Participant

Not Prioritized

Bring Back Video Capture

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
October 20, 2023
68 replies
19190 views

This morning when I opened Premiere Pro 24 for the first time, I was dismayed at not being able to find the Capture option in the File menu. Upon contacting customer support, I was told that feature had been retired, and I was directed to the following page:

https://helpx.adobe.com/in/premiere-pro/kb/retiring-tape-based-workflows.html#sa_src=web-messaging

Here's my problem. As a professional media archivist, I used the capture system frequently in the process of digitizing old video tapes (mostly VHS and U-Matic, sometimes DVCPro) for digital access and storage. The article above seems to think tape-based capture is only for transferring tape-to-tape, which is wrong. There are professional archivists and media professionals all over the country, or all over the world, whose job it is to preserve tape-based media via digitization. Adobe has now effectively abandoned an entire industry because it thinks people don't need this feature anymore. Adobe is wrong. As I write this, I have several dozen VHS tapes at my desk waiting to be digitized, and now I have to come up with another software solution because Adobe evidently does not care about customers like me who do this for a living.

Dear Adobe, this was a poorly researched decision, potentially affecting a lot more of your customers than you realize. I am asking for the tape-to-digital capture feature to be restored to the software for video professionals like me who were using it faithfully.

Mod note: Title changed slightly.

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S

SpielbergRules24x7x365

Known Participant

Perfectly well said. Hopefully Adobe will read these before they put more people out of business, as if things aren't hard enough out there for everyone.

I, myself, like SO many other have tons of tapes to digitize. This was an EXTREMELY poor decision on the part of Adobe.

M

Mark35140858uzuz

Participant

Agreed.

I am among the numerous cultural heritage institutions who rely on Premiere Pro to migrate unique and irreplaceable content from aging and at-risk tape media like VHS, U-matic, and other analog formats. This feature was why I recommended purchasing the Adobe Creative Cloud licenses for all of our lab workstations.

Sure the workaround is to install the older version, but for how long will that realistically be viable? How long before the cloud decides it wants to auto-update, or even worse, simply stop supporting the older version without notice?

Hear this, Adobe: your software is not just for filmmakers working with digital technologies. Do not make the same mistake that Apple did with Final Cut. There is an entire industry of cultural heritage digitization professionals that are responsible for the migration of historical content from outdated and decaying media to modern, flexible, stable, and non-proprietary formats.

Kevin-Monahan

Community Manager

@bsam123, @cjfenner, @JonesVid, @Shecky52, @Marco331926951auv, @lauriej24226234, @Bassquake, and other communtiy members on the thread:

Be sure that you have upvoted the feature request.

Thanks,
Kevin

Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community & Engagement Strategist – Pro Video and Audio

bsam123

Participant

Yes please bring back Capture!

JonesVid

Community Expert

I think the issue we all have is that Adobe should not have taken capture capabilities away in the first place.

If Adobe position Premiere Pro in the market as an editing suite for professionals (and enthusiasts) then we are going to need to capture footage on tape from a few years back. Not all is transcribed yet.

The suggestion to use 'old versions' from Adobe support is quite frankly not acceptable. We are always told to use the latest software version.

Shecky52

Participating Frequently

I called and asked B & H if they knew of another option or device. They suggested an analog connection through a Canopus Capture device. They said they had recieved a lot of calls on this issue asking for alternatives and that was what they suggested. The AVDC-110 has digital and analog input/output but the issue is some software that will do the capture as well as Premiere did.

Shecky52

Participating Frequently

I agree, I have hundreds of tapes that I only need to access if someone needs some historical info. I don't want to back them all up to disk if I dont have to. I have old tape decks and cameras that use firewire. I have had to add firewire cards to my new computers and keep an old Mac around if I need it. Please just add capture back even if you add it to Media Encoder. I installed an old version of Premiere but it also wanted me to install the older version of Media Encoder.

M

Marco331926951auv

Participant

same here.

B

Bassquake

Inspiring

Count me in. Was super confused and dissapointed Capture option dusappeared from 2024 version. Please bring it back!

M

Mediapaja245965299d7b

Participant

The Capture window has been removed from the latest Premiere. 
We need it in our work anyway because we digitize old videos. 
What can we do about it? is there somewhere to download the old version?

JonesVid

Community Expert

Yes fully agree Capture should be re-instated. I bought a FireWire card for my latest pc build and used on some of my DV and HDV tapes. All ok on PPro 22 then discovered PPro 24 had it removed. What market research and justification was done to allow this.

Using old releases to solve a fundamental requirement like this is crazy.

Please bring it back now!.

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