Problem editing captured DV in Premiere Pro

[SupaCoopa]

Hello everyone. I faced a huge problem trying to edit a VHS-capture in Premiere Pro. Could anyone please help?

I am using an Nvidia VIVO card to capture a VHS tape. For this I resorted to Main Concept Capture tool, found in Main Concept MPEG Encoder 1.4.2. As I found out, the only way to keep audio and video synced was to put Main Concept DV Codec to use for the capture. I set DV type 1 and audio at 48kHz, 16bit, stereo. I tried two MJPEG codecs and even uncompressed video (for the sake of it) but all produced un-synced captures. Anyway, I captured more than ten minutes of tape to an empty, just-formatted NTFS hard disk as a test and was very pleased with the result: Perfectly synced capture, absolutely no dropped frames and acceptable quality. Trouble was still ahead of me though.

The captured AVI plays well in all media players (PowerDVD, Windows Media Player etc) from start to finish. But when I import it in Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 it only appears to be just under 2'30" in duration! I recaptured and recaptured test files (some with 48Khz audio, some with 44kHz) ranging in duration from 1 to 10 minutes, and almost none was imported OK in Premiere. Most appeared to be just under 2'30", shorter ones appeared as just over 1' and only really short ones were imported OK. Also, when I imported the first captured clip in Vegas Video (Trial Version) it was imported OK as far as duration was concerned, but with no audio! VirtualDub importes same video correctly in its full duration but complains about not being able to extract or edit audio. So, I can have a perfectly captured DV file, but I can in no way edit it and convert it...

If anyone could please help I would be more than grateful
Cheers to all

[communist]

Originally posted by SupaCoopa
I am using an Nvidia VIVO card to capture a VHS tape. For this I resorted to Main Concept Capture tool, found in Main Concept MPEG Encoder 1.4.2. As I found out, the only way to keep audio and video synced was to put Main Concept DV Codec to use for the capture. I set DV type 1 and audio at 48kHz, 16bit, stereo. I tried two MJPEG codecs and even uncompressed video (for the sake of it) but all produced un-synced captures.

Sorry but you kinda lost me there somewhere. You're capturing with an Analog card (ie your gfx cards video in) with which application? You're compressing with your PC on the fly to DV (not recommended)? And then you want to edit those 'DV avi files' in PPro?
What is you're target format / where do you want to view the final video? This is important.. DVD, SVCD or a XviD / DivX avi?

Well all I can do for now is wait for you to clear up the few questions and in the meantime direct you to the excellent analog capture guide:
http://doom9.org/index.html?/capture/start.html
Usual procedure is to cap lossless with HuffYUV do required proecessing / editing in AviSynth and encode to the target format. You can do processing in AviSynth and do the editing in PPro aswell.

[SupaCoopa]

Hey comrade. Sorry if my post didn't make any sense. Here it is again, hopefully more clear this time.

I'm using an NVidia graphics card with Video-In, latest WDM drivers from NVidia installed. Source is VHS, target is DVD. I need to do some editing as I have to cut out commercials etc

To capture, I use the Capture Tool, found in MainConcept MPEG Encoder. I tried first with virtualDub, but I had too many dropped frames for no reason. As uncompressed video is so big, I am using MainConcept DV codec as AVI compression, in other words compressing on the fly to DV. This is because with every single other codec I tried (MJPEG & HuffYUV included) video and audio get gradually unsynced. Why is on the fly compressing to DV not recommended?

After I finish capturing (say 10 minutes or so, just for test) I try to see if the captured video (AVI format, DV compressed) plays well. I does, in all media players. Perfectly synced, correct duration. Then I import it in Premiere Pro and where it should say it is 10' or so, it says 2'28". And of course anything beyond that time, doesn't exist as far as Premiere is concerned. This is my main trouble, why Premiere can't "find" the full extend of the clip, when lesser software (even shareware media players) can? What am I doing wrong here?

Hope I make some sense this time, thanks for your interest!

PS. Having a thorough look at the capture guide now, seems like a fine piece worth reading

[mjliteman]

Originally posted by SupaCoopa
I set DV type 1 and audio at 48kHz, 16bit, stereo.

As far as I'm aware, Premiere *prefers* only DV Type-2 files. Recapture a test clip as type-2 and try that. BTW, if you're going to be editing in Premiere anyway, why not just capture with Premiere? Just curious.

MJ

[communist]

Originally posted by mjliteman
BTW, if you're going to be editing in Premiere anyway, why not just capture with Premiere? Just curious.
Because there is no VfW / DShow capture component besides IEEE 1394 anymore - though there is drop down menu there is nothing except 1394 you can select there in PPro :p

Originally posted by SupaCoopa
Source is VHS, target is DVD. I need to do some editing as I have to cut out commercials etc

To capture, I use the Capture Tool, found in MainConcept MPEG Encoder. I tried first with virtualDub, but I had too many dropped frames for no reason. As uncompressed video is so big, I am using MainConcept DV codec as AVI compression, in other words compressing on the fly to DV. This is because with every single other codec I tried (MJPEG & HuffYUV included) video and audio get gradually unsynced. Why is on the fly compressing to DV not recommended?

I used to use DV for capping from analog sources aswell before learning the problems. The reason behind not using DV codec besides for DV is that it throws away too much information (color / 'details') way before you can throw a filter on the material to improve the quality. Also when you reencode to DVD the MPEG Encoder will 'mistake' DCT-Noise / Artifacts for important picture elements / details and try to preserve - essentially increasing the amount of artifacts.
Hence it is recommended to use a lossless processing chain (HuffYUV -> AviSynth -> Encoder) or a not as drastic chain as DV (MJPEG -> AviSynth -> Encoder).

What I really find odd is that your PC is capable of doing DV compression in realtime (ie more than 2Ghz / 2000+ I assume) without dropping frames but makes problem when capping to the much lighter HuffYUV. Perhaps your hdd is fast enough to write 3.5Mb/s but not fast enought to write the usually 8-10Mb/s?

I would recommend trying to trouble-shoot why your PC wont let you cap to different (less demanding) formats than DV. I think moving this thread to the (analog) Capture forum would be a good idea (ask a mod).

As for you Premiere not seeing the whole length of the file - I dont know.