Cannot capture PAL footage with Adobe Premiere Pro

[roise_r]

I have a SONY DVR 280 model digital, can read both NTSC and PAL, although it can record only NTSC, it was bought in USA. If i insert a digital8 PAL recorded tape, it will play the tape absolutly fine, only that it will show a PAL logo on one of the corners. I cant capture this footage on adobe even thought i tried all kind of different projects... even if i choose PAL 23.976fps as project type. the digital camcorder is connected with firewire. The footage will play normaly on the camcorder while adobe is showing black picture. ..waht could be wrong??? 10x in advance

[jggimi]

Moving to DV forum, per http://forum.doom9.org/announcement.php?f=10

[roise_r]

sorry, i thought capturing meant, all kinds of capture, not only analog

[krisq]

have you tried WinDV?

[JohnnyMalaria]

Originally Posted by roise_r

I have a SONY DVR 280 model digital, can read both NTSC and PAL, although it can record only NTSC, it was bought in USA. If i insert a digital8 PAL recorded tape, it will play the tape absolutly fine, only that it will show a PAL logo on one of the corners. I cant capture this footage on adobe even thought i tried all kind of different projects... even if i choose PAL 23.976fps as project type. the digital camcorder is connected with firewire. The footage will play normaly on the camcorder while adobe is showing black picture. ..waht could be wrong??? 10x in advance

It might simply be that the camcorder doesn't correctly tell Windows that the signal is PAL.

To see if it is a problem with Premiere or not, try these tests:

1.

Put an NTSC tape in the camcorder and play it
Connect the camcorder to the PC
Go to My Computer
Open the folder named "Sony DV Camcorder" or something similar
See if the video shows up on the computer (it should)

Now do this:

2.

Disconnect the camcorder from the computer
Put a PAL tape in the camcorder and play it
Connect the camcorder to the PC
Go to My Computer
Open the folder named "Sony DV Camcorder" or something similar
See if the video shows up on the computer

And then this:

3.

Stop the PAL tape playing
Disconnect the camcorder from the computer
Re-connect the camcorder to the PC (do NOT play the tape)
Go to My Computer
Open the folder named "Sony DV Camcorder" or something similar
See if the video shows up on the computer
Play the PAL tape

If the PAL tape showed up in the second test but not the third, then make sure, for Premiere, that the PAL tape is playing (or in play-pause) BEFORE opening the capture window.

If the PAL tape doesn't show at all in tests 2 and 3, then there's not a lot you can do.

Please let me know if this works!

[setarip_old]

Hi!

If i insert a digital8 PAL recorded tape, it will play the tape absolutly fine, only that it will show a PAL logo on one of the corners.

Sounds like your camera is converting the PAL video to NTSC output for you. Have you simply tried capturing as NTSC?

[roise_r]

@ JohnnyMalaria

10x JohnnyMalaria, it worked like butter, i only had to play the footage before pressing F5 in adobe. once the capture screen appears, after that everything works fine, even if i press stop afterwards, the footage still shows as soon as i press play. i havent tried with NTSC project, but i figure since this is PAL footage, even if it works, it's best to keep it PAL ,

P.S. It seems you had dealed this problem before... can you tell us why this problem accours.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Originally Posted by roise_r

@ JohnnyMalaria

10x JohnnyMalaria, it worked like butter, i only had to play the footage before pressing F5 in adobe. once the capture screen appears, after that everything works fine, even if i press stop afterwards, the footage still shows as soon as i press play. i havent tried with NTSC project, but i figure since this is PAL footage, even if it works, it's best to keep it PAL ,

P.S. It seems you had dealed this problem before... can you tell us why this problem accours.

Great!!!

Yes - I've come across this during development of one of our products. Here's what's happening:

The camcorder communicates with the computer in two different ways. When a tape is playing, all of the information about PAL vs NTSC, timecode, etc is read from the DV information. However, when the tape is not playing, the camcorder sends the information a different way to the computer. For an NTSC camcorder, it will tell the computer that it is NTSC. But if you start playing a PAL tape, the computer will get the format information from the DV stream. Basically, the problem you had was that Premiere "saw" an NTSC camcorder and, when you started playing the tape, it got a PAL signal - so it gets a conflicting message. If the tape is playing already, Premiere "sees" it as PAL.

It's not a Premiere thing, though. It's how the specifications for DV devices are written. Windows handles the interpretation of the incoming signals and provides the information to applications such as Premiere.

Anyway, I'm glad it worked!