Canon HDV and Adobe Premiere

[D.W. Lewis]

Originally Posted by Jordan Orberg

When I plug my camera into my computer via a firewire cable, load up Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, and go to the capture window -- it says:

"Can't Activate Recorder. Try Resetting the Camera"

I am having ongoing problems capturing with the XH-A1. When I plug it in via firewire, Windows detects it (usually) as a Canon DV Camcorder listed under "Imaging Devices" in device manager. Sometimes though, it is detected as an AV/C subunit listed as Canon XH-A1 under "Sound, Video & Game Controllers". Premiere will only talk to the camera as an imaging device, and only in DV capture mode (HDV gives me 'Device offline', Cineform HD gives me 'Can't Activate Recorder'). HDVSplit and Cineform HDLink will only recognize the camera as an AV/C subunit. With enough plugging, unplugging, and resetting the camera I can usually get it recognized the way a particular program wants it.

I'm working on a batch script which will force Windows to load the drivers I want, if it works I'll post it.

[Alex Manning]

I have a Canon XH-A1 and Adobe Premiere Pro CS4. I filmed some yesterday at 24f in HDV (1080i). When prompted to select a preset for capturing my footage I chose "HDV 1080p 24". Did I import using the right setting for the Canon XH-A1 filming in 24f?

Also...what is the best format to export it in if I want to view it at its finest quality?

Is 1080i 25p?

Someone please help explain this to me...

[Chris Hurd]

Moved to World Premiere from Canon XH.

24F is 24p, so yes, you chose the right capture settings.

[Tripp Woelfel]

Originally Posted by Alex Manning

Also...what is the best format to export it in if I want to view it at its finest quality?

Where and how do you want to view it? On a computer? On DVD? On your iPod? Each one has a different answer. As a delivery codec, H.264 has a lot going for it for BD, computer, and to a lesser degree, Web video delivery.

If you want to transcode at the highest quality to preserve the file as a master, that's a different question.

Originally Posted by Alex Manning

Is 1080i 25p?

Read this. That should get you started.

BTW... Wikipedia, while not always having the most accurate information, is a great resource for stuff like this.

[Alex Manning]

I exported my project to MPEG-2 HDTV 1080p 23.976 but it seems like the video plays too fast...

[Alex Manning]

Anyone? I've tried about ever setting there is...

[Battle Vaughan]

I'm guessing, here, as we don't shoot 24fps at all, but you may have set up your project to remove the pulldown frames and when you output at 23.xxx frames it speeds up because there are fewer frames after the conversion (this is above my pay grade and others can explain it better, but Canon's 24f is somehow actually 60i at heart). There is, however, an option in your project setup re: the pulldown frames, take a look at that possibility......Battle Vaughan/miamiherald.com video team

[Nigel Eaton-Gray]

Can I return to a theme that was running in this thread a year ago in the hope that in the intervening period things have changed and someone has found a good solution.

I have just shot my first 8 hrs of wildlife material using XL H1a, very impressive, but now comes the editing and distribution to friends and relatives. I am using Premiere Pro CS3 and encore. Capture and editing of the HD mpeg2 files has not been a problem. However, exporting to Encore and writing an SD DVD produces much poorer picture quality than my old XL1S working solely in SD.

Should I:

1. Export from the camera as SD and work solely in SD to the final DVD.
2. Capture HD mpeg2 files into a SD project in premiere.
3. Capture HD mpeg2 files and work on a HD project in premiere converting to SD on export to Encore.
4. Capture HD mpeg2 files into an HD project in Premiere and export as H.264 HD project for down-converting in another program (if I can afford it) .

I'm sure someone must have found a good solution.

Nigel

[David Newman]

5. Capture and edit in HD, export to an intermediate (CineForm) or uncompressed AVI in HD, then resize that to SD using a free tool like VirtualDub which work very well (Lanczos filters please.)

This blog entry has some similar issues (although for 24p), but it deal with some of the scaling issue Premiere can introduce. CineForm Insider: Mastering 24p DVDs from HD using Premiere Pro.

[Nigel Eaton-Gray]

Thanks a lot, I will give it all a try.

Nigel

[Arthur Abramov]

Hi, I'm trying to capture it via Premiere cs4, i can't get it to show the picture on the capture panel, although it lets me control my camera via the panel, weired right? anyhow to solve it.?

i both tried the preset sequence 24f dv widescreen and tried NTSC 60i and what have you.
i also changed the settings on the camera as it says in the manual capturing DV footage.

DID ANY OF YOU ACTUALLY SUCCEEDED CAPTURING 24F DV(SD) with th XH-A1 VIA PREMIERE CS4?


*i had to try other applications to capture the footage, nothing worked including Vegas, the Windows Capture app, but Cyberlink Producer did let me Capture ,only the footage was encoded to MPEG-2 Very low quality, so i tried again With Muuve Reveal, which finally let me capture it in AVI !

any feedbacks are more than welcome ..

[Greg Rothschild]

Sorry if this is old news but have you tried HDVSplit?
Paviko's website

[Jason Johnson]

Hello, can anyone give me a hint as I am not familiar with this technology. I will be capturing from a Cannon XH A1 via component out for video and RCA out for audio to a Black Magic Intensity Pro capture card in a vista PC. What are the proper preset settings in Adobe CS5 to capture 1080i at 60fps?

Also Should I capture in time code or frames? Hope someone can answer before 12:00pm tomorrow EST.

[Jay West]

I have an MXO2 Mini rather than a a BMI Card (sorry) but, since nobody else has tried to answer, I'll jump in. For my XHA1, I use an HDV 1440x1080i preset or else Adobe's generic HDV1080/30i preset. Since I do not have a BMI card, I'm not sure how to answer the question about capturing with time code or frames as I've never noticed any such option on my system What is your intended output: is it web/progressive (and in what size or resolution) or is it DVD?. If you shot in 24f, maybe somebody else can offer advice as I haven't used it enough to offer any advice. However, I'm assuming by your post that you did not shoot 24f (nor 24p in a 60i wrapper), and that we're talking about outputting 30i (aka 60i) NTSC to DVD. For DVD, my instinct would be to use time code and output to standard mpg2 DVD format because you shot in 1080/30i (aka 60i). If you are going strictly for web formats, maybe somebody else can offer a different opinion. If you are matching your XHA1 1080i to other camera's 30p format video, I'd be inclined to go for frames, instead, just so thing match up better.

[Jason Johnson]

Thank you so much. Sorry I forgot to included intended use. The captured file eventually is used to make high quality DVD's of individual events that last about 8 minutes long. When I first open Adobe CS5 there is a properties screen that comes up and asks for video format timecode or frames, and an audio section that I didn't look at too closely. When I accept those settings Adobe then takes me to the presets screen where it looks like you select a "codec?" There are several "codecs?" prefixed with DV that I assume are for DV capture, but there are several and I am not certain which one so I'll look for the one you mention. Sorry I am a bit new to all of this and helping out a friend who's firewire port busted and he has an event before he can send it out for repair. The component out is the only option and he has to leave tomorrow.

I should be back in front of this thing a little later today probably around lunch time EST.

Edit

Well no luck, for one reason or another the Black Magic Intensity was not sending the camera to Adobe. Uhhg. Time to go request some RMA numbers.