Apple Final Cut Pro 5 - Manual (Page 199)

198 Part III Setting Up Your Editing System
Connecting Professional Component Analog Video Devices
The most prevalent component analog video format still in use today is Betacam SP. It
is a standard definition video format, but because it is analog, your video interface
must have analog-to-digital (A-D) converters to digitize the analog signal before
encoding it and writing a digital media file to the computer hard disk. Unlike digital
capture interfaces, analog-to-digital interfaces often allow you to adjust luma and
chroma levels (using controls in the Log and Capture window) when you digitize. For
more information about calibrating an analog signal before digitizing it, see
Chapter 23, “
Using Color Bars for Video Calibration ,” on page 321.
The steps for connecting an analog VTR to a video interface are essentially the same as
for digital SD and HD devices. The main difference is that you need to make three
physical connections, one for each of the three analog video components: Y, R-Y, and B-Y
(also called YUV or Y´C
B
C
R
, depending on the country and the specifics of the format). For
more information, see Volume IV, Appendix A, “Video Formats.” To connect equipment,
see “
Connecting Professional Standard Definition Video Devices ” on page 195.
Connecting Consumer Analog Video Devices
If you want to digitize video from an analog consumer format, such as VHS or 8 mm
video, you need a video interface that has an analog composite video input. Also, older
consumer decks rarely support remote device control, which means you can’t remotely
control the deck or capture timecode from these formats. If you need the ability to
recapture the video accurately using timecode, it’s often easiest to dub (copy) the
video to a digital format like DV, or a professional format you are using for your project.
There are fairly inexpensive capture interfaces that can accept an analog composite
input and convert it to a DV video signal transferred via FireWire. Some more expensive
interfaces may also accept an analog component input.
For more information about composite video, see Volume IV, Appendix A, “Video Formats.”