What to do if you can’t control your camera through your capture software

When you click Play or Rewind on the camera controls in your video-capture software, your digital camcorder should respond. If not, check the following items:

• Check all the obvious things first: Are the cables connected properly? Is your camcorder turned on to VTR mode? Does the camera have a dead battery?
• Did the camera automatically power down due to inactivity? If so, check the camera’s documentation to see if you can temporarily disable the power saver mode. Also, consider plugging the camera in to a charger or AC power adaptor so that you aren’t just running on battery juice.
• Is your FireWire card installed correctly? Open the System icon in the Performance and Maintenance section of the Windows Control Panel. Click the Hardware tab, and then click the Device Manager button. If you see a yellow exclamation mark under IEEE 1394 Bus host controllers, you have a hardware problem.
• Is your camcorder supported? Most modern digital camcorders are supported by Apple iMovie, Pinnacle Studio, Windows Movie Maker, and other programs. But if the software just doesn’t seem to recognize the camera, check the software vendor’s Web site (www.apple.com, www.pinnaclesys.com, or www.microsoft.com, respectively) for camera compatibility information. If your camera is so new that it wasn’t originally supported by your editing software, check the publisher’s Web site to see if software updates are available to accommodate newer camcorder models.

Capturing video in Apple iMovie

Apple’s iMovie doesn’t offer quite as many capture options as Pinnacle Studio, but the capture process is simple and effective nonetheless. In fact, you can set just two capture options. To adjust capture preferences, choose iMovie➪Preferences. The Preferences dialog box appears. The two options relating to video capture are as follows:

• New Clips Go To: This default setting sends incoming clips to the Clips Pane. This is the best place to send new clips unless you want to quickly convert your imported video into a movie without any editing. What’s the fun in that?
• Automatically Start New Clip at Scene Break: iMovie automatically recognizes when one scene ends and a new one begins. This useful feature often makes editing easier, so I recommend that you leave this option checked.

The iMovie interface is simple and easy to use. To capture video, follow these steps:

1. Connect your camcorder to the FireWire port as described earlier in this chapter.
2. Switch the camera to VTR mode.
3. In iMovie, click the Camera button to switch iMovie to the Camera mode. The Preview pane displays the message Camera Connected (as shown in Figure 5-11).
4. Use the camera controls to identify a portion of video that you want to capture. When you are ready, rewind the tape about ten seconds before the point at which you want to start capturing.
5. Click the Play button in the camera controls.
6. Click the Import button when you want to start importing.
   
7. Click the Import button again when you want to stop importing.

It’s just that simple. Your captured clips automatically appear in the Clips Pane, where you can then use them in your movie projects.

how to Capture video in Pinnacle Studio

When you’ve finally got your capture settings just the way you want them, you’re ready to capture. To do so, simply follow these steps:

1. Connect your camcorder to your FireWire port as described in the previous section.
2. In Pinnacle Studio, click the Capture tab near the top of the window, or choose View➪Capture.
3. Configure your capture options
4. Use the camera controls to shuttle the camcorder tape to the beginning of the spot where you want to start capturing video. Shuttle is another fancy term that video pros like to use when they talk about moving a videotape. When you rewind or fast forward a tape, you are shuttling it. See: You’re already a video pro and you didn’t even know it!
5. Click the Start Capture button. The Capture Video dialog box appears.
6. Enter a name for the capture; this name will be used as the filename for the captured video later. If you want, enter a time limit for the capture. By default, the time shown reflects the amount of free space on your hard diskYou can see that my hard disk has enough room to store 607 minutes and 21 seconds of video using my current quality settings. It’s usually safe to just leave this number alone unless you want Pinnacle to automatically stop capturing after a certain amount of time. For example, if I know that I only want to capture the first five minutes, I can enter 5 in the minutes field and 0 in the seconds field. Then I can go and get a cup of coffee or do something else without having to hurry back to manually stop capturing at some point. Pinnacle will automatically stop capturing after five minutes have gone by.
7. Click Start Capture. Studio automatically starts playing your camcorder and capturing video.
8. When you want to stop capturing, click the Stop Capture button or press Esc on your keyboard. As Studio captures your video, keep an eye on the Preview window, even if you have disabled on-screen preview in the capture settings. The Frames Dropped field should remain at zero. Dropped frames are a serious quality problem, but they can often be resolved.

Previewing your capture settings in Pinnacle Studio

Pinnacle Studio’s Preview capture mode is an excellent tool because it lets you store more source material on your hard disk for editing purposes without using up quite so much disk space. Like MPEG capture, if you choose the Preview preset in the main capture window and then click Settings, you’ll have a group of sub-presets to choose from on the Capture Format tab. It’s usually best to just use one of the sub-presets, but if you choose Custom quality, you can adjust the following settings:

• List All Codecs: Choose this option to list all of the codecs that are installed on your system. (Codecs are compressor/decompressor schemes for audio and video) I really don’t recommend using this option because some of the codecs installed on your computer may not be compatible with the Pinnacle Studio software.
• Compression: Here you can choose a specific codec if you wish. For most preview captures, the Intel Indeo Video R3.2 or PCLEPIM1 32-bit Compressor codecs are fine.
• Width and Height: Choose a custom size for the video if you wish.
• Remember, the smaller the size, the less hard-disk space will be needed. If you’re using a PIM1 codec, I recommend a frame size of 352 x 240 or smaller. For Indeo codecs, use 360 x 240 or smaller.
• Frame rate: The default frame rate for NTSC video is 29.97, but your files will be much smaller if you choose 14.985. If you’re working with PAL video, you can choose a frame rate of 25 or 12.5. A lower frame rate means the video image won’t be quite as smooth, but because it’s only preview quality, this usually isn’t a big deal.
• Quality or Data Rate: Select either the Quality or Data Rate radio button, and then use this slider to adjust the quality or data rate for the capture. It doesn’t really matter if you choose Quality or Data Rate; the end result will be the same. Remember, lower quality (or data rate) means smaller file sizes.
• Include Audio: Deselect this option if you only want to capture video.
• Channels: Choose between 16-bit stereo (better audio quality) or 16-bit mono (smaller files).
• Sample Rate: You can probably say it with me by now: Higher sample rates provide better quality, lower sample rates mean smaller files. When you’re done setting capture format options, click OK to close the Pinnacle Studio Setup Options dialog box.

