Adobe Premiere Elements is less than $99.

The USB2.0 input may only be for still photos.
Sony cameras can send MPEG1 or MPEG2 over USB, but it's difficult to edit that and the quality is lower. I dont think Panasonic does that.

Probably the best thing to do is to get a PCMCIA (something like that) firewire card for the laptop. Should be under $40USD online (pricewatch.com, newegg.com, pricegrabber, etc.).

Adobe Media Encoder Tutorial?
 

Can anyone direct me to a decent tutorial on the Adobe Media Encoder? I always seem to struggle with producting decent output for web distribution. I use the encoder in FCP and 2 minutes of HD video is about 20MB. In AME, it's always 100+ MB.

What settings are you using? Did you try one of the Windows Media HD presets?

By the way, if you install the free QuickTime 7 player for Windows, you can export to H.264. (Be careful when installing QuickTime 7, though, as I'm still not sure if all programs will function okay with it. It would be prudent to set a System Restore point before installing it, should you try that.)

Yes I am using the QT7 Pro product. I have tried a number of different presets...

I don't have any HD video handy that I could use to experiment myself, but I would think you should be able to get results similar to what you get out of Final Cut Pro.

Are you trying to encode from HD to HD? Or do you want to go from HD resolution to something smaller (i.e., 320x240)?

At the risk of sounding redundant, did you try one of the Windows Media 9 presets? That would be the quickest and easiest way to get a streaming video that is high quality with the smallest file size. If you tried only the QuickTime presets, then that would be your problem. The default QuickTime presets in the Adobe Media Encoder are not good.

The other option would be to note the settings that the Final Cut Pro compressor uses when exporting a QuickTime file, and then use the same settings in the Adobe Media Encoder to export a QuickTime file. My guess is that when exporting from FCP the compressor might be using the H.264 codec. You can use this codec when exporting from Premiere Pro, since you have QuickTime 7 installed (H.264 will be listed as one of the codec choices when you choose QuickTime as the export format in the Adobe Media Encoder).

You will have to experiment with the bit rate in Adobe Media Encoder, as when encoding to QuickTime it is very inaccurate. You have to set it much lower than the readout would indicate. I'm afraid you will just have to find the bit rate you want by trial and error (encode a QuickTime file, open it in QuickTime and go to Window>Show Movie Info to see the actual encoded bit rate.) Note that the bit rate is displayed in this window is in kilobytes (KB), not kilobits (kb). The bit rate slider in Adobe Media Encoder may say that the QuickTime file's bit rate is 300Kb/s when in reality it is 2400kb/s (3040kb/s with audio), a true example from a test I just performed.

you can pick up firewire cards for $12 or less, try www.computergeeks.com, look for a green lite special.

Great! Thanks a lot guys.

SAVE ME! o.O
 

Sorry for the dramatical thread name, but I would really like some help =)

I recently made the wonderful choice of purchasing an XL2, PAL version (I live in Europe). I film in 16:9, 25progressive scan, and with a custom preset in the camera. It looks fantastic =)

However, my huge problem right now is something as simple, yet crucial, as the capturing of the DV material from the band in the camera!

I have a pinnacle .. something... card for DV capture. I connect the camera to the cpu and start capturing in Premiere. Obviously I have the project settings set to DV PAL - widescreen 48 khz.... but after a few seconds (sometimes more than a few seconds) it stops capturing and it says "unknown recorder error". I tried to put the preview off, and it worked a bit longer at first, but still does the same thing in the end. VERY frustrating.

I tried to capture in ... well... just the standard windows movie maker, really. It worked, but once I imported the video file to Premiere, it shrunk. Or didn't work at all. What I mean by "shrunk" is that originally the length of the clip was something like 20 minutes, but premiere only played 2.40 minutes or something like that... couldnt get the rest. It even claimed that the clip wasnt longer than that. It worked perfectly to just click the file and play it though, so why won't it work in Premiere? Also, It seemed I could capture smaller segments of the video material, in moviemaker, and then it worked in Premiere all of a sudden... Weird!

I noticed that in the capture screen, I couldn't specify the camera, although there were a few options, that mentioned several cameras... the closest I could get was XL1S, but XL2 wasnt to be found...

Is there perhaps another capture program that I can use? Is it a setting problem? Is it a camera setting problem?

I would adore anyone who could help me solve this =)

Thanks in advance! Bah, thanks anyway for this lovely community =)

/ Best regards


Andreas Rylander

Vovin Studios

I'm not that familier with the XL, but if it has any auto detect settings on it turn them off. That's what the problem was with my Z1.

Andreas, if your computer has a standard firewire port, try capturing through that rather than your Pinnacle. If it works then, you'll at least know it is an issue with the Pinnacle card. Otherwise, you'll have to give the details of your Pinnacle set up and someone who uses the same card may be able to help.

Since you're also having problems with capture using Windows Movie Maker, I doubt it is a Premiere problem. But just in case, what version of Premiere are you using? Version 6.5 and earlier were pretty flakey for me, but the PPro capture window has worked well. True that the XL2 is not listed in the Device Control Options dialog, but you can just pick a generic Canon option and it should work ok, at least in PPro. Really doesn't matter.

Let us know how it goes.

Well, actually no - I dont have problems capturing using movie maker. The problem comes when I import that video file into Premiere. I am perfectly capable of capturing with moviemaker, but its using that file in premiere that presents the problem; it gets shortened down in length, if even working at all.

Hi Andreas,

I had a similar problem to you. in the fact that when I captured material with premiere or another program, when I imported it in the video length was around 2mins 30secs or so. This got my so fustrated. I think that there is a thread about it somewhere in the DVinfo vaults, try the search.

In the end, in order to completely rectify the situation I had to re-install Premiere, if my memory serves me right. .. Now where is that thread...

I was using Premiere 6.5 on a Pinnacle DV500 capture card I beleive at the time.

Can you please clarify what version etc of software you are using a long with what hardware you have?

Cheers,

Finally, a beam of light =)

It seems you and I share the same hardware setup as far as the capture card goes... I do have a pinnacle card with a standard port for DV, though i dont remember if it was called 500 or not, but its probably the same card. It usually works well, but apparently not with premiere. I have Premiere Pro 1.5 - but if you say reinstalling it will solve the issue, then I certainly will try it =)

Thanks =)

But please - if anyone has further ideas or comments, do not hesitate to share them =)

Here's the thread with my problem over 2 years ago...

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=12880

Good luck,