Capturing a huge project

[Chris Knight]

I assume you’re capturing DV through firewire, in which case 7 hours of footage would eat up about 80GB of space. You should definitely capture in Premiere, but I would not do a straight dump of each tape.

The process of capturing from tape to a hard drive, allows you to selectively choose what you want to really edit. It could very well be that you only need 10 or 15 minutes from one tape.

You can also divide scenes into separate captures, so when it comes time to edit, you aren’t scrubbing through a 60 minute clip, but rather a series of 1 or 2 minute clips. You will save days of editing by spending a few extra hours of capturing.

Premiere also allows you to log footage for later capture. This method allows you to tell Premiere what parts of the tape you want (by setting multiple in and out points), which then frees up your time while the camera/vtr sends all the footage to your hard drive (and for a 60 minute tape, that can take a while). The other advantage to logging, is so that if the hard drive with all your footage explodes, you simply tell Premiere to recapture from the logs you made (assuming you don’t throw away the original tapes). Instant restore.

You should always capture footage to a hard drive that isn’t the same as the one with your OS and applications. If it’s external, make sure it isn’t too full (although firewire and USB are fast enough to capture DV tapes, a full drive might cause frames to drop, resulting in jerky footage).

BTW, I’m assuming you also have Final Cut. If you decide to capture DV footage there, you can easily import the Capture Scratch folder into Premiere as well.

[Austin Baur]

Yes, I am am using firewire and I figured around 75 or 80 GB of space would be eaten up too. So I guess I’ll take your advice and go buy an external hard drive, because dropped frames were super frequent for me and I just assumed it was a natural part of the editing process.

Anyway, this batch capture method you are talking about – I have never done it. So, what would be the easiest, most efficient way to do it? Would I hook my cameras up to a standard TV monitor and then watch each tape while logging my desired in/out points in a notebook or something, then proceed to enter those points in Premiere and then capture away?

I have simulated this sort of batch capture method in the past in FCE by imply pressing the Esc key when my clip was over, stopping the capture. Then I would simply restart the capture and repeat. What are the advantages and disadvantages to simply doing that versus your batch capture method?

[Chris Knight]

Instead of writing notes, you can enter the information into Premiere, as you are watching the tape. In most cases, this will be faster than crash capturing (using the ESC key to stop). The process requires a bit of practise, so I would suggest you try it out with 10 minutes of tape, and see how it feels. If you prefer capturing on the fly (and hitting ESC every so often), then continue using that method instead.

Premiere also has a function to capture a whole tape, and then divide up the giant clip into sections, based on whenever you hit pause in the camera. My experience is that using this method leaves you with a cluttered project file, full of 1-2 second clips that you would never use. Again, if you want to experiment, try it out with a tape, and see it works with your workflow.

I would suggest you check out the Help file in Premiere, in regard to these capture methods. It’s explained in step-by-step detail.

[Austin Baur]

Cool. Thank you very much. I will probably go out with some buddies and shoot a short little 5 minute (which could easily have up to 30 min to an hour of footage) and then use that as practice footage for these new capture methods. I’ll probably try each one. Thanks again!

Austin

[Phocas Kroon]

My advise: before capturing make the edit on paper.
I make a shotlist of each tape in excel with columns: tapeno, timecode(hr:min:sec) and description.
Then I add a new column for the edit code in edit order. (first clip in final movie code 010, next 020 etc)
Now I sort the excel list in edit order by sorting on edit code column.
Then I check if the edit order is OK and modify this by changing the edit code.
I sort back to the shotlist by sorting on tape code and time code.
I use this list as capture list to capture the scenes ( or blocks of scenes belonging to each other) manually and give each clip the name of the edit code.
After importing in Premiere all clips will be shown in the project window sorted in edit order.

It looks as a time consuming method but you save a lot of time in the editing phse.

Good luck.

Phocas Kroon

[Austin Baur]

Hmm. Sounds interesting. Now, forgive me for being inexperienced, but what do you mean by edit code? The part about timecode makes a lot o’d sense, but then you started talking about edit code.
PS I’m not wasting time here, I took chris’s advice and bought a 1.5TB external hd, and I’m just waiting for it to come in.

[Phocas Kroon]

If you have the capture list with the time codes ready you can number the scenes according to the place in the movie (edit code)
If you want to start the movie f.e. with the scene on tape 1 timecode 0:25:20, you fill in the edit code 010 in the edit code column.
If the next scene in the movie will be on tape 3 time code 0:31:40 you will fill in there edit code 020. etc. etc.

You can check the edit order on paper by sorting on edit code.

I use the numbering 010. 020, 030, 040 etc to change the edit order by using f.e. 042, 054 etc.

Then you sort back on tapeno and timecode and start manual caturing.

Use in the name of the clip the edit code. In the project window all clips are listed then in the movie order.

Parts from the tape you will not use, you don’t capture.

Good luck
Phocas Kroon