Using FCP for high end editing is now more valid than ever. To edit with formats like digi-beta and beta-sp you need a capture card. There are three main cards that will work with FCP and are as follows:
1. Digital Voodoo -
www.digitalvoodoo.net : This card gives you an SDI input only but also gives you a true second monitor that you can use to preview on an NTSC or Pal monitor. It also ships with it's own media transfer software that means you can capture clips without using a program like FCP or Premiere. It also works flawlessly with FCP and things like batch capture etc. It's main advantage is that it gives true 10 bit quality capture rather than 8 bit.
2. Aurora Igniter : A good card with many IO options -
www.auroravideosys.com for more infor.
3. Pinnacles CineWave card - In theory this card is the most exciting of the three. It lets you do (with upgrade options) HD and SD work on the same system. It provides analogue capture for you Beta-Sp but you will need to upgrade it to do SDI. Pinnalce also claim that this card will let you do realtime effects within FCP on SD material. We have yet to see these claims come to fruition.
If you are considering working at this level you know that HD space and speed are very important. Fast RAID arrays are the only way to go and the Medea line seem to be quite good.
I suggest you wait and see what NAB holds. The three companies listed above have all hinted that something significant is on coming up at NAB so......we can only wait. FCP 2.0 now has the ability to work in realtime and these companies are all clamouring to produce an uncompressed solution that will make effects within FCP realtime.
------------------
Anarchy is an ethic