DSLR footage and Kona Cards

[waltoncr]

I am curious to know if anyone has tried capturing DSLR footage with a Kona card. I understand the LHi can handle HDMI and that at least some cards offer chroma filtering, although I am a bit unclear as to whether or not that would work with 4:2:0 footage through HDMI in.

Has anyone tried this and if so, how did the footage look vs. software conversion?

Many thanks,

Chris

[BenB]

My bet is software import is better quality. HDMI is going to require some conversion in itself, going from compressed (H.264) to uncompressed (HDMI) back to compressed (what ever you capture it as, like ProRes). At least with NLE import, you're working native, or simply doing a re-wrap, so nothing is lost at all. AND I'm guessing most folks couldn't tell the difference between the two.

[waltoncr]

Hey Thomas,

Thanks very much for your reply. This question has been sitting idle for quite a while.

I am not quite sure your answer is accurate though. DSLRs shoot in H.264 which drops frames on playback at high data rates and is not really something you can edit in, at least not in FCP. An editor really needs to transcode the video which it is quite a bit more than a rewrap. If you transcode and then chroma filter, the amount of time involved is going to be colossal when compared to a straight capture through a card. That was part of the genesis of my question, although I didn't really make that clear. The other part is the effect of chroma filtering as footage is captured to a high bit codec.

Thanks much,