PPro 2.0/Matrox RTX100 Analogue AVI Capture Issue

[Brian Mackenziie]

Hi guys

I have just installed the Premiere Pro 2.0 Tryout on my Matrox RTX100 system (P4 3Ghz, Windows XP Pro SP2, 2Gb RAM, 250Gb SATA RAID-0 plus other IDE) and am having problems with capturing in Matrox AVI format.

I have previously worked with both Premiere 6.5 and Premiere Pro 1.5 on this system without too many problems, other than for the fact that the RTX100 driver would occassionally cause the machine to hang when first booted. This was a minor issue as it happened perhaps once in every 10 boots and was resolved by rebooting the machine. It was irritating enough however that I decided to set up dual boot and move Premiere Pro and Matrox to a new copy of Windows XP, booting from another hard disk.

As I was installing from scratch I decided to give Premiere Pro 2.0 and Matrox XTools 6153 a workout, and have been very pleased with the result, bar the anomally I describe below.

All worked well - both partitions boot as intended, the original partition loads more quickly and without ever hanging, and the new partition is clean except for Premiere Pro, Matrox XTools 6153, Nero 7, Acronis TrueImage (for ghosting) and the soundcard drivers (Createive SB Audigy - note I did not load any of the Audigy software - just the drivers to enable the devices in Device Manager to operate correctly).

Everything works fine - except...

Video capturing an analogue source which is being fed into the RTX100 via the breakaway box Composite feeds sockets (from a VCR) works perfectly for durations up to around 20 minutes. If I allow it to run for longer, when I come to hit Stop Recording, control never comes back to me - the Capture module appears to crash, I have to use Task Manager to kill PPro and the AVI file containing the capture is unreadable thereafter. This happens each and every time where the capture duration exceeds about 20 minutes, yet up to the point where I click on Stop, everything appears to be working (I can see the capture file size increasing as one would expect - but as soon as I click Stop, the capture module stops responding).

Where the capture duration is less than about 20 mins, clicking Stop gives me the dialogue box requesting the file name to be applied to the clip, as expected.

I am not an expert with PPro but nor am I a novice, having used the previous versions I referred to above. I am a professional software deveoper by trade so I know my way around PCs too, but am at a loss to know what is causing this and hoped someone may be able to make some suggestions.

As per tracking any software issues I have done some testing to try and eliminate possibibilites and the following may be of use in helping provide a diagnosis.

This only happens when the captured video format is set to "Matrox AVI" (which, with AVI being the native format for working on in Premiere Pro without requiring timeline rendering). If I set the format to "Matrox M2V" then the capture works perfectly.

I've tried changing the settings for the scratch disk locations although I don't think this is the problem - I have a very fast system with the RAID-0 SATA drives (2x120Gb approx) used for video editing. I sincerely don't believe disk performance is the reason for this). Changing the video and audio capture locations to different disks made no differece.

I have also used a freeware video capture program, as well as Microsoft Movie Maker 2.1, to capture clips in excess of an hour, without problem.

My problem appears to be specifically related to Premiere Pro capturing in Matrox AVI format, where the clip duration exceeds approximately 20 minutes.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what may be causing this? Failing that, could anyone recommened an alternative to Premiere Pro for capturing analogue video via the Matrox RTX100 card in AVI format which I would then be able to import directly into Premiere Pro for editing? I have no objection to using another tool to capture the clips providing the format is compatible with PPro.

I hope someone can shed some light on this - it is (for me) spoiling what I otherwise think is an excellent product.

Many thanks in advance

Brian Mackenzie

[Ed Smith]

Hi Brian,

Matrox make it clear that this is a preview release of the driver. So expect a few bugs to begin with.

i would however expect it to create a Matrox AVI file through AV inputs over 20mins duration. Have you contacted Matrox about it?

