Videomaker Expo Digitizing & Capture Card Panel and Buyer's Guide
At the last Videomaker Expo East, we gathered a panel of experts from leading capture card manufactures. Here's what transpired.
Chuck Peters
(Videomaker)
The quality of digitizing capture cards has really improved in the last few years, but there still remains a fear in the consumer world, [about] having to buy a card and install it. I d like each of you to address the subject of installation. What can be done to make it easier for us to configure our computers for nonlinear editing?
Rob Hawranko
(Pinnacle Systems)
I think we ve seen "out of box" experiences really improve. It's easier because PCs have really grown up. I think the PC manufacturers, because they have more resources for us, have made [the installation process] somewhat easier. I think it has gotten a lot better. There really aren t the horror stories of the past that people associate with installing a card in a PC.
Jim Holland
(FAST Multimedia)
It's really important to FAST that, whenever you purchase one of our products, you have a good experience out of the box. And, I think that a lot of people have run into problems, not only with FAST products, but with a lot of products. And the reason for that is simply you re dealing with complicated machines. And as a result of that, there are going to be, well, complications. One of the things that FAST does is we extensively update our Web site with hardware compatibility. We work very closely with any hardware manufacturer out there to make sure that we re compatible. And we encourage users to use the software that comes bundled with their hardware. That is, software that we re most closely testing to make sure that our customers have a good "out of box" experience.
We've certainly seen the number of complications go down significantly. And we ll continue to work to try to get them down to nothing. But again, I encourage you, visit our Web site and go with the bundled software. Those are the two sure-fire ways to make sure you ll have a good experience right from the get-go.
Ralph Messana
(NewTek)
At NewTek, we re a little bit spoiled. We actually came from the Amiga platform. That's the only computer I know that you can just stick a card in and it works. And, there really weren t any configuration problems. If you re taking software from manufacturer "A," and a sound card from Manufacturer "B," and a capture card from manufacturer "C," and a different motherboard, there are always going to be some difficulties.
It's getting better. Is it ever going to be perfect, where you just stick it in and it works? Maybe someday. I think the key is to try to buy from a dealer who specializes in nonlinear systems or PC Desktop systems, who knows the product and knows how to put it in. Or even buy a turnkey system. You can buy a computer that you can just plug in. They already dealt with the headaches. They got the sound card to work with the capture card, and everything's all done for you. And to me, I d rather spend my time editing video and making money or having fun, than spending two weeks trying to get my computer up and running.
Stephen Davies
(Matrox)
The thing to remember, I think, in integrating a PC is that PCs are not made for video. PCs, at least 99.9% of them, are made for office automation. Computer manufacturers are building their machines for the largest market they can. And that's not video. What we, as hardware manufacturers are trying to do is take our square peg and fit it in that round hole. So that means there's always going to be some level of complexity. It goes with the territory. It's getting better.
Microsoft is making it better. But, on Microsoft's side, high performance operating systems, by definition, are complex. They try to get a lot of the extraneous software out of the way, so the computer can use all of its computing power for just that, computing. If you put layers of simple "guide me" steps into how to integrate a system, the computer the operating system has to make basic assumptions for you. And then it puts restrictions in the way. In video editing, we can t survive with those restrictions. We need the system to operate at its peak performance.
Again, that makes a system complex to put together. That puts a lot of pressure on us, on you or your reseller to put together the system properly. You have to know a lot about computers and follow the recommendations of the manufacturers, be it for recommended motherboards, recommended hard drives, what have you, to the letter. Or, the easiest thing, and what we try to encourage every user to do, is buy your system integrated from a reseller. You don t make money at integrating PCs. You make money at editing video. The reseller makes money building PCs. That's what they do. That's what they know.
Chuck Peters
(Videomaker)
Some of us are making the move to the digital formats: Mini DV and Digital8. Others have not done that yet. Some of us are halfway [there]. We re still shooting S-VHS and Hi8, as well as DV. Can you talk about products that allow you to work with both? Do I need a separate card to capture my analog video?
Ralph Messana
(NewTek)
I don t want to shoot down the "Holy Grail" of FireWire, but I think FireWire is a little bit over-hyped. I mean, it's a great, great feature, really good if you re going from a DV deck to a DV camcorder, or from a DV deck to a DV capture card. FireWire is just a cable. FireWire is not better quality than an S cable or better quality than a component cable. The reason you get better quality going through FireWire is if you re going from a DV camera to a DV capture card, you re saving the step of uncompressing, converting to analog and recompressing. So, when you see that your FireWire footage looks better than S-VHS, it's not that FireWire is better than S-VHS. It's that you didn t uncompress, convert to analog and recompress. FireWire is great, it's just not the "Holy Grail" that everyone thinks it is.
Stephen Davies
(Matrox)
I would tend to agree with Ralph. I think it was at this show last year where I had an editor [who said] "I want DV. I want DV. I have to have DV! If you don t have DV, I don t want it!" And I asked him, "Why do you want DV?" And he pointed right over to the booth beside me and he said, "Look at that camera. Look at the output of that. That's a DV camera. It looks phenomenal!" I said, "Yeah, but what are you looking at?" [He said,] "Well, look on the monitor!" I said, "Is that a DV monitor? What you re doing is actually monitoring the output of S-VHS output. If it looks great on the monitor, it's going to look great to the capture card, as well." 90% of the people are buying into DV. DV cameras are great. They re small. They re portable. They re relatively inexpensive. They re wonderful! But DV, as a video format, is not, like Ralph said, the "Holy Grail." There are limitations. It's 5:1 compression by default. It's 4:1:1. You don t have the color depth that even S-VHS decks have. So, if you try to do a color key, it's problematic. It has a lot of advantages. As an editor, you really have to evaluate what you re doing with that video. If you re just going to cut it up, then that's fine. If you re going to do a lot of keying with it, then it may not be what you re really looking for.
Jeff Bierly
(Digital Origin)
I happen to like DV a lot. A lot of camcorders now come with analog/digital conversion built in. All your DV decks do. Sony makes a little media converter. You can put analog into DV, if you just want to work that way, as well. We support all these different things.
Rob Hawranko
(Pinnacle Systems)
I think it's simply a matter of qualifying your customers needs. Obviously, there are a lot of reasons to go to DV today. And there are a lot of misperceptions on what DV has to offer. It really boils down to the customer's needs and the price points. We have two card solutions, you can do at a very inexpensive price point; one analog and one digital. Or, the DC1000 offers actually both on the same card for a very reasonable price point, as well. It just depends on what your needs are, what your expectations are. Everybody is migrating to DV. It's the format of choice going forward, but you have to be real careful not to abandon the analog and legacy footage that's out there. The great majority of content you have to work with today still resides in the analog world. So don t forget about the analog and just immediately flip the switch to digital, because you really have to co-exist for a while yet.
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