Capturing HDV via RGB signal

Am switching to JVC GY-HD100U HDV Camcorder. The only output signal it has for the HDV video uncompressed is RGB. I have a power mac G-5 w/dual 2.5, Final Cut Pro HD 5 and the Tiger 10.4.2 operating system. Apple support told me there are capture cards that will grab this RGB signal and get into the mac for FCPro uncompressed. Hope you can recommend what card(s) are best and any other tid bits that will help me make the switch from the dv firewire input. Many thanks.

Capturing DIRECTLY from the camera? I see that it says that it has analoge component outs, but then you have no deck control nor timecode. With capture cards you need to be capturing from a deck. Get an HDV deck, then the Decklink HD cards and the Kona 2 or Kona LH are good options. Depends on the outputs on the deck. If HD SDI, then all will work. If Component only, then the Kona LH will work.

BUT...have no illusion...the camera records a COMPRESSED image on to the tape. It records an MPEG-2 image on the tape, and once it is compressed MPEG-2, there is no UN-compressing it. The HD capture cards allow you to capture the footage at HD 4:2:2...adding even MORE compression, but getting it into a very easily workable format.

But now we are talking high speed RAIDed drives and all that.

Really, the best way to get the image off that camera is via the firewire port.

or just leave it on the camera and throw the camera away and chose a REAL format! - hahahaha!

Well, the output from the camera is Y'PbPr NOT RGB. A Kona LH(e) will capture it, but it's probably not worth the bother.

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

you can capture from the component output but it is noticeably softer then natively capturing



David at Movies Rock in Toronto
[www.tofcpug.com]

A quick work on compression. Almost all video compression is destructive. The more compression, smaller bit rate, and higher pictures per bit, the more damage the picture has compared to the same picture with no compression.

HDV in particular has a lot of compression and damage to make a HiDef format that small and efficient.

To give you one really simple example. You can transmit all the bits necessary to destribe a beautiful blue sky. That's uncompressed and that's a lot of bits. You can also assume the whole sky is the same blue and only transmit one color signal and the shape of the sky. You get an enormous amount of picture for just a few bits that way. The problem is no sky is all the same color. You have damaged the sky to get the compression and all those beautiful different blues will never come back, no matter what you do later.

MPEG2 compresses everything it can get its hands on and in extreme, you can see it working. Sunsets that seem to have lines in them. Funny motion in violent scenes, blocks where video used to be, etc.

It's all a juggling act.

Koz