Checking MPEG capture settings in Pinnacle Studio

If you’re using the MPEG preset (your current preset is shown in the drop-down list in the upper left corner of the Capture Format tab), you can choose a standard group of settings or customize your settings.
MPEG capture settings that you can adjust include these:

• Sub-Preset: Choose a sub-preset from the menu. Sub-presets include High quality (DVD), Medium quality (SVCD), Low quality (Video CD), and Custom. If you choose Custom, you can modify the remaining settings. If you choose the High, Medium, or Low quality sub-presets, the remaining options will by grayed out.
• MPEG Type: Choose MPEG1 if you want to make sure that your final movie will be compatible with the widest variety of computers, or choose MPEG2 for slightly better quality.
• Resolution: This is the screen size in width and height in pixels of the image you will capture. The size for full-quality DV is 720 x 480. Smaller sizes mean a smaller image, but it also means the files sizes for your video will be much smaller.
• Pre-Filter: If you’re capturing at a smaller resolution, select this check box to improve the appearance of the image slightly (at the cost of absolute sharpness).
• Fast Encode: This option speeds up the capture process, but it can reduce quality.
• Data Rate: You can fine-tune quality and file size by adjusting data rate. To adjust data rate, move the slider back and forth. Lower data rates mean smaller files but also lower quality. In most cases, I recommend you keep the default data rate setting.
• Include Audio: If you only want to capture the video image from your tape and not the audio, uncheck this option.
• MPEG Capture: This menu helps you tailor capture to the speed of your computer. The safest option is to simply leave Use Default Encoding Mode selected. If your computer is very fast (2 GHz or faster processor), you can make capture more efficient with the Encode in Real Time option. If your computer is slower (slower than 1 GHz processor), choose Encode After Capturing if you encounter dropped frames or other problems during capture.

When you’re done setting capture format options, click OK to close the Pinnacle Studio Setup Options dialog box.

Setting capture options in Pinnacle Studio

Pinnacle Studio has some really cool options for capturing video. Unlike most affordable video-editing software, Studio supports online and offline editing.
Studio facilitates offline editing using the Preview-quality capture mode. When capturing video with Studio, you can choose one of three basic quality settings:

• DV full-quality capture: Choose this option if you plan to export your movie back to videotape — and you have a generous amount of harddisk space to use.
• MPEG full-quality capture: Choose this option if you plan to output your video to a VCD, S-VCD, DVD, or the Internet. MPEG capture can be customized further using some sub-options described in the next section.
• Preview-quality capture: Choose this option if you want to capture a lot of video to your hard disk but storage space is a concern. With this option, Studio captures video at a lower quality, which results in a smaller file size. Later, when you’re done editing, Studio recaptures — at full DV quality — only the portions you want for your final movie; all your edits are automatically applied to the full-quality video. If you’re not quite satisfied with the quality of the preview you get, you can customize Preview-quality capture with sub-options described later.

In addition to the three basic quality settings, Studio provides you with a variety of other capture options. You can find them in the lower-right portion of the screen. One of the things you can customize is the storage location for your captured video, often called the scratch disk.

Click the folder icon to review the scratch disk folder and change it if you wish. For example, you may have a second hard disk that you wish to use for video storage. The default location for your scratch disk is

My Documents\Pinnacle Studio\Captured Video

This folder is created automatically when you install Studio on your computer. You can also specify a variety of other capture settings. Click the Settings button in the lower-right corner of the screen to open the Pinnacle Studio Setup Options dialog box. Click the Capture Source tab to bring it to the Front.
This dialog box contains a lot of options and settings, but only two of them are really important for right now. First of all, I strongly recommend that you remove the check mark next to Capture Preview. When this option is enabled, Studio shows a preview of the video on-screen as you capture it. This preview uses up valuable memory and processor power that is better devoted to the actual video-capture process. You will still be able to view the video on the LCD display or viewfinder of your camcorder, so the on-screen preview is redundant anyway.

Second, review the scene detection settings. Studio can automatically detect when one scene ends and another begins and automatically turn each scene into a separate video clip. This comes in handy during editing, but if you don’t like the feature, you can click the No Auto Scene Detection — Press Space Bar to Create Scene radio button.
After you have changed these settings, click the Capture Format tab to bring it to the front. If you are using the DV capture preset, you won’t be able to customize any of the settings on this tab. But if you are using the MPEG or Preview preset, you will be able to adjust some options as described in the next two sections.

Capturing video in Pinnacle Studio

Pinnacle Studio for Windows offers an amazing level of moviemaking power for its price. The software is available by itself for a suggested retail price of $99, or you can buy it bundled with digital (FireWire) or analog video-capture cards for about $30 more. The top-of-the-line Studio package is Pinnacle Studio Deluxe (which retails for about $299), which includes the Studio software, capture hardware for both digital and analog video, and the Hollywood FX plug-in (which adds advanced video-editing tools to the basic Studio package).
A trial version of Studio can be installed from the companion CD-ROM for this book. See Appendix A for details.
To begin the capture process in Studio, click the Capture mode button or choose View➪Capture.