I Just got my A1 and trying to capture the 1st shots in Premerie Pro but for some reason I can't the .MPEG to save.

I set up a HDV 60i preset and go to my capture. I can get the tape to play but I am getting the writting that idicates there is no video. However, once I hit pause or stop the video appears. But, even though it appears it nevers ask me to save my clip?

Something is very wrong???

Not sure if this matters or not...

9600 Quad Core 2.3 Ghz
4.0 GB Memory
7500 RPM

What version of Premiere are you using? Before CS3 Premiere had some major capture problems with the A1. The first step would be to check and make sure all you settings are correct for the A1. Open up a new project and customize all the settings (HDV, 50i) for the A1 along with the capture settings. You could also try to capture from premiere in a different user account on the computer. And the last step would be to reinstall Premiere Pro.

If you are capturing HDV then there is no preview in PPro. There is also no scene detection. Your choices are as follows:

1:Capture entire footage as one scene (monitoring video through camera lcd) Then you have to go in and break apart into individual clips for editing :(

2: Log the clips in and out points first and save a log file then do a batch capture on only what you've set as multiple in and out points. If you do this logging you will be able to view the logging sequence on the computer and then when you capture there will be no preview. But at this time you can go have a snack because the process will be automated based on your batch file. More time consuming but better than #1 :)

3; be like almost every one else and download "HDV split" and it will automatically split your HDV scenes during capture. Depending on the power of your computer you may or may not be able to preview, but thats not a big deal because you can preview on the camera lcd.

But remember Premiere pro does not preview HDV footage during capture. its in the manual.

In CS3--when capturing HDV all you will see in the monitor in Premietre is that blue text. don't worry-it's OK. When capture is complete, just drag it on your timeline, it'll do its conforming or indexing whichever it calls it, I forget...and you will be good to go.

Because there is no scene detection how to Premire know when to stop? Or how can I manually stop the capture?

Press the stop button on the screen

In CS3--when capturing HDV all you will see in the monitor in Premietre is that blue text. don't worry-it's OK. When capture is complete, just drag it on your timeline, it'll do its conforming or indexing whichever it calls it, I forget...and you will be good to go.

Do you know if you need to do the same in CS4?

Do you know if you need to do the same in CS4?

the answer is yes my friend :(

But remember Premiere pro does not preview HDV footage during capture. its in the manual.

That and the Dolby license at an extra cost (not that they advertise it when they sell you the software) is why I'll never upgrade PP after this. To little bang for the buck. Now I use Vegas for small projects and Avid MC for large ones.

J.

Here is what I am doing.
» I set up the properties in a new event.
» f5 (capture)
» I select Tape In (This starts the capture)
» I select stop on the screan.
» Exit out. (It never prompts me to save the file??)

The file is now lost.

I have been able to get the footage to save but I really have no idea what I hit? Any idea?

Premier automatically saves the file to disk. It doesn't ask you to save it.

In the capture window, did you configure your settings. They are located under the tab in the upper right. Where did you tell Premier to save the file to? If you didn't specify, it could have put it somewhere you didn't expect. You might want to search your drives for .avi files. When you capture, do you see the disk activity light flashing? Yes, I know it's hard to figure out much from that since on my system the activity light has to blink for four drives. But you should see significant, but not constant activity whilst capturing.

If Premier didn't report an error during capture it's possible that the video is hiding in your system somewhere.

I have confirmed the location and sometimes I get a .mpeg and sometimes I get nothing.
It seems that if I open and close the capture window I can get it to capture all the time.

Should I be getting a .avi? I have only seen that on SD?

If you're doing a loooong capture, it does take some time for Premiere to finish writing the file to the hard drive, and sometimes (at least for me), you may have to manually stop the acquisition even when you had an "out" entered.

I captured 30 minutes once, and it took my machine a good 3 minutes to finish the capture.

I won't capture that much in one pass anymore.

I always seem to run into problems capturing directly into Premiere, so I don't.

Premier's On Location is pretty good when capturing direct from the camera though (love the waveform monitor). If I've got to capture from a back-up tape, I use HDVSplit.

Seems like the ram overhead when Premiere is running slows things down to a crawl. I've had my machine get far enough behind when trying to capture in Premiere that it just runs out of memory and quits.

The other hassle with Premiere capture is audio sync. A long clip always seems to get farther and farther out of sync with time.

If you're doing a loooong capture, it does take some time for Premiere to finish writing the file to the hard drive, and sometimes (at least for me), you may have to manually stop the acquisition even when you had an "out" entered.

I captured 30 minutes once, and it took my machine a good 3 minutes to finish the capture.

I won't capture that much in one pass anymore.

Maybe that is my problem. I am capturing about 45 mins of tape at once.

I've captured a full 80 minute HDV tape from my XH-A1 with HDVSplit with no problems. It's designed to split clips but I like to do that myself later in Premiere. Soo, a single 80 minute clip, no audio sync problems, no speed/memory overload. And, I've only got an old, fairly slow, hyper threading single processor.

These days, however, I also convert later with Cineform's HDLink. No matter the claims, Premiere is not really HDV friendly.

I have tried everything with this.
Some times it works and other times it does not.

I have 1080i (60i) footage. I am setting the project to this same spec.

However, most of the time I don't get a "capture duration" in the capture window.
When I don't get this there is no footage captured.

But every now and then I get something? I have no idea what I should do?
I really want to capture in PP (It cost me enough money I would like to use it?)

I have tried everything with this.
Some times it works and other times it does not.

I have 1080i (60i) footage. I am setting the project to this same spec.

However, most of the time I don't get a "capture duration" in the capture window.
When I don't get this there is no footage captured.

But every now and then I get something? I have no idea what I should do?
I really want to capture in PP (It cost me enough money I would like to use it?)

As long as Premiere is recognizing the device, you only have one job:

to select the proper preset for your capture settings. Be sure you have the Canon specific presets downloaded from Adobe if you are capturing HDV. If SD, then use the DV 24 preset (or whatever frame rate you recorded at).
Premiere will automatically save your captured files in the folder that you choose. File management is a must! And be sure to NAME ALL YOUR FOOTAGE AFTER YOU CAPTURE. The little box should automatically pop up after you hit "STOP." This way if for some reason you are doing something quirky with file management, you can simply do a search for the filename.

So I guess you have three jobs..1) capture settings 2) file management 3) naming conventions

If you do all of these, and find that Premiere is indeed NOT saving your captured footage, then that is a problem with the software/hardware. Try re-installing and make sure your hard disks are healthy.

JS

OK I downloaded the files that I googled up.

Let me confirm.
I have 1080(60i) footage and I have the preset on. So I selected the HDV 1080i30(60i) preset.
Does that sound correct?

The benefit of having the Canon specific presets in Premiere is that you don't have to worry about the 1080 stuff and everything, that can get confusing.

First ask yourself "SD, or HDV"

Then ask "24F, 30F, or 60i"

Then ask "4:3 or widescreen"

When using the appropriate presets I'm sure you will see that these questions narrow out all other possiblities. Hope this helps,

JS

Guy you may have figured this out already but I just stumbled across the thread again. I think the answer to your question is that if you are capturing HDV footage, use the "Canon HDV" preset.

JS

I can get the tape to play but I am getting the writting that idicates there is no video.

I have had similar capture problems with my A1 and assumed it was the program (I am using Edius) but found that it is more likely a problem between the A1 and Vista. You didn't mention what OS you were using, but if it is Vista you might want to look into it as a lot of people are having problems with it.