Hi,

I have Final Cut 5.0.2 and will be shooting an upcoming project in Sony HDCAM.

1. What settings/software do I need to capture HDCAM in Final Cut?

2. I need to get and HD-SDI card. Is AJA or Blackmagic DeckLink a better choice. The DeckLink is a little cheaper, but is the quality the same?


Thanks,

Jeff

There's quite a few ways you can do this, depending on end quality you need.

1-The more difficult way is to ingest as something other than uncompressed for ease of edit, then edit, then re-ingest HDCAM at the end uncompressed for the best quality. You need a fast drive setup for this

2-You can bring in as DVCPRO HD, edit full size full res, and then output again that way. You still need a better drive situation than DV, but data rate is only 14MB/sec. This is a quality compromise, but one that most people would never be aware of.

Decklink cards have the same quality as a Kona, just less flexibility and features. The Kona control panel in particular allows for a lot of options.

Thanks Nate!

I was planning to shoot with Sony HDW-730s, but it's not set in stone. If I'm going to capture as DVCPro HD anyway, would it be just as good to shoot with a Panasonic AJ-HDX400?