Does Final Cut Pro 5 support Sony's HDW-F900? I'm gonna be shooting a music video and I'm trying to decide whether or not to use this camera or Panasonic's Varicam. If I am able to use the F900 what would be my system settings and would a regular external hard drive with several gigs hold the footage?

Thanks,
Reggie

Why would you need 1080i for a music video? If you can get away with 720P go for the Vari. Unless you are going for broadcast HD, you dont gain much from the F900.


ash =o)

Reggie, post costs shooting HDCAM will be much higher than if you shot Varicam/DVCPRO HD.

If you shot HDCAM, you'd need to rent a J3 deck and bring in via HD-SDI. Most people when workign with HDCAM do standard def downconversions to Digibeta or DVCAM, then edit in that. Then when you have a cut, you use media manager to bring in uncompressed HDCAM. The gotchas in that flow are numerous, and I don't recommend doing it unless you or somebody you hire knows exactly what you're doing.

Your cheap alternative is to use the same deck and bring into FCP as DVCPRO HD, an easliy editable codec that doesn't require an offline/online situation. But, at that point you might as well have shot Varicam.

In short, if you're lost in this woods just asking how to solve the problem here isn't going to help you much. Find somebody to help you before you throw any money away.

Thanks guys,
I think I'll give a really good look at the varicam, which is the way I was leaning.
Reggie

FCP and a decent machine will edit Vari footage as easy as DV. You might need to rent a 1200HD deck but you should be able to get one for $300 a day. I would recommend renting for a day to capture and renting for a day to output or rebuild your final edit uncompressed if needed.



ash =o)

Actually you need a Sony J-H1 Deck. The J3 deck plays Digibeta, Beta SX and Beta Sp. Keep in mind that the J series decks are only playback. For record you need a different deck.