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.

[Shecky52]

I also keep CS6 and Encore available. 

[Marcus357913985oyo]

Capture is a vital part of on set live editing. To say it's a step forward in modernizing workflow is not entirely accurate as more productions have on set editors now than before. It doesn't make sense that we can't use the latest Premiere versions for the sake of keeping Capture on an older machine, while upgrading to silicon chip based machines doesn't allow us to use Capture. 

[SpielbergRules24x7x365]

Lots of great responses here. Adobe - are you listening? You're going to lose a lot of subscribers if you don't do saomthing about this. Not everyone has older version of your software to "go back to." Come on already. Just bring it back and stop messing us up. My business is already gone, thanks to you. Many others depend on that for our businesses so we don't have to go back to bagging groceries at the store. I can't even do that anymore I'm old and have a bad back. Let's go - just bring it back already if you really care about your subscribers instead of just the untold MILLIONS of dollars you must make every month, you'll bring it back.

[JonesVid]

I would appear (although I may be wrong of course) that Adobe Video Product Management (whoever they are) do not seem to be interested in Ideas that don't sync with their own 'Product Strategy'.

Any idea/proposal with over  +100 votes should automatically have the attention of 'Product Management' and comment here.

We don't don't know what the voting threshold is as nobody from Adobe ever engages on this Forum.

As already observed, not one comment from Adobe apart from the lone voice of  Kevin Monahan.

Even if there is no intention to bring Video Capture back, a rational explanation here from the right people in Adobe Video team as to why that decision has been made would be appreciated.

Users can then decide what to do next ........

As history has shown, its one of the great classic Business Marketing text book beginnings of company downfall not to listen to your customers.

[SpielbergRules24x7x365]

Perfectly well said, sir. I have NO idea why they don't engage (more.) Makes NO sense to me, but when they start losing money, maybe then they'll listen. Or respond.

[Truebadoor]

I am archiving media for a heritage centre and I was also surprised to find the essential "Capture" menu item missing.

[ikincisadik]

Install version 23 in creative cloud 2023 without delay... Continue to maintain the old version installation on your computer.

[Mark35140858uzuz]

Unfortunately, installing an older version isn't an option for those whose Adobe licenses are governed by our institution, and our Campus IT has disabled the "Install older version" option according to the security policies they set. I am continuing to scramble to find another solution, but currently what I've found talking to my colleagues at other institutions is only compatible with Mac/Linux (and we are, for the moment, a Windows-only production lab).

[jefjaeger]

Ridiculous.  The capture function needs to be restored to Premiere Pro immediately.  There should not have to be a 'use an older version workaround.'   This is a professional software, and it is not cheap.   Subscribers pay for functionality.  Many of us capture analog A-V as part of our businesses.  No excuses.

[MisterAdvent]

I wound up having old versions installed on old laptops (with firewire) to do conversions. But then the problem is getting the footage to the main array for processing, which takes a long time to copy, unless I capture to a fast SSD and work with portable media.

But hey, Doesn't Adobe have the code for "OnLocation" (formerly Serious Magic's "DV Rack") getting dusty in the long-forgotton app bin?  How about spruce that up and make it a standalone application for archival transfers???

[Jesse28164999jbgx]

This is absurd. So many doc filmmakers need to access archive materials. Like... most? I can not even beleive this.

[Bruce Bullis]

Capture functionality will not return.

[Mark35140858uzuz]

Thank you for your reply, @Bruce Bullis, but I think the community would at the very least appreciate an explanation as to why Adobe made this decision, especially without consulting or informing its users.

[R Neil Haugen]

This is a problem for quite a few people, and especially those dealing with historical and legacy projects. Sadly, it isn't just "Adobe" having moved on, but most of the 'video post' vendors. Software and hardware.

This niche is a small subset of "total" users at this time, and getting smaller. Even at NAB, finding tape to video hardware is getting very difficult. Most manufacturers have discontinued the machines they used to make. One is told to check Ebay to find the "old" tape to digital capture machines.

