Capturing quibbles

wet-paint

I've got a damn annoying problem with my camera that has resulted in me building up mounds of uncaptured tapes.

I've an NTSC Sony DCR HC96, and for some reason, Adobe Premier Pro won't recognise the damn thing. I can capture it using Windows Movie maker, but that gives me a .wmv which I don't want, so I'm wondering if there's some little box I'm not ticking or something that's preventing the prog from recognising the camera, and capturing the footage?
I've never used Video editing software before, so you might have to dumb things down a little.
Cheers,
WP

DonkeyStyle \o/

Are you connecting the camera with firewire or USB?

FYI: You can capture proper DV in Movie Maker if you choose the right settings... at least you could last time I looked.

wet-paint

USB, and I didn't think I could capture in anything other than a wmv. Must check again.

DonkeyStyle \o/

Well there's your problem really... USB... I'd forget about capturing anything over USB, (at least USB1) since it doesn't have the bandwidth for full DV quality.

The best quality comes down over firewire (AKA: i-link or IEEE1394)
You need to get yourself a firewire interface card and a firewire cable (or some motherboards have firewire ports built in).

You'll get the full whack of quality, and it'll more than likely sort out the incompatability with premiere.

Lump

USB 2.0 should have the required bandwidth.

John

wet-paint

Aye, All the lads use USB to capture from their cameras. Sure the cradle that came with the camera doesn't even have a FW port, only AV and USB. But cheers anyhoo for the feedback.

Lump

Yes but do you have USB 2 connections on the computer? Did you install the software after or before the installation of the USB drivers for the camera?

John

DonkeyStyle \o/

Huh, googled for the camera model number before I posted... articles/spec-sheets said it had firewire and the USB interface was v1.1 <<shrugg>>
Failing the surprising discovery of a firewire port, I'd go with (re)installing any included drivers/software.

extopia

wet-paint wrote:

I'm wondering if there's some little box I'm not ticking or something that's preventing the prog from recognising the camera, and capturing the footage?

You say the camera is NTSC. Make sure you've set Premiere Pro up for NTSC correctly. You might have to specify an NTSC firewire protocol, for example, and capture via firewire, as outlined in several other posts.

I second the above - you can't capture DV natively over USB 1, so if you want the quality, get a firewire card and use your camera's firewire out (don't worry about the dinky cradle).

Best of luck.

wet-paint

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

Huh, googled for the camera model number before I posted... articles/spec-sheets said it had firewire and the USB interface was v1.1 <<shrugg>>
Failing the surprising discovery of a firewire port, I'd go with (re)installing any included drivers/software.

Really? No, it's definitely USB2.0, and no FW port.

extopia wrote:

You say the camera is NTSC. Make sure you've set Premiere Pro up for NTSC correctly. You might have to specify an NTSC firewire protocol, for example, and capture via firewire, as outlined in several other posts.

I second the above - you can't capture DV natively over USB 1, so if you want the quality, get a firewire card and use your camera's firewire out (don't worry about the dinky cradle).

Best of luck.

Every option I can see for capturing (one) NTSC is chosen, but I'll take another look tonight. Cheers for the help.

DonkeyStyle \o/

wet-paint wrote:

Really?

ya rly
(ó>o)

extopia

wet-paint wrote:

Really? No, it's definitely USB2.0, and no FW port.


Every option I can see for capturing (one) NTSC is chosen, but I'll take another look tonight. Cheers for the help.

According to these specs, it has firewire alright. (But doesn't come with a firewire cable. Check the manual, and remember Firewire is also called IEEE 1394)

http://reviews.digitaltrends.com/review3546_specs17739.html

okee

Hi

I've been researching this cam for the last 2 weeks (and purchased it the other day). But while scouring websites and forums i found the most coomon
problems encountered by users was bad video quality due to capturing the video through the usb port. In every case the problem was sorted by capturing through the firewire port

Could it be that Adobe Premier Pro won't recognise the camera unless it is connected via a Firewire port ?

Check out: http://www.camcorderinfo.com/bbs/f8
It's a good support forum for the HC96 and a few other Sony MiniDV cams


okee

wet-paint

I'm after buying a PCMCIA firewire card on ebay, so I'll give that a lash when it arrives. Cheers for the links.

wet-paint

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

The best quality comes down over firewire (AKA: i-link or IEEE1394)
You need to...

I can't believe my question could have been answered by RTFM!

I must have misread this post, as yeah, the DV out also doubles an i-link. Goddamn, it was right in front of me!
Thanks guys for all the help.