DV In Problem
 

Hi everybody

Sorry for more newbie questions, hopefully in the near future I will be able to answer some queries as well as ask.

Anyway I hope somebody can help me. I am using a Canon DV700i that has both DV In/Out. I can transfer footage to my pc (Adobe Premiere) with no problem, but once I have done some editing I cannot seem to transfer it back toi the camera properly. The picture and the sound is very intermittent, it may record 2 seconds of video, then jump to the blue standby screen of my cam then a further 2 seconds and so on.

I have telephoned Canon technical support and they suggested that it could be one of two things. Either a) I am trying to send footage with a higher frame rate than the camera can handle or b) I am using effects that the camera cannot handle.

Can anybody raise any further light on this please? Is there a frame rate setting to use when transferring video in/out? Should I be sticking to a certain frame rate? (I haven't made any changes to frame rate that I am aware of)

Thanks for your time friends

Simon

My first thought is to ask about your computer. Do you have enough processor/memory? Do you have other programs running while trying to print to tape? I have to shut every other process down in order to get a clean capture or print with no dropped frames and I am running a 2.1GHz with 512MB RAM. It might also be a firewire port issue.

Hi John

Thanks for the reply. My system specs are roughly the same as yours. so.......................?

Simon

Well, one thought is that you are in PAL-land, correct? Perhaps you have accidently created your project with a NTSC timeline? Premiere gives users the option to use either PAL or NTSC -- PAL is 25fps and NTSC if 29.97fps.

Also, if there are effects in your project, first try exporting the project as an DV-avi file. Then import the new file into Premiere and try to export that file to tape -- there will be no extra processing, since it's all one DV file now in the timeline.

That just addresses what Canon told you. Beyond that, I'm not sure what the problem is, although JG's comments above may help as well.

Hi John

Thanks for the response. I tried exporting as an avi file and re-importing like you suggested and still get the same problem. I am baffled now! Perhaps it is a firewire port issueas JG suggested?????? It is frustrating.

Simon

Well, if you have verified that you are definitely working in a PAL timeline and have tried mixing down the video to one avi file (and that the avi file was *DV* and not "uncompressed" or some other format), then the next step is hardware. The cheapest thing to do is try it on a friend's computer, if possible. If it works on their PC, then you know it's a problem with your computer.

Then go back home and defrag all of your hard drives. Then, as JG said, shut off all other extraneous applications on your PC -- some anti-virus apps in particular can be resource hogs. Make sure that any auto-loading programs are shut off (Quicktime, for one, auto-loads at start-up -- this is easy to change in QT properties). Then see if anything improves with your transfers.

If that doesn't work, it's time to spend a little money on a new firewire card. You may want to try a store with a liberal return policy. Pick up a new firewire cable while you're at it. Install the card and try capturing/exporting from it.

I don't know of any particular settings in Premiere that would cause this problem. I've used 6.5 and Pro and have not yet encountered a time where I had to change a setting when exporting to tape. You may want to peek around your Project settings and see if anything is strange. That and just double-check that your project is PAL DV and not NTSC DV or PAL Cinepak or any other combo of video type and compression. (that's assuming you shot in PAL, of course!)

And that's about all I know...

Thanks for the great information John it is very greatly appreciated. I will try all the things you suggested and report back if and when I find a olution.

Kind Regards

Simon

One more thing I just thought of:

Are you running Windows XP? If so, it should have come with Windows Movie Maker 2 installed. I believe WMM possibly will export to tape. Check it out and if so, you might want to try and export that recent "mixed-down" avi file from within Windows Movie Maker 2. That might help rule out Premiere as the cause.

(I'll check out WMM2 when I get home and verify if it exports to tape. You can also download WMM2 for XP from microsoft.com)

EDIT: I checked WMM2 and yes, you can export to tape. If you have WMM, try it and see if it works. If so, then the problem may be with Premiere...

hi John

I did actually try exporting from Windows Movie Maker but that even failed to recognise I had a camera attached so...........haha another problem.

Simon

Two programs having trouble interfacing w/ your camera = definite hardware problem. Get a new IEEE1394 card and firewire cable. If that doesn't work, you'll need to test the camera on a known good computer.