How to capture live video in premiere

[Brian Louis]

Yes, but it would depend on the cam’s output capabilities, and the computer’s I/O capabilities, if it has firewire and your computer has a port, thats one way, another, I have a cam with HDMI out and use a Matrox MX02 mini HDMI input with a laptop with a express port, other ways are via analog A/V I/O, with the proper input adapter/card.

[Mark Hollis]

But if you are using a camera with Firewire and you start playing back from the camcorder (in deck mode) and hit the red button on Premiere in the capture window, it will simply capture the input without trying to control the VCR on your camera (or the virtual one in the case of a P2 camera).

It’s quick and dirty, though it is not optimal, as you cannot repeat any captures later.

Very good for recording scratch tracks of voiceover though.

What if there were no hypothetical questions?

[Brian Louis]

To do “live” capture via F/W from most cams you have to be in the camera mode, likewise with the cam’s analog A/V outputs, there are some pluses and drawbacks, with the analog outputs, on most cams they are before quantizing so they have a better color range if you have good codecs to capture to, with firewire the signal is quantized but the output is before recording for tape
Drawbacks with Ppro you cannot view HDV while capturing you are limited to whatever cam monitors you are using, for analog A/V you need other ways to to digitize the signal for computer use, Onlocation is one way around Ppro’s HDV limitations, I prefer using HDMI and a Matrox mini(laptop or desktop) or BM’s Intensity Pro(desktop), AJA also has solutions