Adobe Community: Timecode in AVI-Files

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1. nealeh,

May 10, 2010 12:21 PM in reply to Nicomil2000

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In PRE7 there is the following preferences screen:

Cheers,
--
Neale
Insanity is hereditary, you get it from your children

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2. Nicomil2000,

May 10, 2010 8:40 PM in reply to nealeh

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Nealeh, thank your for your reply.

I did what you suggested. Unfortunately I still have the same problem. I does not matter whether I look at the old AVI-Files (captured from myr camera using Pinnacle), AVI-Files captured with Premiere Elements before or after your suggestion. I still can't see the original Timecode. There is always just the TC starting at 00:00:00.00.

I think Pinnacle puts these TC-a into the SCN-File which comes to each AVI-File captured by this software. It seems to me that the AVI-File doesn't contain the absolute TC-information. But this would mean that in PE the absolute TC will not be available. On the other hand I can't imagine that this is true. How would you find common scenes recorded with two or more cameras?

I was searching for a while this forum and also googling all around. I did not find any hint to solve this problem. But I can't imagine that nobody is interested in the TC. So either I have a unique installation which suprresses the TC or my intellectual capacity is too poor to see the clue.

What is wrong with my AVI-File? What else can I do to get the TC (including the date/time of the recording)?

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3. nealeh,

May 11, 2010 6:28 AM in reply to Nicomil2000

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Video does not embed information in the file in the same way as still photos (EXIF). I wonder if it is a feature of Pinnacle that it maintains its own extended data outside of the video itself. Try looking at your video in a couple of other players (e.g. Windows Media Player, QuickTime or VLC) or editors (e.g. Windows Movie Maker, Virtual Dub, trial versions of AVS or Magix products). I would not be surprised if they too don't have the data you describe.

Cheers,
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Neale
Insanity is hereditary, you get it from your children

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4. Steve Grisetti,

May 11, 2010 9:28 AM in reply to nealeh

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That would be my guess too, Neale. It's quite likely Pinnacle did not capture the video's true timecode.

Try capturing a segment with Premiere Elements and see if you get the same results.

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5. nealeh,

May 11, 2010 9:46 AM in reply to Nicomil2000

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Nicomil2000 wrote:

There is always just the TC starting at 00:00:00.00.

To clarify I presume you are looking at the following:

This is not in fact a Time Code with any relevance to the original footage. It is the CTI - Current Time Indicator - and that is exactly what it is. It show the current time of your project through out the project. i.e. If you butt two clips together the start of the second clip shows the time in Hrs:Mins:Secs:Frames and this will be one frame higher than the end of the previous clip.

In my earlier reply I missed the significance of the SCN file you described. This confirms my guess that Pinnacle kept its own extended information outside of the video.

Cheers,
--
Neale
Insanity is hereditary, you get it from your children

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6. Nicomil2000,

May 11, 2010 10:51 PM in reply to nealeh

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No, I did not just look the CTI. I have been searching in the properties auf each AVI-File: the 'Frame-Counter' always starts at 0 - even when I capture a new MiniDV using PE. And even when I put the preference to split the file by Timecode during the import: it always starts at 0 - after each split.

I will have a look at the Files with other tools. But after all I have read I think there will be the same situation. I will let you know.

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7. Bill Hunt,

May 12, 2010 6:55 AM in reply to Nicomil2000

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You might want to explore ScenAlyzer Live (SD) and HDVSplit (HD) for Capture utilities. Each offers more control than PrE (or even PrPro). Most users think that each should have been the Capture module in PrPro.

Good luck,

Hunt

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8. Nicomil2000,

May 15, 2010 6:19 AM in reply to Bill Hunt

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Thanks Neale and Bill,

I was 'experimenting' with a couple of programs installed 'by default' on my PC. Importing a MiniDV from my Camera or an existing AVI-File did not fit my needs. Either they did not show at all this Timeocde (e.g. Power Director) or the only format was MPEG.

So I followed Bill's suggestion : I downloaded the freeware-version of ScenAnalyzer. This tool shows all I want to see: Date/Time of the recording and computes the duration of each. And it also shows the Timecode starting at 0 at the beginning of the MiniDV or AVI-File (Maybe I will purchase the actual version).

