Am I missing something

[Shane Ross]

The only thing you gain by getting a decklink is the ability to capture SDI or Component or Composite in the 8-bit and 10-bit formats.

Working with DV only via firewire…outputting to DVD? You don’t need it.

[Lee115]

Thanks Shane,

Josh

[Dan Riley]

Here’s the thing….
If you edit in FCP using a DV sequence, you are goint to have
titles and graphics that don’t look very good. The compression
of the luminance is 5 to 1. This causes fuzzy titles.
The chroma information is 1/2 of what you get with an
uncompressed 10 bit SD sequence. This causes scmeary chroma.
Your DV footage will look the same in both situations,
but any titles you create and any graphics you import,
they will not look as good when editing on and output from a
DV sequence.

So, do you need an Aurora or Blackmagic or AJA card
to edit 10 bit uncompressed sequences…no.
You just tell FCP to use the uncompressed codecs when
importing and you make your sequence an uncompressed
sequence. But to view that sequence on your external monitor
you do need one of the above cards.
Do you need a card to be able to output an uncompressed
sequence to at DVD, via compressor for instance…no.

My testing shows the quality of titles and graphics
will be much higher when outputing an uncompressed
sequence to DVD than from a DV sequence.

Dan

[Dan Riley]

Something I forgot to mention about editing with an
uncompressed 10 bit sequence…
If you plan on outputting to DVD, you will not need
faster drives. Since you aren’t outputing in real time
to a DigiBeta (or whatever) tape deck, you won’t have to
access the data so fast that it causes you to drop frames
or not playback at all. You can simply render the sequence
and export to DVD via compressor.
However, if you DO want to play out an uncompressed
sequence to tape, even if it’s to your DV machines,
you will need a disk array, either SATA or Fiber.
Some will say firewire 800 is ok but this is not reliable.
A four or eight drive array is really the key to multiple
streams of RT video and no dropped frames with
uncompressed 10 bit SD video. I’m sure you will hear
other opinions…but this is my experience.

Dan

[Lee115]

I see, thanks for the info.

Like I said, most of my stuff is output to DVD and what isnt is rendered as a quicktime mov

I don’t see i will ever need to output back to tape for what I do.

Thanks, Josh