Canon HDV and Adobe Premiere

[John B. Nelson]

Here's the link to the HDVSplit page. You'll find everything you need there to run it, you will probally need to download ffdshow as well.

http://strony.aster.pl/paviko/hdvsplit.htm

I can't tell you why PE doesn't capture video on my end. I am running Vista so that may be an issue. There is no capture preset specifically made for the A1 so that may be why also. You can try the other Canon capture presets, it might work for you. Good luck.

-John

[Jay Legere]

Thanks John.

It is nice to get feedback on my first thread on this site.

I checked out the HDVSplit site and it seems straight forward so
I appreciate it!

I am still waiting for my camera so once it arrives I will troubleshoot PE 3.0.

Have you edited HDV and then brought it down to SD for DVD? If so, how did the PE 3.0 handle the process?

I know I am pumping out a lot of questions at this point but I think it may be anticipation for the A1's arrival working overdrive:)

Thanks again John.

[John B. Nelson]

You're very welcome Jay. I know exactly how you feel, I was on pins and needles waiting for my A1 to arrive.. and when it did I was like a little kid on Xmas morning opening up the box. It's a beautiful camera, you will not be disappointed.

As far as using PE 3.0 to output the HD to SD DVD, I was greatly disappointed in the quality of the video it produced. Also, I think you are limited to the DVD templates that come with PE 3.0, you can't create your own menu system, so that's another downside.

The only DVD authoring application I found that does a very good job is Sony's DVD Architect 4, there was very little loss in the quality of video. The bad news is that Sony doesn't sell DVD Architect 4 seperatly, you have to purchase the Vegas Suite (which runs about $500.00.) A lot of people on here use Vegas and speak very highly of it. Me personally, I find Vegas to be very user-unfriendly so I don't use it. You can download a trial version of Vegas and DVD Architect 4 to see for yourself though.

You also might want to try Ulead's Videostudio 11.. with that you can adjust the bitrate as well as other parameters to improve video quality but from my personal experience it still doesn't come close to DVD Architect 4.

-John

[Ray Lindsay]

Guys hopefully I am not misunderstanding your issue here.

I see that you are mentioning other apps due to your dissatisfaction with Premier Elements. Elements seems to be more geared to SD. HD is MUCH more complex to edit due to the interlacing.

Have you considered doing the upgrade to Premier Pro which is actually made more for HD? I contacted Adobe and they gave me an upgrade price that was considerabley less than the purchase price. So you get a reduced price and it is similar to use to Elements so it should be easy to adapt.

Just a thought.

[Jay Legere]

I didn't know PE was able to be upgraded to the pro version.

That does sound quite intriguing to me. Especially if the price is right!

Will you be willing to disclose a ballpark figure on the price they offered you for the upgrade over this site?

Do you know if it is a CD package upgrade of if it is a download on their site.

Thanks again for the response!

[Rich Buquet]

Jack, Your question is one I still have unanswered. I want to use an HD TV to monitor instead of my LCD displays. Does anyone know of a good quality output solution so that an HD TV can be used as a television monitor?

thanks, Rich

[Ray Lindsay]

I received an upgrade for $599. They basically knocked off $200 for my Premier Elements 3.0. This is more than what I actually paid originally for the Elements so it seemed like a good deal.

Also, you asked if they sent a CD. They sent a whole new package as if I bought it new. They did the same thing when I bought Elements 2.0. I noticed 3.0 was available right after I bought it. I called them and they looked at when I bought it, then sent a whole new Elements 3.0 package free. I have been very impressed with their customer service.

[Jay Legere]

Thanks again Ray for the reply.

I think the upgrade will be in order once I summon the funds. Sooner than later I hope.

I was wondering if you (John you may have experience with this too) have ever downconverted to SD from HD within the camera. Do you find this image to be better than standard SD? And have you ever used downconverted HD in PE without any problems?

Soon I will have my camera in my hands and I will probably troubleshoot with it until the day it dies, but until then I love to gather input from current owners.

Thanks again

Jay

[Dearl Golden]

Hi Rich...

I use this card.... http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/cr...helia/apve.php

I changed from an nVidia 7900 recently and haven't looked back. I'm running 2 Dell 24" monitors, 1 15" JVC CRT monitor, and a 26" Sharp Aquos LCD HDTV from this card.

