[Herb Sevush]

Mike –

I have 2 FCP systems, one a G5 the other a Mac Pro, and have used a blackmagic card for I/O on both for many years. Excellent quality, no problems. They don’t have all the options of a Kona3 and the customer support is not quite as good, but I have no trouble recommending them as the best bang for the buck.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Mike –

If you’re only using firewire the simplest option is to monitor with the Cinema Desktop. No cost, just a computer display. A cheaper alternative to the Kona card is the Blackmagic Decklink Studio – $695, SD, HD both SDI and analog in and out.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Chris –

You should post this on the SANetworks forum. You’ll get your answers there.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Logging has to be done in the capture window, but you don’t have to capture. You type in the info and then hit “log clip”. The uncaptured clip is put in your browser, with whatever info you have entered in the capture window.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Bob –

I cut multi-cam all the time on FCP. Both SDI and firewire work fine. I have heard some people complain about firewire sync issues, but they have to do with basic audio sync on a clip, not between cameras. I prefer the rs 422 control and stability of SDI input but you should be fine either way. If the cameras were set up properly you will have no problems. If the cameras weren’t sunk properly there’s no editing system in the world that can fix it automatically.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

You might want to look at the Imagemaster series from Forecast Consoles.

https://www.forecast-consoles.com/

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Ray –

I have ingested well over 200 hours of DVCPRO HD 720P30 DF via firewire into Final Cut. If this isn’t possible than I’m delivering illusions to PBS. So far they haven’t kicked any back.

I don’t know what your problem is but there is NO issue with capturing 720P30 DF. I’ve captured with the 1200A, I’m sure the 1400 handles it as well since the HD SDI output is working. My guess is you don’t have your firewire output set up properly on the deck.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Jamie –

I have the audio outputs set to 4 channels:

Stereo pair on ch.1 & ch.2, dual mono on ch.3 and ch.4.

However in the timeline you have to set where each audio track is output to , you can choose either 1&2,3 or 4. so I can set tracks 1 & 2 to output to stereo pair 1&2, but I can’t figure out anyway to route those tracks to the mono mix outputs. If i simply copied the pair to tracks 3 & 4, then I would get each track alone as a mono track on 3 & 4 but that’s not a mono mix.

It seems like the only way to do this is export an audio file, convert it to a mono mix, then lay that track down on 3 and 4. I was hoping there was some way to internally do the mono mixdown in final cut.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Greg –

You want cheaper AND better? How abuot cheaper and it does a good job as what it does. The Kona3 has more features – in this case you get what you pay for – you just have to figure out what it is you need.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Walter –

A belated thanks for the tip about CineFilm in Atlanta. Great prices, great attitude.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions