Please save the rest of my hair going grey!

[Bruce Pelley]

Hi all,

I'm faced with the task (or should I say more accurately a challenge,a personal quest) to successfully export a finished AP 6.5 project (or the same thing saved as a single large avi file and then reimported back into the timeline) direct from Adobe Premiere's timeline back to a mini dv tape for archival purposes.Version being utilized is 6.5.My goal and reasons for doing so are twofold:

a)To free hard drive space as it's very limited.
b)To have the program backed-up at full,uncompressed quality!I'm not willing to settle for compressed video on dvd & that's all after so much hard work.

I don't understand the results in the slightest.After following the instructions/help manual for exporting to tape to the letter what I get is this:

I'll play the recorded GL-2 tape back....

1)I get what I should be seeing for a couple of seconds then....
2)It flickers/flashes off (i.e you see nothing but plain blue screen)for the next few seconds then....
3)It's back to normal/what you'd be expecting to see upon playback...
4)Then it flickers/flashes off reverting once again to the blue screen and so forth and so on in an endless cycle!!

Net result is no progress and considerable frustration.

What am I doing wrong?This is being done manually without automated dv/program controls.

Is there someway the GL-2 is supposed to be set-up or prepared?

Any of you gents done this and what's the "secret" please?

If not with Premiere,is there another program/app that will send an avi back to the GL-2 at full quality?

Most perplexed!

Thanks in advance.
Bruce

[Chris Barcellos]

Okay, first question is what is it you are actually recording from the computer to the camera. I assume it is a project you worked on. But what does it consist of. Is there a possibility that there is music on there that has some sort of copy protection. I have had problems sometimes recording back to the camera. I will actually get a message that the camera won't record a particular project. Are you monitoring the camera lcd when you are doing the record back ? I notice this happens occasionally when I added music from CD. It doesn't always happen though, so I can't say that it for sure.

If you are using some music from CD, try taking the music off the timeline, and see if you can record to the camera at that point.

Other problems could be a bad firewire cable, or a problem with the cameras firewire port.

[Tim Johnson]

I haven't had this problem before with the gl2, but to be honest, it sounds more like a dirty head to me! Use a cleaning casette and redo it.

[Bruce Pelley]

OK,

The firewire cable & connections to the ports are just fine.I just cleaned my heads.No change.I capture on a regular basis with no problems except for the occasional dropped frame or two when importing long clips.

Chris:

Yes,what I'm recording to the camcorder is indeed a project.The content is a church service with I believe is non copyrighted audio I'm using for the intro soundtrack.There are no warning messages of any kind when attempting to record.I'm monitoring the material in realtime on the LCD screen.

All respondents.................

I suspect there is maybe a timecode problem or some setting I'm missing on Adobe?Would anybody be willing to share the exact combination of Premiere settings they use to achieve a sucessfull export?I'll try to give more details

1)When I start recording,initially I see the project fine on the GL-2's LCD monitor.
2)Then it disappears and I see the tape/TV screen icon on a blue field.
What's really wierd is that the blue field shifts-moves up and down in the LCD flip out displaywhile in the process of recording!!Go figure!

Upon playback:The screen continiously cycles between the video,the plain blue screen and the tape icon on a blue background screen.It's like the brain is confused on just what to display.I wish I had a clip of this phenomenon I could post here,maybe it would help.

Please let's keep this dialogue going and get this solved.

Thanks.

Bruce

[Enrique Galvis]

I am assuming that Premiere export settings are pretty much standard already if you were able to capture and then edit. Would be hard to change any settings in premiere 6.x without you getting notification that you would lose all your preview files if that had happened.
If you can create a new project and capture a few minutes then only add one dissolve transition to the time line and then export it back into the GL2 see if the same happens. Look for a failure at the transition point.
If the capture was ok but the exported clip is messed up then the culprit could possibly be the camera itself.
The only time I have ever seen a blue screen on the LCD is when there is no signal coming into the camera. Firewire ports are bi-directional and the only diferent circuitry I can think of is in the camera itself since you are bringing in data to the recording head from a source other than the CCD's.
The firewire cable has both xmit and receive lines and if the computer is reading the tape, stopping and starting it as needed then he cable is fine.
Let me know how it goes when you try this.

