Hi Eric,

I shoot Frame Movie mode exclusively, and it captures at 29.97 fames/sec. This is the project preset you use when you import into Premiere. As for aspect ratio, use .9 if the video is 4x3, use 1.2 if the video is 16x9.

Cheers,
Mark

For outputting to WMV (Windows Media Player's format):
Export a Microsoft DV AVI. Choose the default settings for Microsoft DV AVI.

Download Windows Media Encoder for free and use that. The WME interface is a bit flakey but for one video it's ok.

Realmedia: The player for this is horrible. I wouldn't inflict realplayer on my viewers.

divX: If your want the best quality and your movie is long (thus big files) then divX is a good choice since it gives the best compression. check out doom9.net for help on this.

Thanks
 

Thank you for your help - I am restricted to either RealPlayer, Windows Media or Quicktime for an online film festival.

I like WMA, but have had that squeezing problem. I'll try using thiers directly instead of through Adobe Media Encoder. Quicktime has the best quality, but the largest file sizes, and Real... well, I agree with you there.

Thanks
 

Thanks for your help. The fact that Canon says their frame mode captures 30 full frames a second is what was confusing, because it made me think that might be how I needed to setup the project.

Anyway, one other question - When I capture my video, I often times have a small black area at the bottom of it. It's a bit fuzzier than a "bar" but it does look like there is no video captured there. Is that normal?

I've found that quicktime with sorenson3 and mpeg4 audio beats windows media player if both are the same size.

Premiere Pro DV capture
 

A question to Premiere Pro users. Does Pro provide a much improved method of capturing DV or is investing in ScenalyzerLive still a good idea?

Thanks for any info.

Indeed. The peak file has nothing at all to do with confirming
audio. It is just a display cache, that's all.

I'd rather have a small peak file and then a fast operating when
editing (which Vegas gives me) then my audio converted to
32 bit and then down converted to 16 when I import. Thus
adding uneccesary waiting time and probably a slower running
system because it will have to process TWICE as much audio
data then any other NLE! That's just bizarre.

It would be nice if the NLE's themself supported low resolution
proxies with timecode, but I'm not sure if any do.

The problem is the fileformat, not the NLE. Most AVI codecs
don't allow for the saving of timecode information other then
the DV codec. However, you might have more luck trying
QuickTime because it supports it natively I believe.

But then again, why would you want? DV isn't eating up THAT
much space and harddisks are cheap. I really haven't had
troubles with performance. But then again, I haven't edited
anything longer then 15 minutes in lenght (original footage
maximum was around 1,5 hours resulting in almost 20 gb of
information).

What pixel aspect is set? It shouldn't be 1.0 which it might be.

What features are you looking for? Pro gives you better control for scanning back and forth on your tape, but logging & capture work about the same as far as I can tell.

I've heard/read that it also supports scene detection through
time/date breaks (like Vegas and Scenalyzer) now.

That probably doesn't exist because no professional is using
Premiere for that. Audio is almost always handled seperate
from the NLE. A lot of people who can't afford Pro Tools are
using things like Soundforge, Cubase etc.

To answer your last question, yes, that's perfectly normal for
that camera.

Canon calls is 30 fps because that's what 29.97 fps is called
(more easy) by everybody. Actually 30 fps doesn't exist for
NTSC. There is 29.97 fps or 59,94 fields per second (reffered
to as 60i). I do believe old B&W NTSC was true 30p/60i....

Always choose a workspace of 29.97 fps and then tell your
application whether the footage is interlaced or progressive
(frame mode - 30p).

Pixel Aspects can be a real nightmare and I don't have an
answer to your questions. Exprimentation is the best thing
to do here. Another problem is that Windows Media Player
not always DISPLAYS the footage correctly. This usually
seems to happen with mpeg2 footage. It display it at the
wrong pixel aspect with SVCD footage (the new WMP9 might
have fixed that though).

<<<-- Originally posted by Glenn Chan : I've found that quicktime with sorenson3 and mpeg4 audio beats windows media player if both are the same size. -->>>

Assuming you mean Sorenson pro, does it beat WME by enough to pay more than CDN$600 versus nothing? I'm not being sarcastic, I'm just frustrated by how difficult it is to do good QT for any reasonable cost versus wmv. I've had people tell me that Cleaner EZ sorenson 3 makes a great file for them but that hasn't been my experience and some reviews of the pro 3 aren't that complimentary despite the high cost.

David Hurdon