So for anyone doing this work, and needing this capability, finding the hardware recorders via Ebay or whatever seems to be the necessary path forward. Sadly, that is the current reality.

[Bruce Bullis]

Before removing Capture functionality from 24.0 (in October 2023), we informed users of those removal plans the previous March on Adobe forums, at tradeshows, and all customer events. We definitely consulted with many users; while we did hear from a small-yet-vociferous community of users who wanted to preserve Capture, we determined to proceed.

We can't provided specific numbers, but I can confirm that capture usage has steadily declined for years, getting down into the 'not statistically significant' range by 2019.

In discussions with our capture-related hardware partners, all of them confirmed that they already provided their own capture utilities, and already recommended them over PPro's integrated functionality. 

While we recognize that this decision causes pain for those users still accustomed to / reliant upon PPro's Capture functionality, we are doing more good for more users by working on other parts of PPro (I'm sure everyone has an area they'd like improved), than we can by continuing to support Capture.

[SCOTT_L]

The biggest problem with a lot of the capture cards and their software is they do not supply the codecs needed to capture in todays world.  Nobody really wants to capture in full 10bit uncompressed (bloated) codecs.

[Bruce Bullis]

Ideally, what codec option(s) are you hoping for, that aren't supported by your capture hardware vendor?

[SCOTT_L]

For PC owners, ProRes (codec family) is the most important.  AVID DNxHD (codec family) is the other.  There are others that would be nice but that would depend on hardware.

[Bruce Bullis]

What do you use, today, to capture / create DNxHD media?

[SCOTT_L]

AVID Media Composer. 

Currently they support (on PC) AVID DNxHD, ProRes, AVC Long GOP,  XAVC Long GOP, J2k and J2k IMX (All with the family for the codecs)

[jefjaeger]

I have capture interfaces.  What other software are you even talking about?  Right now, I have no other options.Most of my business is converting analog audio and video to digital.  What alternatives would you suggest?  Unbelieveable.  I have been a loyal Adobe customer for years.  Betrayed again.

[jefjaeger]

We are clearly being ignored.  Perhaps our money isn't green enough.

[R Neil Haugen]

I don't know how much business experience you have. And that could be part of the attitude. I've been a "sole proprietor" my entire adult life, over 40 years now. 

We always had to make decisions as to whether certain types of similar work, to the work that we did ... we would do. And some things we had done, we eventually stopped doing.

With a few unhappy customers, but that work was no longer actually profitable for us at all, and often was more labor intensive than other things we did. Sometimes we held on for a while after it wasn't profitable, just to be kind to our clients.

But eventually, we would have to simply decide to drop a line of work ... permanently.

To me, that's all that Adobe is doing here, and as they are not the only company dropping tape work, it's very believable. There simply aren't enough of us as a percentage of the users to justify the expense anymore.

It's the same thing as several color things I would like to see ... there simply aren't enough others who would actually use those to make it worth the time to produce them.

That's not mean, that's not "ignoring" paying customers. It's just reality.

Much as I don't like it either, it's just ... what is. Sadly.

I'll be at NAB again in a couple weeks, and will be checking there for tape capture solutions. Sometimes someone will have something that is spiffy and not too expensive for a small shop like mine.

[JonesVid]

Question for @Bruce Bullis 

Its clear Premiere Capture is no more. Final.

Can you clarify a couple of things though.

If I have captured HDV material or DV material already on Data Storage facilities (not edited yet ) will you still maintain MPeg codec or Standard Definition AVi codec in which it was originally captured in Premiere Pro ?.

In addition I might use an older Premiere Version just to Capture off tape (as required), but then Import those files into Premiere 24.x or 25.x etc for editing in the future

Please make the Premiere Pro Codec Support Road Map clear for users.

Thanks

[Bruce Bullis]

> Please make the Premiere Pro Codec Support Road Map clear for users.

I'll ask our friends from Formats to do so; the removal of capture support from PPro did not involve any change to PPro's supported codecs.