Importing, transferring, capturing, and digitizing

•When shuttling, logging, and capturing HDV footage on Mac OS, the preview pane in the Capture panel will remain blank. You must preview this footage on an external TV monitor or, when the source device is a camcorder, on its viewfinder.

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Troubleshoot digital video capture and playback

Capturing DV or HDV video

You can capture audio and video from a DV or HDV device by connecting the device to your computer with a FireWire cable. Premiere Pro records the audio and video signal to the hard disk and controls the device through the FireWire port.

You can capture DV or HDV footage from XDCAM or P2 devices. You can capture through SDI ports if your computer has a supported third-party capture card or device installed. Also, your computer must have the respective drivers.

In a sequence made with one of the DV or HDV presets, the capture settings are set for DV Capture or HDV Capture, respectively. You can, however, change the capture settings to either DV or HDV from within the Capture panel in an established project.

You can choose whether to preview DV video in the Capture window during preview and capture. You can also preview HDV footage in the Capture window, in Windows only. However, you cannot preview HDV footage in the Capture window during capture. Instead, the word Capturing appears in this window during HDV capture.

Important: You can transfer and import DVCPRO HD assets, XDCAM HD, and XDCAM EX assets, and AVCHD assets from their media without capturing. Capturing takes longer than transferring, and does not preserve all metadata. For more information, see “Importing assets from tapeless formats” on page 65.

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“Set up a DV or HDV system” on page 42

“Capture with device control” on page 84

“Export a sequence to tape with device control” on page 446

Capturing HD video

You can capture audio and video from an HD device with an SDI port. Your computer must have a supported SDI capture card, and its drivers and software installed. Similarly, you can capture HD footage from XDCAM SDI sources provided a supported XDCAM capture card is installed, along with its respective driver. Correct installation adds HD presets to the Available Presets pane of the New Sequence dialog box. It also adds HD formats to the Capture Format menu on the General tab of the Project Settings dialog box.

You typically connect the HD device to your computer by connecting its SDI ports by coaxial cable with BNC connectors. To provide device control (Windows only), you also connect the serial port on the device with an RS422 or RS-232 port on the computer. See the setup instructions provided by the capture card manufacturer.

For details about capturing tape from an AJA device and setup in Premiere Pro CS5.5 and later, see this video by Walter Biscardi.

Last updated 1/16/2012