problem with capture/editing.

[Intrigue]

Hi,
I have a sony HC20 and i am capturing to my computer using firewire. I decided to go with adobe premiere when I made my choice of programs, I wanted to learn editing.. and so far i like the program for doing editing. The problem is when I do captures.

I have been messing around with the settings a lot but it seems that the only kind of capture I can do produces an AVI file that is very large size. Something like 30 MB for a 10 second video. And it always drops a lot of frames during the capture which ends up causing it to play like crap. I am guessing it drops frames because my computer isn't fast enough (1.7 GHz, 512 MB ram) There must be a way to capture and produce a video that isnt such a huge file size.

Also I used windows movie maker and i got a 600 KB file as opposed to 30 MB but it was in wmv format. Unfortunately a file type premiere doesnt support. It's good for making clips in a small file size but I can't edit it in premiere.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks

Kyle

[junkmalle]

A computer with your specs should have no trouble capturing DV AVI files via a firewire port.

Are you trying to capture via a USB port? I'm pretty sure the USB port on that camera is USB 1.1, not 2.0. 1.1 doesn't have enough bandwidth to transfer full DV video. You'll have to switch to firewire.

If you are using firewire already, maybe your hard drive isn't running in DMA mode. Use Device Manager to verify that your drive is running in DMA mode, not PIO mode. Use Start --> Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Computer Management --> Device Manager. Under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers double click on Primary IDE Channel (secondary if you're capturing to a drive on the seconary channel). Go to the Advanced Settings tab and make sure the devices are set to DMA If Available, and that the current transfer mode is one of the DMA modes

[Intrigue]

yes I am using firewire. Camera came with usb 1.1 but I don't use it. For device 0 it is set to dma if available, but current transfer mode says PIO mode. How would I change that? it doesnt allow me to select anything else. Device 1 also says DMA if available but for current transfer mode it says not applicable.

Also It would be good if it wasn't constantly dropping frames. But really I don't want a 30 mb file for a 10 second video. Anybody on here have experience with premiere? my version is 6.5 by the way. Maybe I should be using a different program for capturing. Windows movie maker does a great job capturing into wmv mode, but I don't like using movie maker for editing. thx for the response!

Kyle

[junkmalle]

For device 0 it is set to dma if available, but current transfer mode says PIO mode. How would I change that? it doesnt allow me to select anything else. Device 1 also says DMA if available but for current transfer mode it says not applicable.

You probably don't have a drive hooked up to Device 1 (that would be the second drive on the same cable). To get the main drive into DMA mode you probably have check the chipset manufacturer (VIA? NVIDIA?) for updated drivers (INF files).

I don't want a 30 mb file for a 10 second video.

That's the going rate for DV AVI files. The only way you're going to reduce that is to convert to a different format on-the-fly as you capture. You've discovered that Windows Movie Maker can do that but only if you reduce the frame size (and WMM really wants to lock you into Windows Media codecs).

There are some capture programs that can convert to MPEG 2 in realtime while capturing DV video: Ulead Media Studio Pro comes to mind, Ulead Video Studio too I think, and Pinnacle Studio. I used to have an Athlon XP 1700 system. I think I could capture from my DV camcorder directly to MPEG 2 on that computer with Pinnacle Studio. You will need to get DMA working though!

DV really is your best bet for editing. MPEG 2 is generally not recommended for editing but it's OK if all you plan to do is trim a bit here and there. I don't know Premiere but from what I've gathered it can't edit MPEG 2 without an expensive plugin.

Oh, the PicVideo Motion JPEG codec http://www.pegasusimaging.com/picvideomjpeg.htm is probably fast enough but once you start compressing to something smaller than DV you'll lose picture quality.

A second hard drive is probably in order! It's best to capture and edit on a second drive anyway. You'll still have to get your DMA problem fixed though.

[Intrigue]

wow, I really didn't think there would be this much involved if I wanted to edit my videos using my PC. Looks like I might have to spend some more money on programs/a second hard drive.

Anyway I will try and get this DMA problem fixed and see if that helps my captures to not lose so many frames. Thank you very much for your time and help!

[pchan]

Hi Intrigue,

In order to set the DMA, you need to change your BIOS setting for your IDE channel from PIO to AUTO. Please refer to your motherboard manual. Then you change your setting at the device manager in XP. You need to set the hard disk to DMA mode in order to get a problem free capture.

Please check also the DV codec that you have install. A 1 hr umcompressed AVI file is about 40Giga byte versus 13Giga byte compressed AVI file using DV codec.

Next you may want to consider using DVIO to capture a short clip as see if it OK. This is to confirm if Premiere is the problem.

[Richard_G]

One other thing that is often overlooked that won't allow DMA mode to be used is the motherboard chipset drivers. If your motherboard has a VIA chipset it will work without any drivers loaded but at nothing like it's full capability. I've known people do a Windows re-install and not put the chipset drivers on.

[Intrigue]

is it possible that my motherboard just doesn't support DMA mode? because i think i have tried everything, stays on PIO mode. It's weird, when i enter system BIOS it says that my motherboard is running in UDMA 5 transfer mode. but when i check it on the device manager it says PIO mode... really confused here.

[junkmalle]

is it possible that my motherboard just doesn't support DMA mode? because i think i have tried everything, stays on PIO mode. It's weird, when i enter system BIOS it says that my motherboard is running in UDMA 5 transfer mode. but when i check it on the device manager it says PIO mode... really confused here.

You have to go quite a ways back to find motherboards and drives that don't support DMA -- 10 or 15 years.

Here are a few other things you can try:

Did anyone recommend removing the IDE controller driver (via device manager) and letting Windows reinstall the drivers? Worth a try if you haven't done it. Be sure you have your Windows CD available in case Windows needs it!

Check the ribbon cable that connects the motherboard to the drive. If it is a 40 wire cable (count the bumps across the width of the cable) replace it with an 80 wire cable. Some cheap cables have lots of crosstalk between the wires requiring the computer to reduce the communications rate. IDE cables only cost a few dollars.

If you have a second device attached to the same cable, remove it. Boot the computer without the second device. If you can get DMA working after that then second device was interfering somehow. Attach it to the other IDE controller with another cable.

If you have only one device on the cable make sure it's at the end of the cable, not in the middle. A bare end can cause reflections of high speed signals, forcing the BIOS to resort to low frequency PIO mode.

The very last thing to try, if you know your exact motherboard model, is updating the BIOS. The manufacurer may have a newer version of the BIOS, and software to install it, at their web site. Warning: this can be catastrophic (as in a non-functioning computer) if you do it incorrectly.

[newbie04]

Did anyone recommend removing the IDE controller driver (via device manager) and letting Windows reinstall the drivers? Worth a try if you haven't done it. Be sure you have your Windows CD available in case Windows needs it!

Hi there,
I had the same problem, as junkmalle wrote, to get your drive to DMA just un-install the device, and when Windows detects and re-installs it (after reboot), it should set it to DMA.

Microsoft Article: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/IDE-DMA.mspx

Steps-

1. Right-click My Computer, select Manage.
2. Select Device Manager
3. Select the device under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers (something like that)
4. Right-click the device and select uninstall
5. After clicking through some prompts, you should be ask to reboot
6. After reboot, check your device again and it should be in DMA mode

I hope this helps!