HDMI Blackmagic Design Interface card

[Clark77042]

Will a HDMI interface card work with Video Editor 8? The Firewire interface no longer works on my sony FX7 Video camera and I need something that will upload in high def mode.

Clark

[troppo]

I'm not sure, as a HDMI signal is uncompressed HD (I think) so you would need to compress to HDV (or other codec) as you capture, which would be quite taxing on your hardware. The firewire signal from the tape is already compressed to HDV, so your computer just captures as it is.
Unless of course you decide to capture uncompressed HD, and have a room full of RAID storage to put it on.
Maybe you could buy a cheap HDV handycam to use as a VTR for the same price as a HDMI equipped capture card?

[Clark77042]

I was under the assumption since the Sony FX7 uses HDV tapes it was already compressed. I have read a little about the HDMI card and it requires 500Gigs of hard drive space for each hour of video. Also the transfer rate is so high it requires 2 SATA II hard drives in a RAID 0 (striped) configuration to keep up with the transfer rate.
I am running a Dual Core 3.2 GHZ with 2 gigs of RAM, will this be enough to compress it? I only have 250 Gigs left on my system and I plan to produce a 90 minute movie. What I am looking for is to produce a very high quality DVD for resale. Not sure if I am going about it the right way. Since I can¡¦t get my firewire to work, not sure if it¡¦s the camera or the PC, I just purchase a firewire PCI interface card and still not able to get either one of my cameras to work on the PC even though the computer recognizes the Firewire card. My old Firewire is integrated on the motherboard and I disabled it in the BIOS before plugging in the new card. Right now I am using a TV tuner card to upload video and I am not getting the quality I need. I start DVD production in 2 weeks and I don¡¦t know if I have time to take my camera to the shop before production. Not sure what other steps to take to resolve this issue and not sure how to trouble shoot the firewire problem.

Clark

I'm not sure, as a HDMI signal is uncompressed HD (I think) so you would need to compress to HDV (or other codec) as you capture, which would be quite taxing on your hardware. The firewire signal from the tape is already compressed to HDV, so your computer just captures as it is.
Unless of course you decide to capture uncompressed HD, and have a room full of RAID storage to put it on.
Maybe you could buy a cheap HDV handycam to use as a VTR for the same price as a HDMI equipped capture card?

[troppo]

You can see from the storage requirements that HDMI is uncompressed. This is why it needs 500Gb and a raid array.

Your camera (like all HD cameras) does not capture in HDV, but the image is captured uncompressed, and then the fancy circuits in your camera compress this in real time to HDV and then it is written to tape. Most HD cameras can bypass this HDV down conversion and output via their HDMI (or HD SDI) direct from the sensor which can then be captured on an external device for true HD. Different cameras use different HD encoding methods (AVCHD, DVCPRO HD, HDV, XDCAM are the main consumer ones).

Anyway, I think the problem most probably lies in either your computer or your cable (have you checked it?) as it is unlikely BOTH of your camera's firewire broke at the same time. Do you have another firewire device you can connect to check?

In my opinion, capturing a uncompressed file is overkill for DVD production. Unless you are authoring a HD DVD or a Blueray DVD, then it has to get massively compressed and scaled down anyway. I can't tell the difference between DVDs I have made using SD footage and HD footage (from the same camera).
Not to mention that it is very processor and hard drive intensive for a computer to edit uncompressed HD, this is getting into the realm of major movie studios. In fact, even they edit from a compressed file.

Personally, I think the HDMI card is not the way to go. I would either fix my firewire, or buy a small HDV handycam to use for a VTR (this option also saves wear and tear on your cameras).

Good luck.

[tyamada]

Maybe a long shot, but is your camera set up properly to connect to your PC?
I have a HC-1 that requires it to be set to auto or HDV and have the iLink convert set to off to be able to capture HDV to my computer.
You can test you firewire connection by using a SD camcorder with a firewire connection.
Another thing my camera when it is set to HDV will show up in the Windows Device manager under Sound, video and game controllers as a AV/C tape device.

If it's in SD mode (iLink conversion on) it will appear directly under the Computer as a Imaging Device-Sony

I'm not sure if Media Studio 8 will work with the FX-7, it works with my HC-1.

[neonbob]

I was under the assumption since the Sony FX7 uses HDV tapes it was already compressed. I have read a little about the HDMI card and it requires 500Gigs of hard drive space for each hour of video.

You need A LOT more than that. I regularly work with uncompressed files (HD 1920x1080) and I have a 1.3 Terabyte drive which I find VERY easy to fill up!

Troppo is correct... uncompressed is massive overkill for dvd. If your doing HD work then it's a real asset but with dvd it's a complete waist of time (render times are a lot longer with uncompressed)

Not withstanding. the BM cards are pretty much massive overkill as well if you plan on capturing from tape which is already compressed. If you capture LIVE where there is no compressing.... THEN it would be worth it.

And no... your machine is not strong enough to deal with the BM card and uncompressed. At least a quad core is needed.

A new firewire card is less than $30

[sjj1805]

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