[Chris Barcellos]

Originally Posted by Bruce Pelley

OK,

Chris:

Yes,what I'm recording to the camcorder is indeed a project.The content is a church service with I believe is non copyrighted audio I'm using for the intro soundtrack.There are no warning messages of any kind when attempting to record.I'm monitoring the material in realtime on the LCD screen.

Bruce

As far as the non copyrighted material is concerned, I even had that problem with music from a CD my brother and his wife produced. This was about the time Sony had begun sticking some digital rights management stuff on their CD, and I suspected some sort of process had been put on my system to block use of stuff I had a right to use. I don't think my brother used any kind of copy protection, but I still had the problem on occasion. All that aside, your description of what's happening seems different from mine.

But I did do a work around, and you could try it an see. If it is an audio track issue, try rendering the audio separately Premiere to a wave file.

Then render the video separate to new .avi file. Then slap the two together and try to render out to tape.

By the way, I assume you are rendering the entire project before you try to send to tape in the first place, and that you attempt the tape transfer after the render. Sorry if this seems like an obvious suggestion, but I can't figure what is going on.

[Chris Barcellos]

New Note: I am now into Premiere Pro 2.0 and not experiencing problems like this.

This could also be a program issue, and maybe a reinstall of 6.5 would handle the problem.\

[Joe Barker]

It could be the time code settings,I had a similar problem with Premier Pro when I exported a short film back to tape.For some reason the time code got corrupted.

[Jean-Francois Robichaud]

Originally Posted by Chris Barcellos

If it is an audio track issue, try rendering the audio separately Premiere to a wave file.

Then render the video separate to new .avi file. Then slap the two together and try to render out to tape.

This is a good suggestion. Whenever I've had problems outputting in the past, I would export the movie to a DV-AVI, then put that clip in a timeline and export it to tape. You are using the Export to Tape option, and not just playing back the timeline?

If the problem still occurs, it could be a driver or hardware issue. What kind of firewire port do you have? Integrated on the motherboard or a PCI card?

I've had problems with a firewire cable in the past. The connector was flimsy, so it would work ok on capture, but the output was unstable. Trying another camcorder might be a good idea if you have access to one.

[Bruce Pelley]

Right now I am still most perplexed!!!!!!!!

First of all,thanks so much for all of the input,suggestions and advice to date.

For the record,I have several GL-2's,the most recent of which was bought in February.All of them failed to export any clips or avi's to tape with or without sound or of any length whatsoever!

Have any of you seen the blue LCD screen jump,move or jerk up and down when everything is hooked up while trying to export?Weird!Everytime the result is the quick flash/cycle routine.

1)How is the GL-2 set-up and operated in conjunction with Premiere?

When I use the export to tape command with any of my GL-2's they go “crazy”, my computer locks-up, the monitor loses the picture & fails to record the video from the PC. It could be a time code or Premiere setting problem, the source of which is a complete mystery to me and very frustrating!! I'd really like to hear from a fellow GL-2 owner in great detail how he or she was successfull so I can try to ascertain where I'm going wrong. Would anybody be so kind to list in detail step by step how this process works including the settings in Premiere so I can move on in my early video editing life and gets things accomplished instead of scratching my head in wonderment?Yes,I read the manual but obviously due to the nature of this request/plea I must have missed something vital. Also.....In case Pro,ultimately won't work,is there a freeware/shareware/low cost solution that will simply & easily export an AVI file to the GL-2 with no messing or fussing around? All recommendations and suggestions welcome.

Sorry,unfortunately in this issue I need to be led by the hand here as I've never done it before. Up to now it's all been capturing only!

More to come.Please,let's keep the dialogue flowing.............I'm on a quest.

Many thanks in advance,
Bruce

[Enrique Galvis]

OK Bruce at this point I can think only of this: Capturing is a plain data transfer. Export is not since there is a lot of CPU work dealing with time line calculations, video board driving, etc., etc, etc. thereby you must make sure that your computer can handle the load. Get rid of any background processes such as anti virus, and any other unnecessary software loaded on startup. Next make sure that your video files do not reside in the same drive as the OS files. If your video drive is not at least 7200 RPM you could have problems. What is your CPU type, speed, ram, OS, video card, etc.?
That would help in figuring this out.

