On Thu, 23 Apr 1998 15:05:59 -0600, Writer wrote:

>I am interested in getting into the newer Digitial Video (DV) format.
>Can anyone tell me what computer equipment is needed to perform
>nonlinear editing with a DV system that is connected to your computer
>with a Firewire?

PC or Mac? There are a few different FireWire cards available for
these two platforms.

>Presumably, all one needs is software like Premiere. Can one just dump
>the DV data to ones hardisk via the firewire and edit it with Premiere
>and then port the finished product back to tape?

Y - e - s . . . . , but...;-) In its simplest form, you do have the
concept. Finding a good FireWire card for your platform is easy, but
finding one with good software isn't, and finding out what parts
of your computer the chosen FireWire card is/isn't compatible with isn't. Visit the DPS Spark site to get some idea of compatibility
problems. Setting up a FireWire card on a PC can be a bit of a challenge, too. Also, people seem to recommend going conservative
and using SCSI drives with the Adaptec 2940UW card (included with some
Adaptec-based cards like the Spark Plus and Miro DV-300). I think
UDMA drives with high enough minimum data transfer rates may work
fine (IBM Deskstar 8 8.4-gig [about $330] is one that seems to work).
If you use hot-running SCSI drives, you must take steps to cool them.
I have a running DV-FireWire system with AMD-K6-233, Abit AX-5 MB,
96-megs EDO, 2940UW, two IBM SCSI-II 9.1-gig drives, one UDMA
Deskstar 8, Diamond Stealth 3-D 2000 video card, and the plain
DPS Spark FireWire card (plus CD, floppy, Turtle Beach Tropez Plus sound card, and no free IRQ's...), all in a mid-tower case (with
LOTS of extra holes and six fans...). I am using Spark ver. 1.05 to capture, Premiere 4.2 (with Sound Forge XP-4 to resample Sony 32kHz sound to 44kHz...), and Adaptec DV-Deck for outputing back to tape (the Spark software can do this also, though not so easily...).
Some of the newer software (like Spark, ver. 2) does not work for me.
(Don't video-software mfgrs. EVER try out their software on real
computers before issuing it???)

>Are there any additional computer cards needed? Am I right in assuming
>one would not need a capture card for DV?

See above...

>I would appreciate any light anybody could throw on this subject. Thank
>you.

Hmmmm......;-) I wish you luck! (I was lucky...;-)