I/O hardware for FCP 6 feedback

I am running FCP 6 on a G5 with an Aurora Pipe Studio. Since Aurora does no longer exist and I need HD support, I am going to buy a Mac Pro and a HD I/O hardware.
What would yall suggest, knowing that I don't really need uncompressed HD (ProRes 422 should be enough for me).
Thanks for your feedback !

Don't ya think it sorta matters what type of HD you are talkin' about here first?

Just about any HD like HDV or DVCPRO HD can be used with ProRez 422 codec or even their own without a capture card.

I use mostly HDV footage for HD, DVCAM and Beta for SD. I was thinking about BlackMagic MultiBridge Pro since it has a lot of I/O with RS422 support. Anyone has a feedback on that ?

Kona LHe with the KL-Box also has a RS422 port (lovin' mine). It's perfect for your needs & I believe is less $$$ than the Multibridge.

Tech support with Aja is the best in the biz, IMHO.

Joey

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Mack Truck Wrote:
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> I use mostly HDV footage for HD, DVCAM and Beta
> for SD. I was thinking about BlackMagic
> MultiBridge Pro since it has a lot of I/O with
> RS422 support. Anyone has a feedback on that ?

HDV is about the same as DV as far as storage and capture is over Firewire. Don't know what you would need a capture card for except maybe RS422 for deck control with the Beta deck?
For that a Decklink HD card will suffice at a cost much less than the AJA cards.

HDV is just DV with more pixels (and more compression) as far as capture and edit goes.

The HD output is mostly for monitoring purpose. The HD input is just in case I may need SDI HD one day. BlackMagic stuff is cheaper than AJA, but I heard about some troubles in the past...

FWIW...HDV is not the same as DV. HDV is a Long GOP format (totally different format than DV). Long-GOP (Group of Pictures) MPEG-2 compression is not engineered for post production, and image quality breaks down quickly over multiple generations and compositing. It should be converted from it's native state to be used efficiently (I like to capture it as DVCProHD through the Kona LHe).

Joey

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

grafixjoe Wrote:
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> FWIW...HDV is not the same as DV. HDV is a Long
> GOP format (totally different format than DV).

From a bandwidth and storage requirement point, it IS!

Editing HDV is a nightmare, that's why I am thinking ProRes 422 (I have analog HD output on my HDV deck). Just curious how Kona and MultiBridge handle ProRes 422 ?

Quote

Editing HDV is a nightmare

i that based on personal experience?
what sort of system where you using?
and what were you trying to do?
what was the most annoying thing about it all?

i'm asking for two reasons:

1) ive heard different stories from different people.
some say "no problem"

2) my director wants us to capture & edit HDV for his next project


thanks,
nick

I think the most annoying is the lack of real-time monitor output. Besides multi-pass rendering is not a good thing with HDV I have a G5 with Sony HVR-M15 HDV deck. I think I'll go with the Kona since AJA seems to be the most reliable.