Bill...

Yes - you can do it in software - most programs have that functionality. A couple of problems with this though:

If you're going out to DV, then you've got a non-standard DV tape, with incorrect black levels. If you're going out to an analogue format, depending on software, you may have rendering to do, and because of the 8 bit colour space you're in with DV, you're going to loose a little of that - the 16 - 236 range is limited enough without reducing it to 32 - 236.

So I agree - you can get away with it, but there are still a couple of small advantages to the hardware route.

Hopefully, however, setup will become increasingly a thing of the past as all video and distribution becomes digital.

yeah...it's a drag to lose that range. it's hard enuff trying to make an outdoor scene without fill lights fit the latitude of the sensor, much less after the remapping to NTSC limits. Where is 24 bit? just kidding.....guess that's called HD.

DV is a little less thatn 24bit colour - 8 bits per channel. If it were RGB, then yes, we'd be 24bit colour, but YUV has a smaller gamut than RGB. DigiBeta is 30bit colour with 10bits per channel (YUV). Going up to 16bits per channel would be rather nice, as long as the editing software keeps up. That would give us a much wider range of adjustment.

Until then....

can you imagine the render times? i think we need MUCH faster processors.

I suppose that's where the new 64 bit processors come in - surely they'd be just right for handling 16bits per channel images + 16bit alpha.