Thanks for the info, Harm. Looking at an older PDF manual for CS5, the Mac version can import .avi files, so that shouldn't be a problem.

There's no doubt Windows users have a big head start with the production suite. The last Apple software I was using was Final Cut Studio 3 (grudgingly). For two versions I was waiting for Apple to do something, anything, to bring that suite into the 21st century. Our main issue was Blu-ray disks. We create a fair number of those. You could burn them straight out of Final Cut Studio 7, but you had zero control over how it presented on screen. DVD Studio Pro could assemble a Blu-ray authored setup with all of menus and other things you would expect for a decent presentation, but it couldn't burn a Blu-ray disk, or even output a BDMV folder, which I could then write to a Blu-ray disk with Toast Titanium. In other words, it was useless.

The final straw was the totally revamped Final Cut Pro X (what a joke!), with only a modest change to Compressor and Motion. But the real kick in the teeth was not only did Apple not do anything to upgrade DVD Studio Pro, they just plain dropped it!

Adobe, thank goodness, saw an opportunity and offered a cross-upgrade to the Production Suite. I tried a trial version of it and Avid. Avid was just plain weird, and looked and acted like the 15 year old interface it was. Adobe's software on the other hand, was essentially just like stepping out of Final Cut Studio and into almost the identical workflow and interface. It was so easy to use, I almost couldn't believe it.

The more I use it, the more I realize Adobe's software just kicks the tar out of any version of Final Cut Studio Apple ever had. Honest to goodness accurate NTSC and HD profiles you can convert your still images to. I can work on my computer's monitor in a standard prepress 5000K, 1.8 gamma monitor profile (Photoshop set to the monitor profile as the working color space), convert the final sized stills to the appropriate video standard and I know the color will look exactly like that on the completed disk; without even having a reference monitor!

Adobe's compression also hands downs kicks Compressor around the room. Much sharper, accurate results (can you tell I love this suite? ) There's no way I will ever go back to Apple's video suite no matter what they do to it, and they've lost a lot of people, mostly to Adobe's suite.

You sure that's possible? One of the major complaints when that hit is that it had zero tape-based functionality, neither in nor out. FCP X was for tapeless media only.

Oh, drat! That's right. Another reason pros were miffed at Apple with FCPX. Sure, eventually everyone will shoot digital, but an awful lot of people out there still have awfully expensive tape cameras they aren't just going to toss in the trash. So that idea is definitely out.

Just for the sake of testing further to see if it's specifically a Premiere Pro issue in OS X, I downloaded and installed Premiere Elements 10 for Mac. Same thing. It halts all on its own with the tape still running.

Edit: Forgot to mention. While it does tend to halt on cut scenes in the Mac version or Premiere Pro, it does also randomly stop anywhere in the playback, and quite often. Lion was installed on an erased drive, and then the CS6 Master Collection. That's all I have on the partition so far, so it's a very clean install. No third party drivers, other than for a Logitech mouse and MS keyboard. Those same Windows versions of the drivers are installed in Win 7, where the capture works just fine. Doesn't mean they can't be causing an issue in OS X, but I doubt it.

Okay, I think I have a final answer on this. I did file a bug report to Apple and they said they couldn't duplicate the problem. Which is kind of hard to believe after narrowing the real problem down. I went about it much more slowly and methodically and came up with an entirely reproducible issue. The problem is the Adobe apps (partly). Specifically, the installation of.

With Snow Leopard, Lion and Mountain Lion, I started by erasing a drive and installing the OS from scratch so it was clean. No third party drivers added, all updates applied. At that point, you could capture video with no stalling or unexpected stopping using QuickTime X or QuickTime 7.

I then installed the CS6 Master Collection. Right after that, the capture stoppages returned. Didn't matter if you were trying to do it in QT directly, or the Capture function within Premiere Pro (which uses QT to do that anyway, so it's really the same thing). I did the same test starting over on an erased drive and CS5.5. In all cases, the results were the same. Capturing video was broken after installing the Adobe suites.

The fix was to reinstall the OS after installing the Adobe software. A pain in the rear, but it fixed whatever the Adobe install broke.

The one thing that is directly a problem with QuickTime is how it captures the VCR's signal. You must start the tape first, and then the capture. If you do anything with the VCR after the capture has already started (stop, rewind, forward, play), the capture instantly stops. That I did report back as a bug to Apple. QT shouldn't be paying the least bit of attention to what the user does at the VCR. The only thing it should be doing is recording the analog output until you tell it to stop.

Did the Adobe apps put anything new in /Library/Quicktime?

Nothing there from Adobe.

Is it capturing to a new codec that was installed?

I doubt it. You can use QuickTime by itself to capture video exactly the same way. It appears Premiere Pro is just putting a pretty face on the function.

I've done quite a bit of capturing of analog signals and while it's annoying that fast forwarding or doing something on the VCR will stop capture, I believe it is because the the timebase of the video signal is being broken at that point.

Certainly logical sounding, but I had installed the Premiere Pro demo in Windows 7 to see if the same thing would happen there. It doesn't. You can stop the tape, rewind or anything else during a capture in the Win version, and it will just keep recording whatever is coming from the VCR. Even if it's the standard blue screen VCRs show when a tape has been stopped. I also didn't notice any problem with the video/audio sync when doing that.

But it's okay. I know now to start the capture first and then just let the tape run. Oh, and a little addendum. The Mac (or Windows) is of course not capturing an analog signal, it's capturing a digitally converted video from the datavideo converter.

Hi Brent,

Yes, as noted above, reinstalling the OS after the Adobe suite fixed the freezing problem. See the post above marked with green lines on the left and right sides.