Actually, the Abekas DDR's output very nicely to SP. There's a
component option for that, and just about everyone here in SF has
that on their DDR's. The reason most folks I know use DDRs (and
PAR/MAX for that matter) isn't because of portability, its because of
the flexibility, speed, and quality it offers to animation video
recording. As a matter of fact, most animation houses (not post
facilities) with Abekas do not output to D1 (high cost, and large %
of clients don't request it).
I chose getting a JPEG recording device (MAX) because it increases
productivity a lot. The advantage to using JPEG is that one can get a
lot of animation on the disk, and don't have to waste time recording
to tape at any point, unless I'm archiving for reference, before
doing final renders/recording. Abekas A66 tops out at 53 seconds
(1612 frames) and Accom tops out at 30 (900 frames). I can get
several minutes of high quality (at LEAST preview quality) from MAX,
then take the frames and dump them to Abekas if the client needs that
level of quality (usually the case).