Tuesday, July 31, 2012

The DV module (aka Firewire module)

The DV module is a set of 2 PCB boards and an expansion bracket with cable and connector that attaches to the DraCo Motion board providing a FireWire input. The core of this DV module is the Sony DVBK-1, which is a board manufactured by Sony and sold to many OEM´s to integrate FireWire into their hardware solutions.

 (picture credit: taken from http://www.amiga-hardware.com/)

A curious note, worth mentioning,  is that the DraCo DV module has a serious resemblance to the earliest MacroSystem Casablanca NLE FireWire modules.

The big drawback of the DV module is that still, video was handled with the lossy motion-jpeg standart, and video was internally converted from digital to analog, so in the end, it just provides a FireWire video input to the DraCo, but unfortunately loses the benefits of digital video regarding image noise prevention and High Definition resolutions.

Another thing, I almost forgot to mention: support for the DV module starts with Movieshop 4.4

1 comment:

  1. The Sony DVBK-1 is pretty easy to acquire. It was used by other nonlinear edit systems of the day. The PCB sandwiched between the DVBK-1 and the DraCo Motion board is not so easy to find. Some technical creative could possibly reproduce it and distribute via PCBWay. One can only hope.

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