HC1, Premiere and capture support

[Paolo Brambilla]

I'm about to buy an HC1 camcorder - i'm not a professional, just an hobbyst with some quality concern..
On the Adobe site i've found a pdf that states HC1 "Unsupported due to poor HDV capture quality".
( http://www.adobe.com/products/premie...patibility.pdf )

So before making the leap i'd like to know - from your experience:
1) If there is a good way to capture HDV from this camcorder and what software can do the job;

2) What Adobe means with poor quality? Maybe it's only that their Cineform codec can't keep up and -maybe- i will need a Canopus NX (or something like) or there are bad news behind the corner?

Thanks in advance

Paolo

[Fredrik-Larsson]

You need a very fast computer to capture any kind of HDV material. Sony Vegas can capture HDV. Premiere should be able to handle it to but I don't think that their HDV-support is that great. You should probably try Premiere with Cineform Aspect HD to have fast HDV in Premiere.

Interesting that Adobe stated "unsupported" since I always thought that HDV was a standard. I sure would like to know more about it.

[Paolo Brambilla]

..........

[Paolo Brambilla]

I agree, and I know Aspect HD. Premiere HD seems to be an old subset of this software.
My computer is a Pentium D830, 2GBytes of ram, on a Supermicro PDSGE mainboard, a Geforce 7800 GTX video card used mainly to accellerate Magic Bullet Editors 2.0 and 2 - 2X300 Gb RAID 0 systems (software based).
The PDSGE mainboard was buyed with Canopus NX in mind, (I have owned a RTX100 board in the past) but my point is not computer power, is the quality isssue that Adobe seems to state about HC1.

Very strange. Maybe Vegas is the easiest way before spending again on hardware...
Thanks
Paolo

[Fredrik-Larsson]

On my system (an AMD 1.8 GHz with 1.5 GB RAM) I installed Aspect HD demo and ran with Premiere. I captured the files in HDLink and then imported them into Premiere. It works just like when I edit DV-material. So I think it's the HDV capture of Premiere that isn't solid enough. Cineform has a nice deal on Premiere + Aspect HD if you haven't got it already.

Do you have the HC1 already?

[Paolo Brambilla]

Not yet, but i plan to buy one in the next 2 weeks.
I like to travel and i need a compact camcorder, a non-intrusive one. Until now i used a plain SD Sony HC1000 that is small but does its job very well, desert or snow, India Vietnam Alaska or Finland.
The HC1 seems to be her HDV brother, and appears to be affordable too.
If I spend all my money in camcorders and accelleration cards, then i will not be able to use them the way I like... :)
I'll give a try on the Aspect HD demo.
Paolo

[Fredrik-Larsson]

It sounds as Aspect HD and the camcorder is all you need then. :)

In worse case you can output SD from the HC1 as well until you have a proper HDV-editing solution up. That's what I am doing at the moment.

And a side note... Have you visited Finland but not sweden!!!!??? You'd better soon!!!! Just kidding.. ;)

[Mick Guzauski]

Hi,

I have captured from an HC1 to Premiere Pro with Aspect HD without any problems. I have an FX-1 and an HC-1. I think the quality of the video shot with the FX-1 is superior to the HC-1 but the HC-1 is sure impressive for its size and price. They both work equally well as playback decks. I hope this helps.

Mick Guzauski

[Paolo Brambilla]

Many thanks to all of you for the help.
Really appreciated .

Paolo