Confused about capture cards
 

I was researching the Aja Xena HS card, and am confused about how it works with a NLE. MY software of choice is premiere pro 2.0. I don't have a HDV friendly codec such as Cineform at the moment, as i was researching, i found out that theres no viable pathway for monitoring HD when using cineform... Then I started looking around for c apture cards and found that Cineform Prospect HD and the Xena cards work in conjunction.... My question and confusion is regarding the foreign codecs and where these cards play a role...

Is premiere pro 2.0 with adecent computer and a capture card like the xena all i would need (not including cineform)...? Or is cineform a required ingredient for the mix?

It depends on what you are trying to do...
If you are just trying to edit HDV, then you don't really need the Kona card at all. (or cineform)

Cineform is a codec that helps speed up the editing process, bu you don't have to have it. (but I recommend it) ;)

The Xena card gives you inputs other than just firewire. You can capture to a number of codec, but most people use these cards to either capture Uncompressed footage via the SDI input, or capture straight to the Cineform codec. (which takes up a lot less space compared to uncompressed)

Not sure what you mean by "no viable pathway to monitor HD when using cineform"
You just need a video card that can support monitoring the HD...the same as when editing with most HD footage.

http://dv411.com/quadro540v.html

Hi,

when i tried to edit HDV natively, none of the "effects" like video transitions worked... I never rendered it , but none of the effects were showing up when i scrubbed through the timeline...

As for monitoring on a broadcast HD monitor, doesn't the connector type have to be HD-SDI ?

I checked out the quadro fx 540, is there a better card available either from nvidia or matrox? that seems like the perfect solution... The reason i am confused is that I always thought that HD broadcast monitors only ran off HD-SDI outputs from a capture card like the decklink... I didn't knwo it could run off a card like the quadro 540..