dvcpro50 + dv, both at 23.98 - together for editorial ?

I've got mostly dvcpro50 tapes shot at 23.98 fps and a few dvcam archive transfers running at 29.97 fps to prep for documentary editorial. We want to cut at 23.98 to leave the finishing options open.

I've never worked with dvcpro50 - is there a good offline codec for dvcpro50 at 23.98 fps ? Also - to capture dvcpro footage at offline res, is it necessary to have a video card (blackmagic, etc.) and raid array? Or can the 17 hours of dvcpro50 footage be digitized with a rented deck and a dual 1 gig quicksilver fcp 5 via firewire (offline system) and no video card ?

Then comes the question of the best way to integrate the archival dv stuff transfered at 29.97 into the dvcpro50 (possibly at offline res). Do we want to run the dv 29.97 tapes through cinema tools to convert to 23.98 ?

It's possible that during editorial the editor may cut back and forth between the two different source formats - how can I make FCP happy when it comes to working with these two.. potentially in the same sequence ? Is there a batch converssion(s) to be run that wouldn't mess up the timecodes ? If running the dv footage through cinema tools creates a new timecode - we're willing to suck it up on that specifically for now...

thanks
signed,

Prepping To Prep.

I don't know if I can be of any help or not. I've been trying to work with dvcpro50 and dv25 combined for a couple of months. Yes, batch conversion works, though I found it easier to convert the dvcpro50 to dv25 and work in a dv25 timeline, but really only because I have much more dv25 footage than dvcpro50 footage, and there were hugh render problems and disc space considerations. There's still a lot of rendering going on, but not enough to slow workflow. I've been capturing all the footage via firewire to G-Raids using the two codecs provided in FCP. If you have to bring it in analog you'd need the card.
As far as the film and video rate concerns you'll have to rely on the others.
I'm not one of the gurus so take it for what it's worth