capturing 2 channels of audio through fiewire
 

I have some footage recorded on a Canon XL-1 with 4 channels (stereo 1 L&R, stereo 2 L&R) of audio. When trying to capture in Premiere 6, using the firewire and the pinnacle dv-500+ card, I can only capture stereo 1. Even if I select stereo 2 on the camera settings (which correctly outputs stereo 2 to the rca jacks and headphone jack), it still won't come through the firewire connection. Am I missing something, or is impossible to capture stereo 2 through the dv-500+ card? Thanks.

The problem is likely with your capture card/drivers. Firewire always carries all audio channels that were recorded on the original tape. But many capture card/driver combinations cannot capture the Audio2 signal if present. But then, few camcorders can record all four potential channels at once

The VCR mode menu settings in the XL1 mainly apply to analog output. during playback A work around is to record audio 2 from the analog output using your sound card and resync in post.

Go to the Pinnacle site http://www.miro.com/start.asp and make sure you have the latest drivers. I doubt your card supports the 4 channels through FireWire but it's worth a shot.

Jeff

You have to tell the capturing program which stereo channel you want (1 or 2). Unfortunatly, it seems MOST programs currently don't let you capture the second stereo channel via firewire. Even if the software allows capturing the second stereo channel via firewire, if you need BOTH, you will have to capture TWICE. Here are a couple of programs that do allow capturing the second stereo track via firewire:

EditDV/Cinestream - has given the option for either to be captured via firewire for years.

Scenalyzer Live - has recently added the ability to pick either stereo track to be captured.

The "DV.now" family from Dazzle-FAST also can capture all four audio tracks via firewire - while the video is captured.

Check out the "4-channel capture, weird clicks" thread a little further down the page. We discussed this topic there in some detail. FYI, Scenalyzer Live had a problem on my particular configuration (and, at least, on the Scenalyzer developer's configuration) doing 4-channel capture, but he fixed it and sent me a patch. A new official version with the fix is due out soon.