Premiere Capture Woes....PLEASE HELP....URGENT...

[vasudev71]

Hi,

I have a NTSC DV camcorder that will be my source for Capture in Premiere 6.0.
In the Project Settings under Capture, there exists 3 options that says (QuickTime capture, DV/IEEE 1394 Capture and Video for Windows).

My important question here is
1. Assume, if I capture in QuickTime format, will there be a loss in quality when compared to selecting the DV/IEEE 1394 format?

2. If IEEE/1394 format is the best, what is the best way to convert the resulting AVI file to a .MOV file with quality remaining identical to the AVI source?

3. I tried to convert the AVI to .MOV will all options using the Advanced DV File Converter (http://members.chello.hu/mezei.attila/dvtools/). It was blazing fast in conversion but the resulting .MOV cannot be opened in Premiere. Premiere complains that this file is of unsupported type. Any clues here? QuickTime Player plays it fine.

4. My main job in the .MOV file is to burn in the date/time on top of the .MOV file and export it uncompressed back to .MOV file (using CatDV 2.5.x as I have mentioned in my article "DV to DVD Breakthrough Techniques").

Please help me out...as I'm getting a head spin.

Thanks.

VS

[easy2Bcheesy]

Why don't you just change the export settings in Premiere to Quicktime, keep the resolution the same, whack up the image quality to 100% and go from there? If, within Quicktime, you have MJPEG-B compression at 100%, you should keep all the quality.

[vasudev71]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

So, you are saying that IEEE/1394 Capture is identical to QuickTime capture as long as I go for 100% quality. Right?

Also, in your earlier reply, you talked abt having the same resolution. What does this exactly mean? Can you elaborate?

Thanks.

VS

[easy2Bcheesy]

No I'm not saying that. You should capture in DV. If you need that captured clip as a Quicktime file, I would recommend going to the Export settings in Premiere, selecting Quicktime, setting compression to MJPEG-B with quality at 100% and then exporting.

This will create a Quicktime file of the same clip which will have all the quality of the DV original.

When I talk about keeping the resolution the same... well, on your export settings, you can resize the image if you want. Don't. Keep it as it is.

[vasudev71]

Hi,

Many thanks for your fast reply.
What is all about MJPEG-B codec?
I heard that MJPEG is not good for DV capture. Is is true?

BTW, if I don't use any compression (by selecting None in the compressor), I will be getting even great quality which will be identical to the original...Right? I got 240GB 8MB Cache HDD exclusively for capturing.

Thanks.

VS

[easy2Bcheesy]

Look FORGET Quicktime when you are capturing! Stick to DV! That's kind of what it is there for, as I understand it.

You want to convert this DV file into Quicktime? As I said, MJPEG at 100% will produce the results. If there is any loss of quality, I defy you to find the difference! Keep it at 100% and you are telling the encoder to keep the quality at 100%... it's that simple.

By all means keep it uncompressed (this will render quicker) but obviously this will require ENORMOUS amounts of space on your HD. I hope that 240GB is enough!!

[mikeathome]

Hi,

best way (my and mb1's opinion):

- Scenalizer Live, Capture Type-2 (Premiere), 2 GIG File Split
- install Maincocept 2.04 DV Codec (trial version sufficient)

Works wonderful, with automatic scene detection / batch capture. Files a recognised by VirtualDub (for DivX transcoding) Premiere for cut, title, etc. and CCESP (directly) for MPEG-2 encoding.

This is a wonderful solution produces highest quality possible with lots of options, like resize for optimized fit using the TV overscan, preserves the field order, produces a file format which can be used in most NLE applications (incl. VirtualDub, which is for Color Processing by far the best option if you don't want to invest a few MEGA $).

If you are able to read german: Special DV -> SVCD (http://www.mb1.de.vu/) gives you detailed instructions.

mike

P.S.
This forces me btw. to uninstall all the Software and drivers which came together with my IEEE 1394 board (FAST dv.now) and now use only the WinXP driver and Scenalizer, b'cause it's more stable and of much better quality.