I think I can deal with this solution: I will be able to find corresponding scenes recorded with two (or more) different cameras. But there is still enough backbraking work left to synchronize corresponding scenes perfectly in PrE ...

Thanks for your help!!!

Nicomil

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9. Bill Hunt,

May 16, 2010 9:03 AM in reply to Nicomil2000

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Good luck, and please report your progress.

Hunt

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10. Colin-B,

May 17, 2010 11:00 AM in reply to Bill Hunt

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It is strange that even Scenalyzer is showing the timecode always starting at 0. If you have time, can you try opening any of your clips in DVMP Pro (demo version) or DVMP Basic. Both of these will show exactly what timecode the camera stored in the DV data and will confirm for sure whether your files contain timecode. If they do, DVMP Pro has a tool for adding a Premiere header to the files which effectively tells Premeiere the correct starting timecode to use.

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11. Nicomil2000,

Jun 12, 2010 12:46 AM in reply to Colin-B

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This is just a late 'progress report' to tell a bit of my experiences:

ScenAlyzer is a simple to use program to split up DV-AVI-Files (by Datestamp or Optical change). What I like very much is: the output file name is composed by a base name and either the number of the sequence or, and that is really good, the date/time of the datestamp.

I wrote an Email to the owner of the software to ask if the developmend and support of this software will continue. Unfortunately I never got an answer. Nevertheless I will use ScenAnalyzer mainly to add the recording date to the filename.

DVMP is a much more sophisticated program which allows to split an AVI-File by datestamp or optical. There are a couple of manipulation possibilities, e.g. change the beginning of the datestamp of a sequence. I couldn't test this feature since I have only the demo version where functionnality is restricted.

Sending an Email to the DVMP-Team was in vain since I did not get any answer.

After all my tests I finally (!) had the idea to split up my AVI-files using PRE 8. I distributed the sequence in the timeline on PC as 'Uncompressed Microsoft AVI'. That worked fine. Except: splitting this way removed the datestamp (I realized that only when I wanted to add this datestamp to the filename using ScenAnalyzer, but the pogram couldn't find the datestamp).

So I wanted to split up my AVI-File using the File -> Export. But I could not do anything since the Export-Function is in gray - I can't start it.

This question I will ask in a new thread: "File export function is grey / inactive".

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12. nealeh,

Jun 12, 2010 2:02 AM in reply to Nicomil2000

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Export functions were moved to the [Share] tab in PRE8. File> Export is now only used for Titles.

Cheers,
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Neale
Insanity is hereditary, you get it from your children

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13. Colin-B,

Jun 12, 2010 10:26 AM in reply to Nicomil2000

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Nicomil2000 wrote:

I couldn't test this feature [AVI splitting] since I have only the demo version where functionnality is restricted.

AVI splitting isn't restricted in the demo.

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14. Bill Hunt,

Jun 12, 2010 11:52 AM in reply to Colin-B

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Colin,

I was unaware of that. It had been my understanding that the trial was fully functional, except for the watermark banner.

Thanks,

Hunt

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15. Nicomil2000,

Jun 14, 2010 11:13 AM in reply to Colin-B

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Colin, you are right: it is possible to modify metadata (Timecode or Date/Time) with the demo version of DVMP. I mixed up the extraction of metadata and modifying since trying to extract metadata comes up with the message 'this feature is only available in the FULL version of DVMP Pro'.

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16. Peter Bursky,

Apr 15, 2012 9:54 AM in reply to Bill Hunt

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I myself came across the issue of finding the date when the scene was captured. Have been looking for a long while until i came across this discussion.

I didn't need any fancy stuff, just find out the date when all my imported scenes wre captured. Thanx to Bill Hunt's suggestion, i downloaded the older free version of Scenalyzer, and it did exactly what i was looking for.

I just registered so that i can say thank you for your suggestion.

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17. Bill Hunt,

Apr 15, 2012 10:21 AM in reply to Peter Bursky

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Peter,

Welcome to the forum.

Glad that helped you get what you needed.

That is a good reason for the forum - often earlier discussions will help others, later on.

Good luck,

Hunt

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Timecode in AVI-Files

May 10, 2010 11:05 AM

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