XL1S Dv Capture
 

I got an XL1s Dv cam and tried importing some stuff into premiere via Firewire. It came out like crap. looks like my max video resolution is at 720x480. Is there a program out there that lets me capture at something like 1200X800. Somebody please help me on this one.

Iron, that is DV res its the highest that I know of. everything is in that res for video. Now given that its a XL1s I don't know it might have greater capablitys than the standered. I know thats the max res on my sony. DV.

If your XL1 is capable of 1200x800 something thin you will want to change the project settings in premeir if posible to that. I kinda doubt it.

it might also help if you quantify "crap" 720x480 is what comes off of DVD's also. so I'm wandering if your thinking a higher res is the anser to a problem that might really be that you are not use to seeing scanlines on video footige on the computer. becouse the moniter refresh is so difrent from a TV's it makes them very aparint. There are ways to get ride of a lot of problems you could be having..

DV is DV. Resolution is 720x480 for NTSC and 720x576 for PAL, period. I got the PAL version of the XL1s and there is no way you can capture at any other resolution than the standards. Even if you could it would be faking things (i.e. digital zoom). The image information on the DV tape is stored at those resolutions. FYI: Regular TV resolution is less than those stated above...

Ok, so what im seeing is the right resolution but when i get it into premiere under 48mhz standard NTSC it comes out fuzzy when i make it into an avi. How can i get the best quality possible with this camra capture and output? doesnt have to be avi, but it does need to stay digital.

PS thanks for the relies

PS im running Adobe Premiere, with an XL1S ntsc

Could you post a frame of one of the crappy/fuzzy looking footages? It might be an interlacing issue. Try shooting with the camera set to frame mode (aka progressive).

Heres a still, BTW thanks for all your help K man.

Looks like a normal interlaced still frame to me. You can't see the interlacing on TV because TV is field based (=interlaced) thing too. Computer monitor on the contrary is frame based (aka progressive). It does not separate even and odd fields. That is why you see the comb like effect visible especially on sharp moving edges if you watch interlaced material on a computer monitor.

If you switch the XL1s to frame mode it will record full frames at 30fps instead of interleaved fields at 60fps. This kind of footage will look jerky on a regular TV but on a computer screen the frames look better.

It is possible to deinterlace interlaced footage afterwards but afaik the result can't never be perfect. Here's your frame deinterlaced in after effects. I also changed the pixel aspect ratio to square (in NTSC DV it is 0,9 and in PAL it's 1,0666...).

Do some searches with google and you'll find lots of information on this. It's like opening a can of worms ;)

so is this within the normal operation of the camera? my camera isnt screwed or softeware crappy?

Iron, yeah that’s just interlacing. Normal. but as I found out from K the XL1 is the bomb. Its nice to have the option of progressive frames instead of interlaced. I'm stuck with interlaced on my Sony. So I always have to deinterlace in post. Not very accurate. When your footage is viewed on a tv it should look fine.

But, and some might disagree with me, Progressive is the way to go. For one a lot of filters you can use don't like interlaced video anyway. Just for instance it can cause a ghosting affect if you blurred a interlaced video. Film is of cores progressive and a lot of time is spend buy some getting there video to look and act more like film.

aaaahhh matrox simultaneous tvmonitor output and hardware mpeg2 acceleration... and HDTV sony 2k camcorders... i want to touch em again...

your camera is ok btw (and i if you dont think so i would be pleased to be your technical service;), just send it to my home:D)Your capturing soft should have an option to specify the source is interlaced so that it wont look so bad on editing....