I heard that you cant get true HD through a firewire, is this true??

Question

I heard that you need a specific cable and socket.

I have a Macbook pro, so can i not achieve true HD with this??

Answer 1

I own a MacBook Pro as well and can achieve it with a firewire cable.  what kind of program are you uploading with?  Also, what kind of camera did you shoot and are capturing with.

Answer 2

The answer is a "kind of yes". It is true, for any computer, that you cannot obtain true HD by importing via firewire, but that's no reason to doubt your computer, the Macbook pro is an excellent editing machine. To obtain Uncompressed High Definition video you'll need special hardware. I don't know about Final Cut Pro all that much, so I will use Avid Media Composer as an example. The Avid Media Composer software package is a great editing system, but you cannot edit uncompressed HD. For that you'll need the additional hardware packages such as the Avid Mojo or the Avid Nitris.

http://www.avid.com/products/professiona...

     If you are certain you want to shell out the extra cash to obtain uncompressed HD, go for it. If not, don't let that discourage you. Your picture quality will still be excellent even if it is uncompressed. Besides, all HD camcorders have to compress a little; AVCHD camcorders compress a lot, and even HDV is compressed. That doesn't mean they're not good. The only way to get truly raw, uncompressed footage is by spending the big bucks for something like the Red One or the Sony F23. So, you are perfectly fine on the firewire transfer method. The Nitris and Mojo are only for the nit-picky Hollywood filmmakers.

Answer 3

depends on what you call true HD. uncompressed HD sdi requires a datarate over 1 gbps, not very many systems are capable of that. HDV is compressed to 25mbps, the same as television HD, and is designed for standard firewire transfer. Panasonic has used 50 and 100 mbps over firewire to transfer its DVCpro version of camcorder HD.  Sony has used firewire at 100 mbps to transfer SD at 4x normal speed from its DVCam players. I can't imagine anyone working with HD that is not compressed, at least to television HD standards, so your Mac should qualify as true HD.