Ok after trying a trial of Cineform, I was impressed but did not really have the PC to run it well. So I built a new system
Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHZ and 8 gigs of ram and 3 Internal HD's. 1 500 gig HD set up just for video, (4) 500 gig externals in raid 0 for backup

I am using Adobe Premier Pro CS3 for my editor, which Cineform Program would you suggest, dont want to buy more than I will use, but dont want to be sorry I didnt get enough either. Hoping to hear from others who are already using it.

I use 2 Canon XH A1's and shoot in all 3 modes, 60i, 24f and 30f if that makes a difference.

Thanks in advance for any help.

It depends on a couple of things, Denny. If you do lots of post corrections to color or FX/compositing stuff and multigenerational (export/import various times) stuff, you'd surely want the 10bit "bump up" that ProspectHD offers. Not to mention the bump up to 1920x1080 square pixel from HDV. That way, though you don't really "gain" 10bit color or the additional bits from the anamorphic 1440 stretch to square pixel 1920, you don't lose color/image quality from the heavy post corrections/editing. You also gain from the ease of downscaling from the square pixel output. We find quality on downscales is very good that way.

But if you only keep things in HDV sizes (1440 or lower) and don't really do much post type work in AE or anything else, it seems Aspect would be more than adequate for your needs.

Both are better than NEO for their realtime engine replacement of PP CS3's render engine for editing. Makes editing a pleasure not a pain.

One hint: we switched to x64 on one of our systems and really saw some boosts, especially in AE, which uses the additional memory your system has. (PP CS3 really doesn't gain as much, however).

Thanks Stephen, and I am really looking into the XP Pro64, to make use of the 8 gigs of ram, however need to make sure I will have no driver issues with any other programs befor commiting.

Is capturing just through a firewire port ok, or should I be using another PCI hardware?

Sorry so many ?'s really new to this.

Denny,

If you're recording to tape using your A1, then capturing through FW is fine.