Just wanted to make something clear - you DON'T need a I/O Card (AJA/MATROX/BM/nVIDIA SDI, etc) if you're NOT using an SDI/HD-SDI pipeline, or YUV signals.

CAPTURE
If you're capturing footage over a camera/VTR with SDI, then you NEED an I/O Card.
If you're capturing footage over firewire/USB/Disc, you DON'T NEED a capture card.

DISPLAY
If you're working in linear RGB space, then you DON'T NEED an I/O Card since your GPU (Quadro or ATI equivalent) can handle 10-bit RGB via Displayport, HDMI or dual-link DVI.
However, if you're working on video (PAL, NTSC or SECAM) or HD (Rec.709) and you need broadcast quality, you WILL NEED an I/O Card to transmit YUV signals to your calibrated monitor.

For Indie projects that will most likely go out to DVD or VOD:
You DON'T NEED an I/O Card and you can live with whatever you can achieve with a good calibrated monitor and GPU. This is especially true of those working in 4:2:0.

OUTPUT
If you're writing/outputing your project to a hard drive, DVD or Blu-ray ONLY, then you DON'T NEED an I/O Card.
If you're writing out to VTR over an SDI line, then you need an I/O Card.

If anybody has anything else to add, please do so. Thanks.

"If you're working in linear RGB space, then you DON'T NEED an I/O Card since your GPU (Quadro or ATI equivalent) can handle 10-bit RGB via Displayport, HDMI or dual-link DVI. "

Just to be clear(er), 10bit is only via Displayport using a GPU.

Thanks Steve. You're right.

Even though HDMI (1.3 and above) and dual-link DVI support 10-bit, GPUs (nvidia and ATI) haven't bothered to update their firmware and/or connectors, except for DisplayPort, which, thankfully, in Quadros (and ATI equivalents) support 10-bit.

However -
There's no point if the monitor is only 8-bit. Some monitors claim to process 10-bit but their panels (or electronics) are 8-bit. Either use a full 8-bit monitor or get a full 10-bit monitor.

Just to add more info again: I think the ATI 4870 can output 10bit thru Displayport, which is the only consumer model I am aware of with 10bit support.

The main issue with 10bit support is the refusal of nvidia to make drivers for DVI & HDMI supporting 10bit. However, Cineform hinted that nvidia is working on 10bit via DVI to work ONLY with Cineform's FirstLight application.

About the last comment on 'true 10bit' monitors: I think the website is prad.de that has the best and most extensive reviews on monitors, and they declared a monitor using an 8bit panel (which uses FRC to get 10bit) much better than the Dreamcolor (a 'true' 10bit panel). They were very impressed by this model because it had virtually no dithering, yet the Dreamcolor had very noticeable dithering (this was after HP updated the firmware which helped to alleviate the really bad dithering issues). This LCD is, ahem, not available in India.

LOL....see how indie we get here?

So nobody is as indie as an Indian?

Andrew

Indeed!

The cheapest place to produce something, but where the market for indie films has vanished.

Classic!

Andrew