[Bruce Pelley]

My system is as follows:It's not great but not poor also.

Processor:2.66 Ghz Pentium 4
Memory is 1.25 gigs of ram
Onboard harddrives are 20 gig and 80 gig/7200 rpm
External firewire/usb combo 7200 rpm 160 gig hard drive
Firewire/PCI card has 3 ports and is OHI (or whatever) compliant.
I believe my video card is 64 megs.Could be wrong.
My DVD/CD combo burner broke last Sunday so it's in the process of being replaced.
I think the firewire cable itself is of good quality and sturdy.

My video files reside in the 160 gig drive.
The Windows XP OS system is installed in the 80 gig internal drive.
I have McAfee anti virus which I don't dare uninstall.
Tried with two different GL-2's.
I have tried to export to tape in two different ways:
a)Exported my project from the timeline as a movie and then as a movie/avi file... reimported it back into the timeline and tried to reexport to tape.
b)Export a loaded project direct from the timeline to tape.

I wish I had 2 decent computers to see if it was a hardware/motherboard/driver issue!!

It is safe to assume that Adobe Premiere 6.5 exports a project/or multiple clips as a DV-AVI file? Would that be a Type 1 or Type 2?

Hope this is helpful.

Thanks,
Bruce

[Enrique Galvis]

Let's try this Bruce,
1. Remove your computer from the internet
2. Disable Macafee. Don't uninstall.
3. Re-start computer with a/virus disabled.
4. Do not start any programs upon restart, just go to premiere.
5. Connect Gl2 and put in VCR mode.
6. Open premiere project.
7. Start recording on the GL2 VCR mode.
8. Play timeline. Do not export timeline.
Does the GL2 record ok?, does Premiere stop with drop frames?, any other problems?..
Premiere will export clip/s as whatever your project settings are, DV-1/2, mpg, etc.. Review your settings by going to Project->Settings viewer and compare your settings. They should all match all the way accross for all video and audio tracks.

[Bruce Pelley]

Enrique,

I only progressed to step 7 in your instructions.

As listed,I'm to start the GL-2 recording in VCR mode and here may be the problem.At this point I'll risk asking anything no matter how stupid & ignorant it may seem to be.First all,I've done no VCR recording with only the firewire cable attached/connected except for this particular quest.Also,I've done no recording into the GL-2 except for coming in from its own camera.To date,I've either recorded footage directly to tape decks or had clips captured into the computer.Therefore I've recorded absolutely nothing coming into the unit from any source.Understandably then,my experience & knowledge is close to zero specifically in this area.Hence this appeal for help.

When I press the record/pause control of course it changes from stop to pause mode.If I then proceed to press the record/pause button again( or the play button) nothing happens!! Nothing is activating/triggering the actual recording as Adobe would do if it were being exported to tape because it gives one the option to activate the tape deck.In this case,that option is being bypassed.Do I need to use the remote control or something?How exactly do I get the GL-2 to record in VCR mode with only the firewire cord plugged in?Please forgive my ignorance and expand upon step 7 in laymans terms.

Thanks so much.
Bruce


I may add here that very early this morning I discovered that Window Movie Maker can do it,although the rendering/results on tape are rather mediocre. Unfortunately,both resolution & therefore quality lacks.It also seems to have difficulty dealing with larger files,in this case is was over 9 gigs.

[Enrique Galvis]

Well Bruce, I'm going from memory here. I belive that the VCR controls in the GL2 are atop the handle. They are the stndard play, ff, rwnd, rec, pause and something else. I forget. There might be a little door that opens and the buttons will be there.
The REC button there is the one you use to record when you use the cam as a VCR. The rec button you use when you are videoing is not the one to use now.
Meant to tell you, there is no such thing as a dumb question but there are a lot of dumb mistakes because the question was not asked.
This link will give you the GL2 users manual in pdf format: http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/co...7&modelid=7512