Editing & Capture cards

[superfly]

I've been researching the different options available in the editing cards out there and the one that strikes me as best option for me at this stage is the RTX.100 from Matrox.

Although i have recently come across another card - the DeckLink from Blackmagic design - anyone have any experience with either of those?

I will be doing all editing at this stage with MiniDV (SD) however to factor in possible upgrade of camera in 12-24 months - should i worry now about getting a card capable of doing HD? (such as the RT X2)

The RTX100 have dropped significantly in price since the release of X2.

The software i'm using is Premiere Pro.

Thanks

 

[Tim Kolb]

Well...depending on what speed is necessary for you, a computer with a FW port will get your DV footage in and out...the Matrox cards speed things up with effects, but DV is perfectly editable with some rendering on many laptops these days. I've done rather large projects using PPro, AE and Photoshop on a laptop.

For HDV work (if this is the "HD" you are referring to...is also editable in software with FW I/O.

For DV, I'd simply get the biggest, baddest system you can get and run it in software and but CineForm's Aspect HD when the time comes for transcoding and editing HDV material.

The Black Magic cards are made for non-DV workflows with lightly or uncompressed SD or HD video.

...my personal opinions of course, but I've been editing DV in software for about 4 years now, and HDV-CineForm for 2 years) and while my projects aren't an hour long, they're often complex.

 

[superfly]

Tim,

Thanks alot for your reply - this is exactly the kind of info i'm looking, hard on the ground experience.

I think at this stage, i could probably save money and not even use a capture card since firewire should be good enough!

I'll see how the machine i'm building goes as far as editing etc... its not like i'm going to be making a special effects based movie or anything...

Thanks again for your insight.

 

[Tim Kolb]

Some would like some sort of card for input/output just for monitoring purposes...

If you would like to view the video on an actual video monitor for color correction purposes (which I'd recommend), I think The Matrox Parhelia APVe is a great card and not very expensive.

You can run two user interface monitors AND a video output to an SD or analog component HD monitor...very handy.

Good luck with it...