The only thing I can think of as a work around would be: If you have a camera which has analogue pass-thru (AV in) on a DV camera/ deck. Then you can always hook the Analogue inputs to the camera and then capture via firewire - make sure there is no tape in the device. (You won't have deck control but it should work).

Other than that maybe a re-install of X-tools just to eliminate any installation problems.

Cheers,

[Brian Mackenziie]

Thanks for the ideas Ed. I tried doing a plain "reinstall" of XTools but the installer detects the previous version and insists that the old version be removed first. I tried and uninstall and get an error message along the lines that the uninstaller cannot find some necessary files! This suggests that the original installation didn't go as smoothly as I'd thought.

I took Ghost images of the various stages of build of this installation: post-Win XP, post-XP SP2, post sound drivers, etc, etc, so it's quite easy to revert to a previous stage. I'll go back to pre-Premiere Pro/Matrox XTools and try installing it again.

A couple of questions - will XTools 6122 work at all with PPro 2.0 or is it simply incompatible?

The XTools utility appears only to support DVCam capture and not analogue capture - is that correct? What other apps could i try Matrox AVI capture through - last night I installed Premiere Elements 2.0, Sony Vegas 6c and Pinnacle Studio Plus 10 in the hope of find an alternative to Premiere Pro just to assess the capture process, but not one of these seemed to support the RTX100 straight out of the box - the closest was Pinnacle Studio which did offer the Matrox card as a capture device but no video/audio was seen. The others didn't even seem to spot the Matrox card.

If I could find some other app that permits capture direct via the Matrox card in uncompressed AVI quality of similar standard to that of Premiere Pro, which can then be imported directly into PPro and does not require subsequent rendering of the timeline I'd be happy.

I take your point re: analogue pass through from the video camera but this is unfortunately not an option in my case.

Thanks again for you comments - if you have any thoughts on the above points I'd be pleased to hear them.

Cheers,

Brian

[Ed Smith]

Hi Brian,

X.tools 6153 will only work with Premiere Pro 2. No other previous X.tools versions will work with PP2.

I am not aware of any software that will allow you to capture from the Analogue inputs of the RTX 100, other than premiere.

your only other option would be to buy a DV bridge (analogue to DV convertor). However I would first get X.tools working etc.

Cheers,

[Brian Mackenziie]

Thanks for all your help with this Ed - unfortunately still no joy after reverting to an OS only build and re-installing Premiere Pro 2 from different media, and reinstalling Matrox XTools 6153.

Exactly the same symptoms - it appears to be capturing merilly as the captured file size continues to grow. As soon as I hit Stop the capture screen freezes (as it does normally anyway - momentarily) but control never comes back.

Works perfectly if I set the capture format to be M2V rather than AVI.

The machine is almost a clean build - all that's installed is WinXP Pro SP2 + updates deemed essential from Windows Update, Nero 7 (full suite), the sound drivers only for my Audigy sound card (none of the other associated software or Media Centre, etc) and finally Acronis TrueImage for taking the ghost images of the various states of installation.

There is no antivirus/antispyware installed on this installation at the moment.

I like PPro 2.0 - it "feels" more stable than PPro 1.5 which I also have access to. I may flip back to a clean build and install PPro 1.5 just to prove that works before moving on looking for a reason.

Do you think the problem most likely lies with the Matrox XTools software rather than the Adobe PPro software? I may drop Matrox a line and see if they have any ideas.

Thanks once again for all your help. If I come up with a solution I'll post back here.

Cheers

Brian

[Brian Mackenziie]

I found others with the same problem - which appears to be XTools 6153 related. See:
http://forum.matrox.com/rtx100/viewt...=102248#102248

(Matrox RT.X100 User Forums=>Preview Release Adobe Production Studio=> Problems Capturing Analog Video With 6153)

[Ed Smith]

OK. So it looks like its a matrox problem. As I mentioned this is a preview release, so you would expect a few nasties to appear. I hope Matrox will sort the problem soon and release a final candidate.

Keep us posted,