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Decklink Exteme with FCP 5
I just bought my very first MAC G5 with FCP 5 and Tiger after a zillion years on the PC side. The Decklink Extreme card was recommended to me as I still do a lot of BetaSP work. Before I rush out to buy, I have a few questions I hope some here with experience can answer…
Can anyone please tell me if the Extreme card is pretty seamless when used with FCP 5? How accurate is timecode handling and recapture? Are there any issues I need to be aware of before plunking down my $895?
Thank you in advance,
DRWDavid Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles -
5 Replies
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Hi,
We have had good results with the Extreme card over the past year, mastering over 52 half hours for broadcast, each in various versions. Generally it has been a stable and functional system, quite “seamless”. Previous to this we used a Media 100 system for online and at that time I regarded FCP as a kind of toy but I have revised that opinion.
We recently had a couple of hiccups upgrading to FCP 5 but it was all in the details of the install and didn’t take long to work out.
The color correction is much better than we had with our Media 100 and mastering to Beta SP and Digibeta has been smooth. Recapturing and mastering is frame accurate.
All in all it’s been a solid professional tool with few problems. I should add that we use a Videotek hardware SDI legalizer to conform images to NTSC legal specs and while expensive it has been worth it as we now pay no attention to legalization problems; illigal pixels are corrected automatically in real time and we use the CC time to make things look good.
Jason
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Excellent Jason, exactly the type of reportage I was hoping for. Its always good to hear from someone whose actually working in a similar fashion, though I can only wish I had mastered one show per week as you did.
BTW, my previous software was from a Montreal based firm that I no longer care to be associated with. That company name starts with a “D” — care to guess???
THNX,
DRWDavid Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles -
Yes, i know the one you mean. My buddy bought that package.. very unfortunate what happened.
jason
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Decklink Extreme is without question the single best investment our company has made. It is well supported and regularly updated. It is perfectly stable and records/plays out frame acurate every time while always maintaining perfect A/V sync. It’s cost is insanely low for the quality of the product and support that comes with it.
I began my career on M100, moved to AVID XPress Pro and then to FCP running under a Cin -
Thanks Steve, I’ve got mine now.
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