Consumer Camera Question
 

Folks - some advice please.

I have a fairly sophisticated editing setup with Final Cut Pro. As a producer/editor, I never get involved in the production side of things, using professional production houses when I need someone to shoot video footage. As such, I normally work with larger formats than DV.

But, I'm thinking of getting a consumer camera for my own use.

I notice that most consumer rigs these days use DVD or hard drives as their storage medium, meaning they are capturing and storing in MPEG2 format.

My understanding is that MPEG2 files cannot be imported directly into Final Cut and be edited seamlessly without rendering - is that correct?

In which case, should I perhaps be looking for a camera that uses DV tapes or is there are workaround of some sort in which it makes perfect sense to get the more modern hard drive/DVD cams?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

I haven't used cameras as you describe yet, but I have been in situations where I have had to introduce footage from burned DVD's. I use MPEGStreamClip from Squared 5. It does a pretty good job of making QT files for import into FCP. Another product is at http://www.mpeg2works.com. Pretty good app for $25.00

I can't give you any advice on Final Cut Pro but after looking at footage from consumer DVD cameras I would stay away from it. Quick camera movement does not play back well with these cameras. Perhaps it is the compression thats causing the problem or it might be the inertia caused by the movement that interferes with the encoding or a combination of both. I haven't figured it out yet but the end result is less than desirable.
Allen W