Every Test Has Its Catch
We wondered how individual clips could be generated if the DV file was captured via the analog input of the breakout box. In that case, timestamps would not be available. The same goes for cases in which there is a DV file archived on CD or hard drive. This can no longer be used unless the original tape can be found. Adobe Premiere loses a point for not having scene detection. Matrox makes only a halfhearted effort to compensate for this problem. Competing software like Pinnacle Studio still has software-generated scene detection. Here is a solution: on the Internet at www.scenalyser.com, you can download a utility of the same name that searches DV files. Now the user has the option of choosing between timestamp and optical scene detection.
Scenalyser has scene detection for timestamps or uses the software-generated optical analysis for DV files.
A trial version of Scenalyser is free. If you want to keep the program, you must pay $33 (plus sales tax). One tip: if the source file is available in MPEG-2/ DVD or MPEG-4/ Divx, it must be converted to DV prior to scene detection.
Conversion Problems With MPEG-2
During the test run we experimented with various source file formats. As mentioned just now, video material must first be converted to DV if it is not already available in this format. We tested with three different MPEG-2 files: a "clean" MPEG-2 reference file, a DVD rip and a recording from a digital television program whose stream is available in MPEG-2. In the case of the DVD rip and the digital TV recording, we observed ominous stalling and shaking following conversion to the Matrox DV format. When Microsoft DV was chosen, these problems did not occur. Even the update from the originally available release candidate to the final version of Adobe Premiere 6.5 did not provide any relief.
We wanted to find out why. We installed the competing software, Pinnacle Studio 8.3. As expected, the Matrox DV codec appears in the Export menu, since the driver is already locked into the operating system. Curiously, Pinnacle Studio handled the export without error. What we learned from this: the DV codec programmed by Matrox seems to be error free for this instance of use. The bug must be in the Premiere software, over which Matrox has little control. For this reason we hope that Adobe will soon make an update available that eliminates this bug.
