Best way to capture from an HD200U

[Manuel De Haro]

I just bought an HD200U and love it, but I am using Final cut and it just doesn't like to capture.
I heard there is other software that captures from this camera without any problems, is that true and what is that software?

Can you capture from that software and just bring the clips in to FCP?


Thanks for the help

[Tim Dashwood]

Are you using v6.0.2 of FCP and the latest firmware for the HD200? Use the Easy Setup for whatever format you shot.

Also, use ProHD tapes for the best results and clean your heads after every 10-20 hours of use.

If you are still having problems capturing from HDV using the HDV capture preset, then try the HDV - ProRes422 setting.

[Paolo Ciccone]

Hi Manuel, the following works fine for the HD100, I haven't tried it with the 200 but it probably applies as well. Anyway, it's based on free software so you have nothing to loose.

There is the free DVHSCap, from Apple, search for the FW SDK. With that you get the straight .m2t files. You can then convert them to QT movies with MPeg Stream Clip. Also free. Do a search in this forum, you'll find some descriptions on how to use it, it's pretty straightforward. Be aware that converting from HDV tapes to ProRes will incur in a small image degradation which can be acceptable depending on your footage and how you feel about lossy compression . If you convert to QT you can use Uncompressed or Sheer for lossless compression. Either way those clips will work in FCP.

[Manuel De Haro]

I am using FCP 5.1.4 and the camera is a week old from B&H.

[Manuel De Haro]

Thanks Paolo, ThanksTim,

Does this workflow affect in any way the format of the footage(the frame rate etc.) because when I try to capture, DVHSCap will recognize the camera automaticly but does not give you an option to choose the format(HDV 720 24 etc.)

Is it possibly to capture natively in Premiere or vegas and then transport to FCP without any conversion?

Thanks Again,

P:D: Love your work by the way.

[James Thirston]

Originally Posted by Manuel De Haro

Thanks Paolo, ThanksTim,
Is it possibly to capture natively in Premiere or vegas and then transport to FCP without any conversion?

Hi Manuel,
Unless I'm mistaken, Vegas will only capture HDV in the M2T format which means that you would still have to convert to Quicktime for FCP.

JT

[Paolo Ciccone]

Originally Posted by Manuel De Haro

Does this workflow affect in any way the format of the footage(the frame rate etc.) because when I try to capture, DVHSCap will recognize the camera automaticly but does not give you an option to choose the format(HDV 720 24 etc.)

Nope. DVHSCap is grabbing the raw stream from the camera, that's what a .m2t file is. There is no conversion and that's the reason why you don't see options. The footage on disk is exactly in the format that is on tape, including the duplicated frames created to record 24p on DV tape. That's where you use MPEG Streamclip. In it you need to select a codec, specify the frame rate, 23.976, deselect the stuff about interlaced scaling etc and MPSC will output a QT file that is at the expected frame rate, basically removing the duplicated frames.

Is it possibly to capture natively in Premiere or vegas and then transport to FCP without any conversion?

No but Premiere can edit the files directly. In fact the capture in PPro CS3 seems a lot better and more reliable than FCP's. The files created are MPEG clips. You can then convert them using MPSC and import them in FCP. A little convoluted but given the reliability of Premiere's capture you gain the ability to log the clips and being able to recapture them in the future, something that is only sketchy in FCP with the ProHD cameras.

[Manuel De Haro]

You guys are a blessing, I can't thank you enough.
I still can't understand how a company wil make a great camera and have a crippled capture workflow, I am super impressed with the quality of the image even when captured on the DV setting, I just didn't want to return this camera because it just fits my work very well.

Thank you all,

Manuel

[Paolo Ciccone]

Originally Posted by Manuel De Haro

I still can't understand how a company wil make a great camera and have a crippled capture workflow

Truth to be told, as demonstrated by Premiere, HDVxDV and DVHSCap, the latter ironically an Apple program, it's really Apple's lack of commitment to this camera that is the problem. You don't see that happening with the HVX200, a camera that was released after the HD100 but received complete support from Apple sooner than the JVC's product. My guess is that Apple and JVC don't communicate very well while the relationship with Panasonic is much better. Apple has a track record of not working well with independent developers, a complaint that I heard from several plugin programmers and hardware manufacturers.
See what happened with the release of QuickTime that broke After Effects for weeks. That happened exactly because Adobe got the new version of QT like anybody else, and that was not the first time that something like that happened.
I love Apple machines and the OS but FCP has given, over the years, more and more reasons to look for an alternative and so I recently switched to Premiere and was really pleased to see the integration with my HD100.