HD Capturing Card

[BMPhoto]

Hi

I need some help here. I have shot some video in HD, however when I have transferred them into my PC and tried editing it using Pinnacle Studio 11, I have the issues of:

1) The sounds does not sync with the video in the editing timeline
2) The video in the editing timeline seems to run alright till near the end of the clip when its suddenly runs double time (not sure if the description is clear, its the best I can think of). Its quite consistent.

I spoke to someone working on the video editing and was advised that it could be due to my firewire capturing card that does not support HD.

Could the Seniors who shoot and edit in HD please help to advise:

1) Are these symptoms due to my Capturing card compatibility? I'm using an ordinary Firewire capturing card that comes pre-installed with my PC (not sure of the brand). Should I invest in a HD Capturing card?

2) Does Pinnacle Studio 11 has issue supporting HD editing?

Thanks in advance for you help and advise.

Regards

Vincent

 

[visualise]

Hi do let us know your physical setup of your computer. There could be lots of factors. Exactly what HD format are you using? Does your hard drive need defragging? If you are using HD why don't you do a straight transfer to hard drive? Or is it HDV?

regards

Isaiah
www.visualise.tv

 

[visualise]

It's definitely not the software as Pinnacle Studio 11 supports HD. however it would be good to check the actual format as there are many formats of HD

 

[BMPhoto]

Hi do let us know your physical setup of your computer. There could be lots of factors. Exactly what HD format are you using? Does your hard drive need defragging? If you are using HD why don't you do a straight transfer to hard drive? Or is it HDV?

regards

Isaiah
www.visualise.tv

Hi Isaiah

Thanks for asking. My PC is Acer computer, Intel Core 2 Quad Processor. The Firewire card came with the PC, from Device Manager, it is just stated as OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 card, can't tell its brand. Harddisk is Hitachi HDT725032VLA380, the rpm should be ok in the capturing the data as it works perfectly with SD. Defragmentation wise, looks ok to me

As for HD format, as you have probably guess, its the HDV. I use Canon XHA1 for my shooting and have not invested in Firestore device for direct saving.

It's definitely not the software as Pinnacle Studio 11 supports HD. however it would be good to check the actual format as there are many formats of HD

Yup, its HDV format. the file extension of the extracted footages via Pinnacle is .M2V with the sound file separately as a wave file .WAV. Are you able gather any clue from these info? Thanks a lot for replying and even just asking. Appreciate that.

 

[jaegersing]

If Pinnacle is converting to m2v + wav then that could be the reason for losing sync (I'm not familiar with Pinnacle though). See if there is a setting to capture as m2t which will be a direct copy from the tape and will have the audio stream still interleaved with the video.
Should not be any sync problem with that.

 

[mm63]

When do you encounter the out of sync issue? When you play back the m2v clip with another app (media player etc.) or when you are editing in Studio?

 

[BMPhoto]

When do you encounter the out of sync issue? When you play back the m2v clip with another app (media player etc.) or when you are editing in Studio?

That's my puzzle too. For SD editing, the audio is interleaved, but for HD, seems separated. Will look into the software setting again. Thanks for the comment.

By the way, maybe someone knows where is this setting? Can help? Thanks.

If Pinnacle is converting to m2v + wav then that could be the reason for losing sync (I'm not familiar with Pinnacle though). See if there is a setting to capture as m2t which will be a direct copy from the tape and will have the audio stream still interleaved with the video.
Should not be any sync problem with that.

After I pull the clip into the timeline editing. Seems out of sync right from the beginning of the clip and i have to manually adjust the audio to bring them closer, but never perfect. Funny thing is that at the end of the clip, the video seems to go "double speed" while the audio maintain (not sure how best to describe what I experience.)

Any advise? Or any good Pinnacle helpdesk email/website to advise? Don't seems to figure much from their official website. Anyone else experience similarly when using Pinnacle?Thanks.

 

[sgmlyfilmsociety]

What's your memory size?
Is your pinnacle version the Standard version or Studio Plus or Studio Ultimate?
Sometimes lagging occurs due to low memory or that your computer is not fast enough to handle HD formats as the file size can be quite big. If your pinnacle version is the standard one.. No, it does not support HD. But if Plus or Ultimate then its ok.

Another thing you might want to check is your settings on your software when you capture/digitise your your HD footage. Capturing HD thru firewire should be no problem, but problem could only occur if your computer is slow. For HD editing, its best if you have 2GB of memory or even more. If your editing a video more than 30mins and editing on HD format.. u might want to consider getting a mac.. memory can go as high as 4GB or 8GB for smooth editing..

 

[BMPhoto]

What's your memory size?
Is your pinnacle version the Standard version or Studio Plus or Studio Ultimate?
Sometimes lagging occurs due to low memory or that your computer is not fast enough to handle HD formats as the file size can be quite big. If your pinnacle version is the standard one.. No, it does not support HD. But if Plus or Ultimate then its ok.

Another thing you might want to check is your settings on your software when you capture/digitise your your HD footage. Capturing HD thru firewire should be no problem, but problem could only occur if your computer is slow. For HD editing, its best if you have 2GB of memory or even more. If your editing a video more than 30mins and editing on HD format.. u might want to consider getting a mac.. memory can go as high as 4GB or 8GB for smooth editing..

Mine is Studio Ultimate, generic support doesn't seems to be an issue. At least I can use this software to import the clip in HDV format from the cam, only thing is that I'm puzzled that its in .m2v format (with wave audio) and not the typical .m2t format (with MPEG2 audio) which I have also read somewhere.

My PC RAM is 2GB. Now I'm considering FCP on Mac too, but concern is the budget and that I may have to forgo my PC (and my frequently used photoshop CS3 installed in it) to switch totally to Mac.

 

[jaegersing]

You don't need a mac just to edit HD, a PC will do it perfectly fine too. I am using Vegas and Edius and they both work with HD without the type of problem you are having. Of course if you want to buy FCP by all means go ahead, but please don't think that it is necessary for HD video editing.

HDV is the same data rate as DV (or maybe even less) so you don't need a particularly fast PC for capturing. And you don't need a lot of memory for video playback, although you do need a faster PC for HDV compared with DV.

If you suspect that the Pinnacle software is the problem, you can download a free program called HDVSplit, which is a great utility for capturing HDV video through firewire. It can also split an HDV file into scenes.

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/HDVSplit

After you try HDVSplit for capture, let us know if the sync problem is still there.

 

[BMPhoto]

You don't need a mac just to edit HD, a PC will do it perfectly fine too. I am using Vegas and Edius and they both work with HD without the type of problem you are having. Of course if you want to buy FCP by all means go ahead, but please don't think that it is necessary for HD video editing.

HDV is the same data rate as DV (or maybe even less) so you don't need a particularly fast PC for capturing. And you don't need a lot of memory for video playback, although you do need a faster PC for HDV compared with DV.

If you suspect that the Pinnacle software is the problem, you can download a free program called HDVSplit, which is a great utility for capturing HDV video through firewire. It can also split an HDV file into scenes.

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/HDVSplit

After you try HDVSplit for capture, let us know if the sync problem is still there.

Thanks for the comment and info. Will try it out and revert. Thanks.