Had a videopgrapher dub a BetaSP tape to MiniDV tape. Then took MiniDV tape home and captured to Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 (via Firewire). Within Premiere I see a vertical black area on left edge of every frame (and to a lesser extent on the right edge and at the bottom of every frame).

I'm assuming this a resolution mismatch issue?

I captured the MiniDV in Premiere at standard DV 720x480. (w/ 0.9 pixel aspect ratio)

Should I capture at higher res (720x480) and downsample? Or should i resize within Premiere. WOuld either degrade the captured video quality to a significant degree? How would I go about doing either?

Goal is to edit in this video with additional video that was shot in DV and then cloned to my MiniDV format and also captured to Premiere. (I don't see any black areas around this captured video. Only in the video converted from Beta SP).

And then will output into DVD format (NTSC 4:3).

Thanks for any ideas.

Woody

Hi Woody,

I take it the origination format is NTSC, no odds really, but is NTSC not 1.0 square pixels?.

Anyway the problem you describe is not a conversion artefact, it's a quirk/benefit of professional cameras.

I take it that although the black area is pronounced on the premire preview monitor it is still outwith the action safe frame?

I susupect that this shall not appear on most consumer monitors.

Professional cameras have horizontal and vertical phasing, allowing you to vary the postion of the actual scan area that is reocrded on tape from the CCD.

For most single camera applications this is not important, but in multi camera set ups often cameras are adjusted to line up so that they are all scanning the same area of a ccd. If not his black area causes blanking which can disrupt broadcast transmission.

If you plan to reocrd more footage on the betacam then it is worth going into the menu and resetting this function so that the scan is taken from the centre of the ccd.

Although BetacamSP ccds typically scanned at 800+ lines the ouput was never any more than the broadcast standard of the camera, this 'overscan' common to most video cameras, (though not with as much latitude in consumer cams) allows things the the v&h phase shifting, and things like electronic image stabilisers to work.

Hope this helps

Originally Posted by Roy Mallard

Hi Woody,

I take it the origination format is NTSC, no odds really, but is NTSC not 1.0 square pixels?.

Thanks for the feedback Roy.

Yes NTSC.

Guess I'm confused. I understood that when capturing footage from DV cam that Premiere should be set to 0.9 pixel aspect. But from what I gather you are stating is that if footage was orignally analog NTSC (beta SP) then that footage needs to be captured in Premiere at aspect 1.0, even though it is being captured from MiniDV? So when I capture into Premiere what should Premiere's frame size/resolution settings be set to?

Originally Posted by Roy Mallard

I take it that although the black area is pronounced on the premire preview monitor it is still outwith the action safe frame? I susupect that this shall not appear on most consumer monitors.

How can I tell? It's close enough to encroach on action area. Don't want to take chances.

Just found a "crop" tool in Premiere that may help. Suppose to trim pixels from edges and then the trimmed clip auto-resizes to "original clip dimension".

Originally Posted by Roy Mallard

this 'overscan' common to most video cameras, (though not with as much latitude in consumer cams) allows things the the v&h phase shifting, and things like electronic image stabilisers to work. If you plan to reocrd more footage on the betacam then it is worth going into the menu and resetting this function so that the scan is taken from the centre of the ccd.

I don't have any BetaSP equipment. The Beta SP footage was taken five yars ago by a professional video firm and mixed down to a master tape which then VHS tapes were replicated from. The result was very good.

So I didn't have any control of how the BetaSP was shot or captured.

I delivered the Beta SP master to a local video company and they dubbed the BetaSP tape to my MiniDV tape. I did not see this black area on their monitor when dubbing from their BetaSP deck.

And the black area doesn't show up in the small LCD screen on my JVC MiniDV cam. But when I preview the captured MiniDV footage in Premiere I see the black area.

So still trying to figure out how to match the footage captured from BetaSP with my other footage captured in DV so everything "sizes" up correctly in Premiere for output to DVD.

Again the plan is to edit with additional new footage (which is displaying correctly in Premiere) and then remaster and burn a DVD for replication.

Woody

Thanks for the info on overscan and conversion.

So since I've acquired footage from someone else who shot to BetaSP, and that I have no BetaSP equipment, it sounds like there is no easy way for me to prevent the black from appearing in the captured video (from my side of things) and therefore have to edit (crop) in premeiere after capturing?

Eventhough the black will not display on a TV display I'd like to rid of the black so the video looks good in Premiere on PC monitor and will match the other footage I captured from DV and will edit together.

I captured some video from VHS directly into Premiere (via Pinnacle Studio Movie Box) via Firewire and I didn't observe similar black overscan area.

I see the crop command in Premiere trims pixels from edges and then remaining video image will automatically "resize" to fill the frame.

Would you know if cropping and the auto resizing will decrease the image "quality" of the video?

Or do I need to make other compensations or adjustments?

Woody

It's classic overscan.

In premier there is a small arrow at the top right of the monitor window (v1.5)
when you click this you get a drop menu offering safety margins (may be called guide frames), there will be two squares within your frame, the outside square is the action safe area, the inside is the title safe.

You could crop the image, but you will then drop the resoluion of waht remains (if this is from vhs source this isn't a great move)

PM me and I'll email you a photoshop mask you can take in as a clip and put onto the uppermost video track, so masking the overscan discrepancies - i.e there shall be a black frame around the image on the vdu, but not on the telly, but this black frame will at least be consistant.