No actually they are sending me the HDCAM master iso tapes as well. My problem was getting the files from the MAC drive to my PC edit station and if the Kona captured files in DVCPRO HD would be compatible. I have since found that the software MACDRIVE for PC will allow me to see and use the MAC formated drive with my PC so problem solved. Now I have the DVCPRO HD files on the Harddrive, I also have the HDCAM masters. What is the cheapest method for me to ingest uncompressed HDCAM tapes to my VEGAS 7 system. I don't have a capture card other then FW800. I also dont have the HDCAM deck.

L.T.

You need to have an HDCAM deck or HDCAM camcorder to transfer these. The "cheapest" method would likely be an AJA card, accepting HDSDI transfer.
You can also downconvert from the JH3 playback-only deck, over firewire, but not certain if you're interested in doing this. Depending on where you are, renting a JH3 isn't too difficult.

Im in Houston, It seemed like the Blackmagic Decklink HD was cheaper the the AJA. I want to stay as close to the uncompressed HDCAM as possible.

L.T.

To capture uncompressed HDCAM, you'll need a capture card and a fairly hefty RAID array (see the hardware requirements on Aja and Blackmagic's site), and a HDCAM deck. If this is a one-time thing, it is probably cheaper to rent an editing suite than to buy/rent the equipment.

If you want to rent an editing suite, you can offline in Vegas and online in FCP.
- Get material into Vegas. Edit away. If you add anything other than cuts or dissolves, you need to pay attention. These (probably) will not carry over in the EDL! You'll need to keep paper (or electronic) notes of anything that's not a cut or dissolve. You can do the notes after you finish editing.

--The timecode in what you're cutting needs to match what's on tape.

--Make sure the reel names (tape names in Vegas) are 8 characters or less, and correspond to the tapes.

-- Do your audio mixing in Vegas and export a file with 2-pops on the head and tail. A 2-pop is just a single frame of bars&tone, 2 seconds before and after the program. It helps you check sync in later stages.

-- From Vegas, export an EDL under **scripting** (NOT file-->save as). For an understanding of EDLs, see [url=http://www.edlmax.com/MAXGUIDE.HTML]
-- When you make your EDL, you want to collapse all your video into a single track. You also may want to exclude audio from the EDL.

-- Export a copy of your OFFLINE edit (what you have in Vegas), with a timecode burn of program time and also timecode burns of the original tape timecodes. Do this by applying the timecode filter at the mediaFX of each clip, and another one on video preview FX (you'll need to move either of them so they don't overlap). Also make sure you export the two-pops. Make the program start at a timecode like 01:00:00:00.

-- If you are adding credits (or other titles), you can carefully check the spelling of everything before you go into online. You can copy & paste everything into FCP and not worry about spelling.
-- If you need to add titles or whatever, you could potentially generate these elements beforehand. Use paper notes to keep track of where they should go. Export titles with alpha channels (i.e. animation codec with millions of colors+). Or it can be faster/easier to add titles in the online session.

--You send all this stuff to the online facility to re-capture everything at uncompressed 4:2:2 quality. The 2-pop and offline cutting copy with all the TC burns is to help check sync.
--When you re-capture from tape, sometimes the material will come in +-1 frame off (but the timecode appears correct). I don't know why this happens, but to fix this an online assistant can manually sit there and slip everything into sync. It takes about 3-4 hours for a half hour (but you get a lot faster if you do this a lot). Or you can not care about this and save that time.

This may or may not be your best approach, but this would be the process for offline editing in Vegas. Though for something like this, it's nicer if you owned your own HD equipment and worked at HD quality all the time (because the offline/online process is tedious).

It could also make more sense to edit off the DVCPRO HD footage and master from that, since you can spend more time on titles and color correction. It would probably come down to budget and what the client is looking for (presumably there is a reason why they want you to re-edit).

Just be careful, by our reading of the specs not all JH3s or their variants are created equal if the footage is 24p.

Bob.