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Firewire importing
I am importing DV footage from a JVC hdv 110 through firewire. I am wondering if it is possible to import the footage at 10 bit uncompressed? Thank you.
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14 Replies
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Why?
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Board of Directors
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
Firewire is just data but the deck does not send out Uncompressed video via Firewire and there is not way to do a real time conversion while capturing. You would need to get a video card or something like the Io from AJA, Decklink or Matrox.
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I do have AJA, but how do I connect the camera to the breakout box.
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Find a the best common out from the camera to the in on the AJA and do a capture now. You can try to have the firewire active under device control but if that doesn’t work turn device to Non-controllable.
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In the manual it says I have composite and component out, but of course the breakout box only takes BNC. Now I have an adapter to make the out from the Camera BNC from (I can’t remember the name of the cable) the audio/video cable if you will, where do I go to on the break out box. Does the in work both ways or is it just SDI?
Thank you
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AJA makes several cards that have different inputs. If you have lost the manual for the one you have AJA have them on their website.
BTW is there a reason you want to go to this effort?
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Oh no…Not me, my boss. He wants everything at the very best quality, so if it’s not, I have to find out if there is any way we can do it, and why we can’t. Cover my ass. But I learn a little more at the same time, so I don’t mind so much.
Thanks for your help
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If your boss wanted the very best quality, he should have bought an HDCAM, XDCAM, XDCAM EX or DVCPRO HD camera instead of an HDV camera.
Once the signal gets recorded to tape in the camera, the damage is done. You can’t get back the information that the HDV compression scheme throws out.
Importing via Firewire is a direct digital transfer of the data that was recorded to tape. There’s no higher quality way to transfer the footage than that.
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Reread your first post do you have DV (SD) or HDV footage? You list a HDV camera but state you have DV footage.
If you are looking at capturing HD Uncompressed that is a big investment in Hard Drives. You have to have at least a SATA RAID with 8-10 drives to pull that much bandwidth and you are not really getting better quality. It will hold up better when you add graphics but the footage is still what you shoot with. I think a more reasonable codec to use is ProRes (need FCP6), you can still edit with FW800 or single SATA drives and it gives you 10-Bit 4:2:2 color space for graphics. Close to Uncompressed with a 1/10th of the bandwidth requirements.
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Thank you for the explanation. It’s just that we are dealing with HDV at the moment, which we don’t normally use, and are trying to get the best quality out of it.
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