no need for capture card

[Trent O Connor]

Hi,

I cant find the post which mentioned it but whats this about not needing a capture card?
i have a sony vx2000. i edit using premiere. how do i get the dv taped material into premiere without a capture card?
cheers

[Adrian Douglas]

Some new model PCs/motherboards have a firewire/i-link/IEE1394 port built in just like Macs. In this case you do not need to add a card unless you want hardware acceleration, from something like a Canopus, Pinnacle or Matrox card, for real-tme editing.

If your PC/motherboard does not have a built in firewire port then you will need at least a generic firewire card like the ADS Pyro to capture video digitally from your VX2000.

[Trent O Connor]

I see. Thanks for replying.
Ive been using a Pinnacle which once past all the initial problems we had setting it up, and many people seem to struggle with, it was fine.
Any recommendations or reasons to use one of the others?

[Adrian Douglas]

Trent,

I use a Pinnacle DV500, and I agree that once you get past the IRQ conflicts and initial setup problems it is a very capable card. As for the others it all depend on your budget and what NLE app you want to use. If you want to use AVID or Vegas then you'll need a generic firewire card. Premiere is bundled with a number of cards from Pinnacle, Canopus and Matrox. Pinnacle and Canopus also have their own NLE apps, StormEDIT and RexEDIT from Canopus and Pinnacle now have Edition, which works with either a generic firewire card or the DV500.

[Ed Smith]

I to used a generic capture card with premiere (Studio DV), it was working fine to a point. I.e. everything had to be rendered. Now I use DV500+ capture card, this then gives me analogue inputs/ outputs as well as hardware accelerated effects and transitions although it still has to render when outputting to DV. It all works fine.

It all depends on the type of editing you will be doing. If it is going to be a lot i.e. once a month or less you might find it quicker and easier to by dedicated hardware for Premiere. If it were me, I would go for Matrox RTX 100 although it is also depended on CPU and RAM.

All the best,

Ed Smith

[Trent O Connor]

Yeah I used the 500+. Nice transition choices with hollywood fx that came with it.

Im buying a totally new system and have been recommended the Pinnacle Pro-One - RTDV - anyone else got this?.

I'll b using it almost every day.

[Ed Smith]

Hi Trent,

Had not realised your from the UK, nice to see more people from this end of the world. I've not heard good things from the Pro one RTDV. I have friend who uses the standard Pro one and it was no different than the DV500 apart from a few effects. It also seemed to crash more often.

Matrox has a comparison between the Pro one RTDV/RTX 100/DV storm/ Avid. Heres the link:

http://www.matrox.com/video/products/rtx100xtreme/rtx100xtreme_vs_proonertdv.cfm

Hope this helps,

Ed Smith

[Garret Ambrosio]

What I would love to have is a hardware solution to speed up or eliminate encoding encoding to DVD compliant MPEG-2.

[Trent O Connor]

Thanks Ed.

I have no experience with Matrox but the card u suggested looks good and the reviews and personal comments on the forums seem to favour it highly too.
Its more expensive but seems worthwhile.
I'm now even more confused however as the new system is going to set me on my way with my new one man business so no experience with Matrox is daunting but perhaps the right one?
I'll c what it costs packaged with a new PC from Alienware.
So many decisions - so little clue! =)

[Alex Knappenberger]

I bought a $30 firewire card from www.newegg.com -- it even came with a cable! It's got 3 ports, and it works flawlessly, I didn't have to do anything after installing it, it just worked, and even with my semi-outdated computer (1GHz athlon, and 5400rpm drives) I haven't dropped any frames...

[Trent O Connor]

well now im completely lost.

i need - a great spanky new pc to edit on, using the good stuff - whatever that is and preferably using premiere. a capture card? or not. and soon.

and im more lost now than 2 weeks ago - when i was really confused.

[Ed Smith]

If its for business, I would NOT go for a standard firewire card. Reason being everything will have to be rendered from Simple cross dissolves to complex effects - this costs time.

By buying dedicated hardware you get plugins that you do NOT need to render, you get better support and it will save you time and money in the long run.

In order to run the RTX you will need a fast PC to benefit from all its features but the investment will probably pay for its self. you are probably looking between £2500 - £4000 on the whole system (Monitors, RTX 100, Case etc)

What are the things you are confused about?

All the best,

Ed Smith

[Trent O Connor]

I can edit but I have no idea whats working the computer so I can do that.
The more powerful the better is about all I know so i'd probably go for the Alienware.com 'Roswell' editing package with the Matrox X100 Xtreme.
Everybody has their own opinions on it so its not easy from a complete novices point of view which way to go but this seems to have been suggested the most.

Its like when you look to buy a new car and people say 'dont go for Ford, buy this or that', and then others tell you, 'i used to have 'that', awful cars, im happy with a Ford'.

[Ed Smith]

I Know what you mean, it is certainly a mine field out there, and if you don't know excatly what you need or that best suits your situation it makes it even harder.

Those systems on Alienware.com look awesome if only all PC manuafacturers used cases like that.

If at all possible try and get a demo of the RTX 100 that way you know how it works and whether it will do the job you want it to.

ALL THE BEST,

Ed Smith