slightly off topic!
 

I am sorry if this post is really wrong here. My question is, how would you be able to transfer video from a sony betacam SP camera for use in final cut pro HD?
Would that be a simple conversion or will an analog capture card be needed.

thanks for any response.
regards,

Jim

Not in the right forum (maybe Boyd will move it for us) but I can answer your question.

There are analog digitzing cards available that also have RS-422 9-pin control.

I use the "DecklinkSP" to capture component out of my UVW-1800 directly into FCP. It works with FCP 4.5 or 5 and will capture 8-bit or 10-bit uncompressed, Jpeg, DV or DV50 codec.

AJA Kona also makes similar cards, as well as some firewire interfaces.

I also have an Aurora Igniter card that I used to use with my Betacam SP, but it requires a separate serial to RS-422 controller (USB to serial or a G4port.)

Thanks Tim, that is what I needed to know. Sorry about the wrong forum, Boyd will most likely move it.

thanks again.
Jim

or get someone to make you a dub to dv. for me, it would depend on the nature of the project/client and whether this is something you need to do alot of. personally, i almost never need to work from a high quality analog component source, so on the one occasion that i did, i just borrowed some time in a suite and dubbed the beta to dv. even if you're paying for a dub, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than any of the decent component capture cards mentioned above. if the highest quality codecs are essential and/or you need to work from beta often, it's a different story.