BUY THIS CARD!!!
Written: Mar 10 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Top quality input/output
Cons: No ability to change compression ratio
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| burnietx's Full Review: Canopus DV Raptor |
I have used a Miro, a Targa and edited an entire feature film using the Fast AV Master. Nothing beats my Canopus DV Rex. Here are the major pros:
PROS
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1. No compression artifacts
2. User support
3. Drivers are updated all the time
DETAILS
Compression -- very nice. When using the other cards, there is significant pixelation around high contrast areas (like white letters on black background). You can note this even on some very high end output (like the production slates of movie trailers). The Canopus DV Raptor/Rex is the only card that passes my scrutiny.
User Support -- There is a great discussion group the Canopus website. Members post all sorts of tips and tricks. I highly recommend getting an opinion from there before buying.
Drivers -- What a pain this can be with other companies. My Fast AV Master never released Win 98 drivers. Therefore, I could never overcome 2 gig file limits. Canopus has always updated their drivers very quickly. In fact, they had Win 2000 drivers the week of that OS's launch.
CONS
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1. High price for analog/digital
2. No flexibility of compression
Price -- You have to buy the DV Rex to get both analog and DV. Kind of pricey at $2000, but well worth it for the flexibility. You won't miss analog until the one day you need it.
Static compression -- The only major drawback. The DV captures at 200 MB per minute captured. Even when you want to capture at lower quality, you are locked into that ratio. It's nice to do rough cuts with lots of low quality footage, but in this case -- your out of luck. The good news is that my DV Rex will capture without frame drops at full frame on standard 5400 RPM IDE drives. Those only cost $200 for 20 gigs (i.e. 100 minutes).
Read my other reviews -- I don't just back something b/c I own it!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
burnietx
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Member: Burnie Burns
Location: Austin, TX
Reviews written: 4
Trusted by: 1 member
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