Re: Do I really need a capture card for editing hdv? Help!

Buck: you definetly don't need a capture card to get video from an EX1 into a computer, so the only reason to buy anything like that in your situation would be for monitoring purposes. As far as editing goes, Macs are fine but somewhat limiting for HD work due to lack of Blu-ray support in Final Cut Studio.

So here's my suggestion: buy a Macbook Pro or any PC laptop with an Expresscard slot for transferring footage from the EX1, get an external eSATA RAID to hold your editing files, pick an editing application and get Adobe Premiere CS3 for authoring Blu-ray discs, and you're good to go. (If you edit in Sony Vegas you can make simple Blu-ray discs directly from that.) Monitoring I might be limited on a laptop, but they're so much more convenient than desktops I barely use the latter any more except to burn DVDs. For small HD projects I can edit anywhere including on an airplane using bus-powered USB2 hard drives.

Many of the replies in this discussion are overkill for your purposes, as you suspected. You don't need a capture card, just a FireWire card or Expresscard reader.

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Kevin Shaw
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