Capture using Blackmagic UltraStudio 3D

Blackmagic Design

Capture using Blackmagic UltraStudio 3D

Posted by Kevin Willis on November 2, 2011 at 1:33 pm

Hi All,
I’m new here so first, I want to say thanks in advance for any advice I get. I set up a new camera system with switching via an ATEM TV Studio and capture via an UltraStudio 3D going thunderbolt into a new Mac Mini with an i7, 8GB RAM, and a 750GB 7200rpm drive. Using the Blackmagic Express software, I am getting dropped frame errors so I ran the speed the speed test and obviously came up way short on the “Will it work” side. I decided to let the software ignore the dropped frames and keep recording and the playback seemed fine. Just for kicks, I ran the speed test on my MBP with a 500GB SSD and found that it is not fast enough to record 1080p. What’s up with that?

I guess my question is how do I proceed? The system I set up is for a church and will only be capturing 25 minute sermons. Will it work fine ignoring dropped frames or should I advise them to purchase a faster drive? Are there any tweaks to get more speed from a system drive?

Again, thanks in advance,
Kevin Willis

Kristian Lam replied 14 years, 6 months ago 4 Members · 10 Replies
10 Replies

Bob Zelin
November 2, 2011 at 5:12 pm

your drives are too slow. Right now, the only drives that will work are the Thunderbolt drives – specifically the Promise Pegasus.

Disk drives are the foundation of our business, and you have to have drive arrays that are fast enough to do what you want.

Bob Zelin
Kevin Willis
November 2, 2011 at 5:52 pm

So you’re saying that SSD’s aren’t fast enough either? Why would Blackmagic build a record/playback unit that only uses SSD’s if they aren’t fast enough? I’m referring to the Hyperdeck Shuttle and Studio chassis, which have shown problems dropping frames as well.
Kristian Lam
November 2, 2011 at 11:01 pm

Hi Kevin,

The important question is what kind of SSD you have installed?

regards

Kristian Lam
Blackmagic Design
Kevin Willis
November 3, 2011 at 2:14 pm

OCZ M4 Series 512GB
Kristian Lam
November 4, 2011 at 5:35 am

Hi,

M4 is by Crucial while OCZ makes the Virtex or Agility SSDs.

If you’re using the M4s, make sure you’re running the latest firmware as we’ve noticed huge random latencies in them.

regards

Kristian Lam
Blackmagic Design
Kevin Willis
November 4, 2011 at 12:08 pm

My mistake, it is a Crucial. Thanks for the tip on the firmware update. I’ll try that!
Patrick Sproule
November 5, 2011 at 7:41 pm

What frame size, frame rate & codec are you capturing? By the sound of it you are trying to capture HD uncompressed to a single drive…. Which is a hell of a big ask given that it will be around 1.4Gb/S. Even HD ProRes to a single drive (220 odd Kb/S) is pushing it. When we build a capture system as a minimum we spec a 3 drive RAID 0 array (with quality drives) for uncompressed HD. Usually we do this in a Mac Pro chasis but you can do it with a good external RAID. You might be able to do it on an SSD, particularly if you are compressing it.

Pat
Kristian Lam
November 8, 2011 at 12:00 am

[Patrick Sproule] “Which is a hell of a big ask given that it will be around 1.4Gb/S”

Hi Patrick,

The figures are incorrect. We capture uncompressed 10-bit HD 1080 to a single SSD using our HyperDeck products. It requires about 140+ MB/s of data so it’s achievable with a suitable SSD.

Some SSDs, however, use compression to boost their throughput. This is fine with data that can be easily compressed such as text files but not with video, hence these SSDs fall over.

regards

Kristian Lam
Blackmagic Design
Patrick Sproule
November 8, 2011 at 2:02 am

Kristian, are you talking bits or bytes?
Kristian Lam
November 8, 2011 at 5:06 am

[Patrick Sproule] “Kristian, are you talking bits or bytes?
“

Hi Patrick,

My bad. You’re talking in bits and I’m talking in bytes.

regards

Kristian Lam
Blackmagic Design

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