Now That People Are Using PE 8, First Impressions

[peggig]

Why?

[peggig]

Trim off about 30 frames from each side and see if the transition looks any better

OK, I tried that and it worked. Thanks again, Chuck!

Can anyone help with my other issue? When I open the Capture window, with my HV40 connected by firewire, and select for HDV camera for the capture source, I get the following pop-up message:

Your current Camera Setting is different from your Project Setting. Results may not be optimized.

All the settings are the same on the camera and in the Project Settings in PRE8. I looked it up online, and the closest thing I could find that seemed like it might be relevant was this, under Change Device control settings:

Device Type Specifies device settings to use: Standard uses the normal settings for the device; Alternate uses the settings for a comparable device if the actual device used is not listed; HDV uses settings specific for HDV devices.

However, HV40 is not one of the listed devices under Canon. So it seems like I should use the HDV setting. However, that's not listed as an option in the dropdown box, either. I tried setting it to Alternate 1, and the program hung. After waiting about five minutes for it to respond, I closed PE8, restarted it, and tried again. Then the Capture button wouldn't work. So I turned off the camera and turned it on again and now it's behaving exactly as before, with the same pop-up warning.

Also, I turned of Auto Analyzer in both the Organizer Preferences and the Get Media dialog, but it still launches Auto Analyzer immediately after a capture, and I have to cancel it manually. Is there somewhere else I need to turn it off?

I'm not so sure I like PE8. It seems very buggy.

[roadsideron]

If the HV40 is like the HV30 your camera ouput settings have to match your project settings. If you have it set to AVI and the camera's output is set to HD, then it won't capture and visa versa. You can always reset your camera's setting by depressing the reset button on the camera. When you hook your firewire cable to your computer it should show as HD on your LCD screen on your camera if you captured in HD. Otherwise it will not show that. Before you capture, and if you're capturing HD, set your project settings to HD 1080i, then try to capture.

[peggig]

I did all that, but I get the message anyway. Are there some other settings that might affect it?

Also, I noticed on playback that whenever the camera zooms in or out, it looks distorted and ripply in PE8, like it was shot through a wet windshield in the rain. Is this normal for playback in the editor? I hope it won't come out that way when I output the final video.

[Steve Grisetti]

I noticed on playback that whenever the camera zooms in or out, it looks distorted and ripply in PE8

I'd ensure I was using a true zoom and not a digital zoom on the camcorder, Peggig.

[roadsideron]

You might be seeing the jello effect from the CMOS sensor on the camera. I'm going to try and do some experiments using my HV30 with different settings, like optical stabilizer off and shooting in sports mode.

[peggig]

Digital zoom is turned off. I only ever use optical zoom. But I did try exporting the video and the exported video doesn't have that problem, so it seems to be only a problem when viewing it in the editor.

I tried exporting a 13 minute and 22 second clip to H.264, MPEG2 @ 1080i, and MPEG for DVD. It took an hour and eight minutes to export to H.264 (almost 4 times the length of the video!), 37 minutes to export to MPEG2 (twice as long as the video), and about 15 minutes to export for DVD. On cursory review, the H.264 and MPEG2 (@ 1080i) look very similar, but the MPEG2 file size is 42% larger. I was very disappointed in the video quality of the DVD version, but I guess that's to be expected...

All three files were saved with the .m2t extension, which my computer didn't recognize. I changed the extenstions to .mpg and they play, but the sound drops out at some point, and doesn't come back. Does anybody know why that might be? The sound is there. When I first start playing it, I can skip around and there is sound all through it. But after a couple of minutes, the sound just stops working, even in parts of the video where it was just working. It happens on all three of them. (This is not in PE8, this is in the exported video files.) Any suggestions?

[roadsideron]

If you try to create a SD DVD from an HD file it will always degrade the DVD. If you want to make SD files from original HD files you have to downcovert the HD to SD using the camcorder and you will get a much better quality SD DVD. There's a setting for downconverting the video in your camera. And you can always capture in HD also to create HD DVDs.

[peggig]

Roadsideron, I've heard conflicting reports on that. Some say you get better quality if you downconvert using the camera during capture, others say you get better quality if you edit in HDV and downconvert when you export it.

In my case, I'll be exporting both for Web and DVD, so it makes sense to edit in HDV so I don't have to repeat all the editing it in two separate projects.

I'd be interested to know others' opinions on whether it's better to downconvert in camera or using the editor.

[Chuck Engels]

Premiere Elements and Pro do a much better job of down converting now.
The benefit of down converting in the camera is if you are only going to be working with SD video.
Render times will be faster and the program won't get sluggish like it might in a HDV project.

If you plan on only exporting to SD video then it is better to edit in SD, but if you will be exporting HDV for any reason then it is better to capture and edit HDV.

If you capture and edit HDV you can still export SD at excellent quality from Premiere Elements.
In earlier versions it was thought that exporting to SD you had to capture and down convert in the camera for better results, that is no longer necessary in version 7 for sure.