Only downside, but tolerable, is that the resolution of 1600 X 1200 from the card is less that the 1920 X 1200 that the 2 monitors are capable of and the images on the monitor are somewhat distorted. However....I'm trying to get used to looking at the program monitor output on the CRT or the HDTV as appropriate.

[John B. Nelson]

Ray: Sorry if I came across as being disapointed with PE 3.0.. quite the contrary, I am very pleased with its performance so far. I haven't done any big video projects with it yet, but with what video I have worked with, I have no complaints as far as editing and working with HD video. The only thing I do not like about PE is the DVD authoring part of it. But that is to be expected I guess with a product of that price range.

Jay: No, I haven't tried downconverting from within the camera yet, so I don't know how good the SD quality is. As far as downconverting via software, from what I have learned so far, it just depends on what your converting your HD video to and what you use to convert it. If I use Windows Meida Encoder to produce a wmv video, there is very little loss in video quality. On the other hand though, if I use PE to convert my HD video to an SD DVD, there is a significant loss in video quality (below SD standard in my opinion.)

To be honest with y'all, I'm probally not qualified to answer or address these issues as I'm still learning myself... I know there are more experienced people on here who would be a better help.. so I'm just telling you what I have experienced so far. As Ray suggested, you would probally get better results upgrading to the pro version, however I do recall reading some threads on here from people who were not happy with the pro version, so maybe you should seek out those threads first before you decide to upgrade. $599.00 is a lot of money :)

-John

[Ray Lindsay]

Hey guys, sorry I was late responding.

Regarding PP2.0 I agree that there is a lot of buzz about the ability to downconvert. I haven't had a lot of experience doing this as I only recently began editing HD content. However many editing programs struggle with this issue and most people have developed great workarounds to this problem.

This clip I found extremely helpful for Premier Pro.

http://www.esnips.com/web/Premiere-Pro-2-Video-Tutes

I found out some great news while researching. Premier Pro CS3 allows burning HD onto blu-ray so there is no need to downconvert. Even better news. if you have any Premier product, Elements or Premier Pro, the upgrade is only $299. I think that's a great deal. Even better for me. I upgraded to PP in March so they stepped up and upgraded me to CS3 for free!

Just FYI thought you would be interested.

[Brian Spatz]

With all my frustrations dealing with FCP recognizing the A1, I was wondering if anyone is using this setup (or close to it...)

Canon XH A1
Shooting HDV (60i & 24f)
Edit with Premiere Pro (2 or CS3) in Mac OS X (on a Macbook Pro)


If you exist, do you have any trouble capturing/editing or issues with Premiere recognizing the A1?

[Fredrick Irvine]

I am using Premiere Pro CS3, Macbook Pro 2.4GHZ, 4 Gig ram. I have only captured small clips (less than 5 minutes) in both 24f and 60i without problems. There is no preview on screen for some reason (apparently intentional as this is documented by Adobe) so all previews must be through camera.

The only "glitch" I have noticed thus far (less than two weeks with the program) is that when exporting the program will sometimes return an error message "failed to render a frame" and will not export. Closing and re-opening the program fixes the problem. For me only a minor inconvenience, for professional maybe a different story.

Also be aware that all export options are h264, quicktime variations, MPEG 2 and flash but no WMV. Again, fine for me, but maybe not as many choices for professionals.

Hope this helps.

[Brian Spatz]

Originally Posted by Fredrick Irvine

I am using Premiere Pro CS3, Macbook Pro 2.4GHZ, 4 Gig ram. I have only captured small clips (less than 5 minutes) in both 24f and 60i without problems. There is no preview on screen for some reason (apparently intentional as this is documented by Adobe) so all previews must be through camera.

And this is all in HDV? as opposed to SD/DV? I saw another post saying something about no HDV preset available or something along those lines.

Thanks for your input Fred.

[Rich Buquet]

Originally Posted by Doug Graham

Rich, since you already are familiar with Premiere Pro 2, you might consider a Matrox RTx.2 system. My colleagues who are using this accelerator board report very pleasing results...and there are several vendors offering upgrade prices for those who already have an Adobe product.

You'all might check out another thread talking about using either the matrox or cineform or both.:
"Cineform, Matrox, or both" ( 1 2)
Paul Kepen

Very informative comments and a lot of yeahs but a few nays for the Matrox.