Capturing HDV footage for Premiere CS3

bustak

bustak

Well-known member
Hello Fellow Premiere Users!

Well, to my disappointment, when you capture with Premiere CS3, it doesn't do scene detect when it comes to HDV! :( Working w/ 1 HUGE 13 gb file (1 hour of HD footage) doesn't appeal to me, I like to have the shots broken up in to individual files, kind of like how Premiere captures SDV & Vegas captures HDV.

So other Premiere users who work w/ HDV footage, what is your suggestion? I like Premiere, & don't want to jump ship, so is there a good/cheap application to capture my HDV footage & break it up in to different files? Or is there another trick to achieve this?

Thanx for any suggestions!
 
Sacksnack said:
Because of the nature of HDV, I would always trim the first and last few frames off each clip before laying them into the timeline to prevent any crashing of Premiere.
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Hey Kevin.... what is this about trimming a few frames off the head and tail of each clip before laying out to the timeline? Is there a bug with Premiere CS3 that I'm not aware of?
 
GL2guy said:
Hey Kevin.... what is this about trimming a few frames off the head and tail of each clip before laying out to the timeline? Is there a bug with Premiere CS3 that I'm not aware of?
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I've been using HDVsplit w/ CS3 all night, without a single crash, so maybe Kevin is talking about PP 2.0.

The only issue I'm having is some of the footage is coming out interlaced. The footage that's coming out interlaced is from my Canon HV20 (shot 24p), while the footage from my Canon XH A1 (shot 24F) isn't coming out interlaced.

Does anyone have any insight on this issue?
 
I wouldn't call it a bug, I have had a few crashed when rendering projects, and it always ended up being at the beginning of a clip. I would imagine it has something to do with the GOP structure of HDV. I've seen clips captured with many different applications, where the first few frames are pixelated. Sony Vegas will capture a clip and you'll see a few frames of another clip at the beginning or end.
It's not something that happens all the time, but I'd rather be safe, than spend 4 hours rendering a project only to have the render fail. I suppose I was just giving a head up, so if you are getting an error when rendering, that might be something to look for.

EDIT- This was in PP2.0, I haven't had any errors in CS3, but I've been trimming the extra frames so who knows.
 
bustak said:
The footage that's coming out interlaced is from my Canon HV20 (shot 24p), while the footage from my Canon XH A1 (shot 24F) isn't coming out interlaced.

Does anyone have any insight on this issue?
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Because HV20's 24p has a pulldown applied to it that CS3 doesn't remove while the A1's 24F is captured as native 24 fps.

Canon didn't include a pulldown flag on the HV20 so the extra frames on the 24p footage would have to be manually removed using another software such as After Effect.
 
The only issue I'm having is some of the footage is coming out interlaced. The footage that's coming out interlaced is from my Canon HV20 (shot 24p), while the footage from my Canon XH A1 (shot 24F) isn't coming out interlaced.
Click to expand...

The 24P from the HV20 is recorded at 29.97, so there is going to be interlacing in some of the frames. You can use After Effects to remove the pulldown, but it's slow. Or check out this thread...http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=98549

EDIT-Note to self, Jade gives faster answers than me.
 
Sacksnack said:
EDIT- This was in PP2.0, I haven't had any errors in CS3, but I've been trimming the extra frames so who knows.
Click to expand...

Come to think of it now, I have had some renders fail and crash Premiere in the past (2.0). What do you mean exactly by trimming extra frames?
 
What do you mean exactly by trimming extra frames?
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I've been removing the first few frames and the last few frames of any clips I put in the timeline. It's actually rare that I use a clip from the very beginning anyways. But sometimes for event work, I have to start rolling quickly to catch some action, and I might need to use the clip from very close to when I hit record.
 
m2t format?

m2t format?

I have been using HDVSplit to capture from the HV20 but Premiere Pro does not read the m2t format. Any suggestions? Should I re-convert in HDVSplit (which, btw, is a great little piece of software for free) and if so, what format do you all recommend?

EDIT: Scratch that. Just realized I am using Streamclip to convert the files from M2T into another format. Just have to decide which is best. Also hear that TMPGEnc Express is good stuff for conversion off of this thread:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=102170&highlight=HV20
 
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jpcoombs said:
I have been using HDVSplit to capture from the HV20 but Premiere Pro does not read the m2t format. Any suggestions? Should I re-convert in HDVSplit (which, btw, is a great little piece of software for free) and if so, what format do you all recommend?
Click to expand...

I am using a Canon HDV (XH A1) camera and the m2t files captured using HDVsplit work fine in Premiere's timeline. Why are you having problems? You shouldn't be.
 
Sacksnack said:
I've been removing the first few frames and the last few frames of any clips I put in the timeline. It's actually rare that I use a clip from the very beginning anyways. But sometimes for event work, I have to start rolling quickly to catch some action, and I might need to use the clip from very close to when I hit record.
Click to expand...

Does the removing the first few frames and last few frames fix that rendering problem? I'll have to keep this in mind if it happens to me.
 
Whenever I had a problem with a render, I traced it back to a cut or transition, where the next clip was the very beginning of that clip, as in the in point was actually the first frame of that clip. It doesn't occur everytime, but once is enough for me to take the small precaution of trimming a few frames. I say just edit away, and if you have any errors, watch the clip and see where it stops, and if it's at a cut line or transition, trim away a few frames, or shorten the transition, and see if that fixes the problem. I imagine that 99% of the time there won't be any problems.

On a side note, I'm able to export some pretty nice h.264 files with CS3. And the downconversion from an HD timeline to SD is far superior to PP 2.0.

-Kevin
 
Hey Sacksnack,

Thanks for the tip.. I'll definitely keep it in mind. Are you by any chance falling victim to the "washed-out" gamma-shift that occurs with exporting H.264? I notice my H.264 exports are unsaturated.
 
GL2guy said:
Are you by any chance falling victim to the "washed-out" gamma-shift that occurs with exporting H.264? I notice my H.264 exports are unsaturated.
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I've only done a few exports as a test, but the results were actually pretty nice. I used the media encoder, and barely moved the bit rate slider from the left, maybe a little under 1mbs, 1280 x 720. Maybe I'll post a little sample later on.
-Kevin
 
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