I'm confused about the various DV formats and their relationship to firewire.

There is mini-DV, DV25 and DV50. When I shoot on a high end camera like a SONY 500 or 570 on the large format tapes, I'm shooting on DV50, which is a professional format and will improve keying, image quality, etc. Are mini-DV and DV25 the same thing?

If I bring my large format DVCAM DV50 tapes into my FCP via firewire, will the DV50 footage remain the same high quality, or do I have to bring it in from my DV Deck via SDI or Component to insure that I preserve it's 4:2:2 sampling?

Thanks,

Loch

Sony has NO such format as DV50. All Sony DV devices are DV25 -- either DV or DVCam.

Panasonic offers DV consumers that are DV25, and DVCPro professional devices that are also DV25. They (and far as I know they alone) also offer DVCPro50 devices that are DV50. JVC offers a product that actually uses the same data rate and perhaps the same codec (I'm not sure -- this is a niche product) that records to a different cassette size and is called Digital-S.

DV25 describes DV, DVCam & DVCPro.
DV50 describes DVCPro50.

mini-DV is actually a tape size -- you can record either DV or DVCam to a mini cassette ... now you can record HDV to the same cassette. Full size tapes are used in many DV25 decks and some DV camcorders, but the data recorded is still DV25. DVCPro uses medium and full size cassettes but not mini.

So to start with ... you don't have DVCam DV50 tapes, and can't as Sony doesn't offer such a thing.

HTH

GB

Adam Wilt's DV FAQ has lots of great info on nearly everything DV.
http://www.adamwilt.com/DV.html