Pass-through quality in PP2.0
 

I'm thinking about taking on a project transfering some old beta tapes to DVD for a friend of mine. I've been trying to get my PC setup for the analog capture, and I'm using my XL2's pass-through. My video card (ATI Radeon x1900xtx) has video capture, but I was assuming the firewire + XL2 combination would do a better job. I tried to capture some analog video and audio from a super nintendo just to get a feel for it. The audio quality is excellent, but the video is SUPREMELY lacking. I'm using RCA cables, since the beta player will only have them (as opposed to S-video). The video stream is blurry, jumpy, and downright nasty. Do you think this could be a problem with a setting in Premiere or a bottleneck in the AV cable/camera?

Using PP2.0 is like navigating a maze!

Thanks!

What is being sent from you camera via pass through is a DV signal/file as your camera "transcodes" the composite video signal to a digital stream. The only thing PPro 2.0 is doing is capturing that stream.

Once you capture, try viewing the files in Media Player, not in the PPro 2.0 project or source monitors, as the resolution will necessarily be a true representation of the resolution.

So the question is what are you sending ? More than likely is that your tapes just aren't that great. Just because you are converting a VCR signal to a higher definition codec, does not mean that you will get a better video. You may be able to clean it up a bit, but mostly, you have what you have.

One additional thing you may want to check: determine where the video gets messed up. Put a tape in the camcorder and record the footage - then play it back on your TV set. The picture quality should be the same as the original coming from your Beta machine.

If it is, you have a capture problem. If it's not, then you have a conversion problem...

Well, I haven't tried it with the tapes yet. I simply hooked up my Super Nintendo to capture some video for a test. The video that's coming up on the XL2's LCD is superb, but after it's captured (and I only viewed the files with WMP, didn't look at them through PP at all) it looks bad.

I will try this, though I'm not exactly sure how to record a video stream to my XL2. I'm sure I can figure it out. Thanks a lot for the suggestion!

[QUOTE=Nick Vaughan
Using PP2.0 is like navigating a maze!
[/QUOTE]


Preach on brother - the learning curve is steep...

Are there any good 3rd party books out there for Pro2 yet?

john
evilgeniusentertainment.com

I haven't run across any. I own the Adobe Classroom in a Book for PP2.0...but it's more of a lesson based thing than a reference. I would prefer an encyclopedia...or a set of encyclopedias (in PP2.0's case)!