capture directly from Premier but that doesn't matter.

It apparently seems that capturing at 15 fps will ignore frames, and so drop quality, capturing at 25 fps will apparently retain all frames, and so quality will be great, and capturing at 50 fps (testing it) will give me info about lost frames (ok, so I'm asking for more frames than media can give me), but the resulting quality feels like when capturing at 15 fps (image transitions through fade will appear more like slideshow, as opposed to the smooth fade transition made with 25 fps capture). Why?

Also, capturing at 720x576 appears to capture all info from media, and even a bit more ... I think I'm getting a bar with some black pixels at the right of the movie. Uhm, does it means my aspect ratio is not as stored on original media?

The question here is do you use NTSC (America) or PAL (Europe)? You see if you are using NTSC which I think you will be you should be capturing 720x480 at a frame rate of 29.97. If you are using PAL you should be capturing 720x576 at a frame rate of 25.

In all honesty if you capture directly from Premier you can set this up when you initially create the project.

- Not many tests made, I just tried to capture from sony camera, not playing from tape, but directly from what camera is capturing. All seemed correct, do you know of something I might check? Any test I should make?

Capture some shortish test clips, do some editing, burn the end result to DVD and test this DVD in your standalone DVD player.

Question1: Capture in AVI will give me a HUGE file, but will I store MAX QUALITY?

AVI is lossless so yes..hence the huge files created but they should be as perfect as they possibly could be.

Question2: After burning to DVD (mpeg2), if I recapture from the DVD will I retain the same quality before I convert to DVD, or will I loose some info? (That is, will DVD drop any quality?)

[/quote]

The conversion to AVI-> MPEG2 is lossy so yes you will loose quality. For what its worth I've burnt over 3 hours of DV video onto a 4.3Gb DVD disc and the quality is as good as watching the video directly from the DV tapes.

 

[b4u]

Thanks for the aswers given, they're helping me allot

I'm capturing with VirtualDub, because Adobe Premiere doesn't capture from analogue sources, only DV sources. I'm connecting a VCR through a ATI 9600 Pro VIVO card (VHS PAL format).

There is something that bothers me ... I would like to import all my VHS and DV movies to PC, then burn them to a digital format, that can survive for a loong time. Everyone does.

The thing is, in a perfect world, I would run the tape once, capture to my PC and never need to access the tape anymore ... but as I burn to a DVD, I'll loose some quality ... and even more, if I add some effects to my movie, I may want to change it again, latter in the future ... but as I see, after capturing a movie into a 13Gb film, that file becomes my "digital original" movie, and I could access it for many many years ... but it seems impractical to store many Gb files to prosperity ... how do people do it?

I mean, I have a 120Gb HD, but after saving a few 4 hour movies, I can fill up my HD space ... of course I will burn them to DVD, but like everyone, I would like to preserve the original source (digital source that is, the AVI files), as it is THE digital source, with full quality ... if I for example, would like to make a shorter version of a home movie, I would prefer to access the source (again), for some editing (not editing the source itself, but cutting some slices and adding some effects to the final movie, since the source is always untouchable).


(Well, I gess I wrote the same thing on both paragraphs, in other words eheh)

 

[Mitzi]

I have about 160Gb dedicated to keeping work in progress AVI files. Once you've edited the source and burnt to DVD as long as you don't want to re-edit the original again in the future the burnt DVD becomes the new 'master' copy which you can always run 1:1 copies off in the future. If you want to keep hours and hours of uncompressed video stored on your machine just in case you may wish to re-edit it time and time again well, there's very little else you can do except buy a couple of large hard drives

 

[b4u]

Thank you for all your answers, they showed me which direction to point to ...

I'll do some testing sometime in the near future, and if you don't mind, it's possible that I'll just have some more questions for you


And now for something off-topic:

For many years I have wished to learn Italian, I will be enrolling on a beginner language course in September at a local community College.

So are you learning italian? Is it an easy task, or a difficult one? I'm also interested in learning that language, but I'll wait for some more years before give it a try ... I'm Portuguese, so it could be a less difficult task for me ...


Thank you.

 

[JonB]

Best option I've tried lately to capture analog video is to connect the source VHS or Hi8 or whatever into the S-Video or Composite (S-Video is always the best choice when available) into the side of my MiniDV camcorder. My Camcorder (Panasonic) will digitise the input into 720x480 DV and send it right over the firewire to my hard drive. I know many Sony's (MiniDV and Digital 8) will do it also.

As far as putting an Mpeg2 file onto the Premiere Pro timeline, you are then forcing PPro to transcode/render the entire file into DV format. That can take a lot of time.

 

[MScrip]

I also recommend the analog pass-through route when capturing VHS. I can hook a VHS VCR into my Panasonic DV camcorder, and it passes the analog right through my camcorder into Firewire and into my program of choice. It's a whole lot easier than using a separate program for capturing analog... conversions, whatever.

In terms of quality using a cheap program, I've been editing with Pinnacle Studio 8 for about 2 years. DV from my camcorder looks great, it captures bit for bit through Firewire, and after I edit it, it makes beautiful DVDs. Not bad for a $99 program. I'm using a P4 1.5, with regular IDE hard drives, and no dropped frames. Not exactly cutting edge hardware, but it works great!

I need to invest in some better software, but I'm not sure I'm ready for full-blown Premiere/Encore. I need more capability, but not for $1000.

Adobe recently introduced Premiere Elements, which takes the Premiere interface, and puts it in a consumer $99 package. The best features it adds are multiple tracks of video and audio, picture in picture, and the ability to preview your work on a real TV... something that consumer software hasn't been able to do. I downloaded the trial of Premiere Elements, but the trial won't let you burn DVDs. So, after I play with it some more, I'll probably jump in and buy it.

 

[JonB]

MScrip, I have refused to buy Adobe Encore. Too expensive. I output my finished Premiere timeline in DVD/Mpeg format and then use DVD-Lab to author my DVDs. It is very very full featured. All the other programs I've done DVD authoring with seemed too restrictive, but DVD-Lab is probably too unstructured. You can do just about anything but it takes some experimentation.

ps, DVD-Lab really wants your files in "elemental" streams, meaning that the Video and Audio are separate. I had been creating an "m2v" file and a "wav" file, but recently discovered that I can also output the audio in "mp2" compressed format and it saves a huge amount of space. Premiere will do AC3 Dolby compression if you care to spend the $250 US to buy the Codec. I'll stick with Mpeg2 audio for now. I don't need 5.1 channels of audio for my home movies.

 

[MScrip]

Yeah... Encore seems like a lot of money just for DVD authoring. In fact, the whole Adobe Video Collection is expensive.

If I wanted the Adobe package, I'd certainly consider the Matrox RT.X10 package. It's a realtime PCI card, plus it includes Premiere, Encore and Audition. So, for just a little more than the cost of the Adobe software alone, you'd get a realtime accelerator card too!

I couldn't see paying all that money for software only.

Matrox RT.X10