Bring Back Video Capture

[cjfenner]

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.

[JonesVid]

Good to know.

Mpeg and AVi are the main ones on material I have but have some older Matrox stuff. Might need to re-import that.

I'm sure other users who use Tape based formats as part of a business will be interested to hear codecs have not been touched ....so far.

[jefjaeger]

I have the Canopus ADVC-110 for capturing from analog sources.  It does not have any software.  I use mine with Premiere Pro.  Now that I have been betrayed by Adobe once again, I will need to find an alternative as much of my business is converting analog media to digital.  What would it hurt to just leave the Capture function in the software?  Ridiculous.

[Bruce Bullis]

> What would it hurt to just leave the Capture function in the software? 

What it would hurt = The entire product. Every old technology that we continue to support, prevents us from making improvements to other product areas, and delays support of emerging technologies. 

The Canopus ADVC-110 shipped 19 years ago. A quick web search suggests that there is an assortment of capture software available; WinDV seems popular. 

[SCOTT_L]

Again, just make it a stand-alone module!  And if so, it would really be nice to have an auto-import media captured into a project!

-S

[MisterAdvent]

Somewhere in the dusbin is "OnLocation," which did firewire capture.

[JonesVid]

I've previously looked at WinDV (as mentioned by @Bruce Bullis on this topic) last year  and found it is now in 'Legacy Mode' now. ie No further development from what I can see but does work. It is very old ....but functions.

Here is a post I started from mid 2023  where @Peru Bob  gives download links for Win DV and HDV Split - thanks for that.

This might help some people.

WinDV   WinDV

HDVSplit   HDVSplit 0.77 beta

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/support-of-hd-hdv-capture-in-latest-premiere...

Ann Bens notes that Windows 10 probably needed - not Windows 11.

I found HDV Split 0.77 did in fact capture on Windows 11 on my PC, no previews though. Maybe just luck.

[Peru Bob]

HDVSplit doesn't have a preview in Windows 10, either.  I use the camcorder screen to preview.

[Lounjay]

"we informed users of those removal plans the previous March on Adobe forums, at tradeshows, and all customer events."

Good grief. How many surveys have you sent us via email with not one mentioning the removal of this feature?

"We can't provided specific numbers, but I can confirm that capture usage has steadily declined for years, getting down into the 'not statistically signif."

Capturing on set and live events is more prevelant now than ever. Wow. Maybe the pulse of our craft isn't at "trade shows" and "customer events."

[Bruce Bullis]

>How many surveys have you sent us via email with not one mentioning the removal of this feature?

Capture was removed from the beta 8 months before it was removed from official releases. I've no idea about email surveys, sorry.

>... 'not statistically signif."

Yikes, not sure how my post got truncated; usage is way, way down.

>Capturing on set and live events is more prevelant now than ever.

Agreed! That's why we confirmed with all hardware manafacturers who'd previously supplied PPro Capture solutions, before discontinuing. Unanimously, they recommended customers use the capture software provided with their hardware, and agreed with our decision to remove Capture from PPro.

[Lounjay]

When you are live capturing shots on set specifically for timing for VFX
and need to immediately place them in a pre-vis sequence to make sure they
work no one on set wants to hear "hold on a second. I need to drag the clip
into Premiere from my drive first and then trim it before I can show you
the timing." And, have you seen the capture tools of the 3rd party hardware
companies? They're hot garbage. Adobe sends me surveys frequently about
their products so they could have easily sent out one inquiring about the
removal of a feature/tool that has been a part of the production workflow
for decades.

[SpielbergRules24x7x365]

Not everyone has the time (or need) to read the Adobe forums, go to tradeshows, or go to customer events.

An email would have been nice, but still ineffective.

Just bring it back. That's it. Do you even realize (or care) how many people you put out of business?

Probably not, you're still getting more money every month than most compnies get in a year..

[Bruce Bullis]

Capture has been removed from all PPro versions 24.0 and greater, on all platforms; it's not coming back. 

Adobe recommends using the capture utility provided by your video capture hardware manufacturer. 

[Joe26703127skh3]

There was a thread that has now been closed for comments about bringing back the capture function.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-ideas/bring-back-video-capture/idc-p/14535825/page/4

Adobe's point about capturing from tape being obselete is missing the point.

The capture function not only allows you to capture from tape, but it also allows you to capture a live feed on set. This is an emormous part of professional editing these days. Productions want quicker turnarouds and we can't be waiting for the DIT to wait for the camera card to be changed, copy the data, transcode the material and give it to the editor. With the capture function we can take a live feed, even remotely through the internet. This is the way to do cutting on set properly, and Adobe has literally wiped itself out of this part of professional use. Which means now we either have to use an old laptop with Prem 2021 installed to get the functionality (it doesn't show up in my versions of 2022), or use Avid, which would then get used for the rest of the job. It surely can't be a huge deal to allow capture from an SDI signal through an interface into firewire. The idea that we can use capture software supplied by a third party does not work in this scenario.

You need to sort this out sharpish, please.

[Bruce Bullis]

Hi Joe,

We understand why capture is desireable for several workflows. 

Capture will not be returning to Premiere Pro.