[Tim Fast]

Thank you for your reply Jane. However, I cannot convert the video to anything since the sound is corrupt already during the capture.

After I’d tried different approaches to the problem I found out that the problem disappears when I start capture from the scene where the sound changes from good to bad. The problem is not present either if I let the captured video break into the scenes. I. e. the software has problems with the sound when capturing transition from one scene to another.

[Tim Fast]

And more testing has been done. This one is quite promising. 🙂 I tried to import the tape on iMovie and everything works just fine there. So, it IS Adobe’s problem.

However, I’d still like to find out what the problem is since iMove is really, and I mean REALLY awkward to work with. It is not so easy to retrieve the video files and they are all broken into the scenes. I want to avoid using iMovie and use Adobe’s products that I’m familiar with instead.

What tweaks can I do in order to make the capturing in PP work?

[Tim Fast]

Have done some testing – opened the captured file in QuickTime. The sound plays good until it comes to the “problem” scene. And it continues to be good for about 5 seconds into the scene! After that it disappears completely.

It means that QuickTime can read the “damaged” audio but during few seconds.

Have tried VLC, it starts echoing as soon as it comes to the problem scene.

Can it give any clue? Is it a way to capture the video somehow to avoid the error?

[Tim Fast]

Thank you for the fast reply Tero!

I capture video from camera connected to computer by firewire. I use DV Capture preset for the capture (there are only two presets DV and HDV). The sequence has DV-Pal Standard 48kHz preset.

[Tim Fast]

Ok, thank you Tim.

To sum up for master archiving of camcorder/DSLR footage you recommend DNxHD 185/10bit with color level set to 709.

Thank you all for the help! 🙂

[Tim Fast]

Do I get it right that both DSLR and camcorder produce video in Y’CbCr? I’m so used to RGB from the photo world. 🙂

[Tim Fast]

Thank you all, guys for the answers. Regarding the color depth I have found following on Avid’s home page:

– Avid DNxHD 220x: For superior quality image in a YCbCr-color space for 10-bit sources. Data rate is dependent on frame rate. For example, 220Mbps is the data rate for 1920 x 1080 30fps interlace sources (60 fields) while progressive sources at 24fps will be 175Mbps

– Avid DNxHD 220: For highest quality image when using 8-bit color sources. Data rates based on frame rates are the same as for Avid DNxHD 220x

As I interpret it Avid recommends to use 220/8 for 8-bit sources (which I have). However, I still don’t get it how they manage too keep the same bit rate for both 8 and 10 bits. If they use harder compression would it be risk actually degrade the quality?

Any ideas about using 709 vs RGB levels?

[Tim Fast]

Thank you Tim for the answer. I still have CS6 and I was planning to use the QT wrapper.

Yes, I’ve done some color correction. But I don’t plan to do any additional color corrections. Why would I need 10 bit? 8 bit/channel is all our eye can resolve.

So, you are suggesting go up to DNxHD 185 10 bits. That would give 50 % larger files compared to 120/8. I guess I can afford it but I still wonder whether it is actually possible see the difference.

Another question that’s bothering me. According to Avids data sheet both 185/8 and 185/10 have the same bitrate. Do they compress the video harder to be able to increase bit depth without increasing bit rate?

[Tim Fast]

Thank you for your help Johnny. I can proceed with the project now. 😀 Even if I would still like to know why it happens. 🙂

[Tim Fast]

I think, I’ve figured out the problem by myself. I believe that the resolution of my other comp (“room”) is too low. When I zoom in I see pixels. Thank you for your attention though.