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Compatibility with Mac Pro
Hi,
Grant is at WWDC and asked me to relay this message to the Cow as he knew there would be a lot of interest in the new Macs and compatibility with Blackmagic products 🙂
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design
—Hi,
I just wanted to send you a quick note to update you on the latest news about the exciting new Apple Mac Pro systems.
We have been working with Apple on these new computers for about 6 months, and have full support for all DeckLink cards with PCI Express and Multibridge Pro and Multibridge Extreme.
Last year when Apple announced the Intel transition, we ported our drivers in a few weeks after the first development systems were available, and we have been testing and compiling Intel builds internally on each software release we have made.
These systems are so incredibly fast, and we are really blown away with the performance. When you’re doing HD uncompressed video, the processor speed is important, but what’s even more important is the processor to memory speed, and these new systems are extremely fast in this area. The memory is so fast it includes heat sinks on the memory modules which is incredible.
The new Mac Pro systems also have 4 disk bays with plug in disk caddies. You can bolt a SATA disk to the caddie, and push it into place without any power or data cables needed. It’s a very clever design.
We ran some tests on this in our lab, and we mounted 3 x 500 GB SATA disks into the three empty caddies, and configured with RAID 0 for a 1.5 Terabyte disk array. We only used three because the fourth disk is the system disk.
When running Disk Speed Test we achieved about 170 MB/sec which was easily fast enough for HD uncompressed 10 bit. However because it’s only three disks, this solution is more suited to people needing simple capture and playback of HD, such as designers and effects artists. These guys just want simple clip capture and playback and the built-in array is a great solution for them. For the editors who have hundreds of cuts and effects in their edits, I think they will need an external array for most work.
Also, we are going to try the newer 750 GB disks, which are faster, so performance could increase further.
One important issue we need to be aware of when installing our DeckLink cards into these new systems is the configurable PCI slots. These machines can assign more PCI Express lanes to cards that need additional performance. When changing the PCI Express cards you will see a utility appear at startup that allows you to select which combination of PCI Express lanes to assign to each slot.
For DeckLink HD cards with PCI Express, we need 4 x PCI Express lanes for maximum performance. For all DeckLink standard definition cards we only need a single PCI Express lane for maximum performance.
We received the release build of system software for the Mac Pro systems last week, so we are currently running tests on that, and making sure all the DeckLink models are working correctly. When testing is complete we will be ready to release our Intel compatible DeckLink and Multibridge software.
We expect to release late this week, or early next week at the latest.
However I will have more information late this week. I will keep you updated.
Regards,
Grant
Blackmagic Design -
4 Replies
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If only Adobe were this on the ball. Sigh.
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Hi Grant/Luke
(OK, I’m totally new to Blackmagic and Apple…)
just to make sure I understood you correctly:
The MacPro using an internal 3-disk RAID 0 will be fast enough
to capture uncompressed 4:2:2-HD (PAL) from eg a HD Extreme’s
HD-SDI. At least if one does get by with the limited disk space.
Right?Should this work as well if I use smaller (but still SATA-II/300)
drives? (The Apple 500GB ones are quite expensive compared to the
300 or 400 (or even 500) GB ones on the normal market…)
Will it work only on the 3GHz model or will the 2.6GHz be enough?
How much RAM is required?While I’m asking: I’m not sure I’ fully getting the specs on the
BlackMagic site: Using this config, would I be able to capture
directly to uncompressed 4:2:2 SD (PAL) from the HD-SDI input to
save on disk space? (There is no affordable SD-SDI cam out there
afaik, but the XL-H1 has the HD-SDI out)For both situations: Would I be able to directly use the footage in
FCP5/Shake/… or would that require some conversion?[I’m looking at doing quite some keying in the next project and going
4:2:2 uncompressed seems to be the way to go. And if I can do the above
on a MacPro, things just got affordable. I’d be swapping out data I don’t
need at my fingertips to slower / less expensive external disks, so having
only 1.5TB or even less should not be much of a limitation.]Thanks a lot
— Kyle
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Hi,
Just following up on the status of the new software. I have my new Mac Pro sitting here, a Blackmagin HD Extreme card that just arrived, and a trio of Maxtor drives all ready to go. I have a project that I need to get started on. Any update on the driver required for my new Mac? Based on your last post, I was hoping to see something this week. Is that still the case?Best regards,
Dan Sparks
Tricom Video -
Hi Kyle,
A couple of quick answers for you.
Yes, you will be able to capture Uncompressed HD to a 3 drive SATA II RAID. From memory, Uncompressed HD is around the 120MB/sec mark, so 170MB/sec should give you enough headroom for simple cutting tasks. As Grant has mentioned, if you are doing serious cutting, then you should still look at an external RAID.
Yes, these files will be directly compatible with Shake, Motion & After Effects. Because all of the Applications use QuickTime at their core, as long as QuickTime can open the file, you can work with them natively.
With your XL-H1, does it output Standard Def via its HD-SDI port? If so, you can hook it up the HD-SDI input (which also doubles as an SD-SDI input depending on how you have got FCP configured, and happily capture SD. If not, I am not sure if the board will do realtime downconversion from a HD signal to SD Uncompressed on the fly. Not ruling it out, but haven’t had the opportunity or need to try it myself.
Hope that that helps.
Cheers
Al
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