I hope I can get some feedback here...

I'm making the leap to non-linear but money is definitely tight --so I was hoping someone could give me some "EXPERIENCED" information.

After looking around on the web --questioning everyone I could find, I narrowed my choice of card dow to the Canopus DVRex because I need to be able to capture both analog and DV...

The problem is that I can't yet afford the DVRex --not for another 6 months anyway.

That problem has led me to this question...

I see that Miro makes the DC 30 Pro and DV 300. The literature I've read seems to intimate that these 2 cards compliment each other when installed together in the same computer...

If this is true, this could be the answer to my problem i.e., that I want to get started editing NOW. I could easily afford both the DC 30 and DV 300 now and start working, but I've only met one person who has used these cards together --OR SHOULD I SAY TRIED to use them together. He tells me that it's a nightmare to get both cards working in the same system... Is this true?

Does anyone work with both these systems? And, if so, would you have any idea of the major differences between using the DC30/DV300 Versus the DVRex?

Thanks in advance!

-- Matt Retherford (mattretherford@snakebite.com), August 23, 1999

Answers

Matt Check out the user forums for both Canopus and Miro. You will find out real fast that Canopus is the way to go for STABLE video capture cards. If you can't afford a REX now, why not get a raptor now and be editing, then move up to a Rex when you can afford it and either sell the raptor or use both! I've had a Rex for almost a year now and it is amazingly easy to use. MSP and Premeire have a little steeper learning curves.

-- Jim Bridge (jwbridge@ix.netcom.com), September 01, 1999.

Hope I'm not too late with this reply......I had a dc30, it took about 3 months to get it working properly, and that was on a computer I built up to specific recommendations by a miro reseller, and it was still very fiddly and unstable to say the least......I traded it for a dvraptor, took the card home, and in half an hour it was running perfectly, it never looks like dropping any frames, even in full batch capture mode on EIDE hard drives(!!) and obviously the no-loss quality is great. I use a TRV900 to get around the analogue situation - simply recording any svideo or composite source onto mini dv cassette through the very handy and much overlooked ANALOGUE INPUTS. The DV rex I would presume works just as well as the raptor, canopus seems to have it sussed, the main difference being the hardware based rendering process - much faster and less dependant on the CPU - the DC30 and DV300, and the Raptor are software based cards, hence the price difference. Raptor rules...... Hope this helps.

-- Barry Hannah (sonwah@kiwilink.co.nz), September 29, 1999.