Whats the deal with DVCPRO gear and 1394?
DVCPRO, or D-7, is a DV-based format with a few subtle differences in its datastream. These changes were made by Panasonic’s engineers to improve the robustness and reliability of the DVCPRO system when compared to DV, but they do mean that certain data header bits do not conform to Blue Book standards. Thus a direct data interchange between DVCPRO gear and DV/DVCAM gear is not possible in the same way that DV and DVCAM gear can interchange data; furthermore some nonlinear editor systems are not capable of accepting or generating a DVCPRO-compatible signal. As a result, DVCPRO gear with 1394 connections can only exchange data with other DVCPRO systems, not with DV or DVCAM gear. Since a 1394 transfer is a direct data dump, this is understandable; if a cross-format transfer were to be possible it would require that one deck or the other “translate” the signal to or from the DVCPRO data format to the Blue Book format. As far as incompatibility with 1394 transfers to and from NLEs, this l
