3 Decklink Duo

[Bob Zelin]

you are dreaming.

You would buy the NEW Blackmagic QUAD card. You need software to run the Duo or Quad. Specifically, Softron Movie Recorder.

To accomplish this, you will need a 12 Core (not your old cheap Quad Core) MAC Pro with 16 Gig RAM. You put in the Blackmagic QUAD interface card ($995) and run FOUR seats of Softron Movie Recorder ($1100 per channel – total price $4400). This will allow you to run 4 HD-SDI ProRes422HQ streams into your system at one time. So, what if you put in TWO QUAD cards – the MAC is not fast enough to do more than 4 streams of HD at the same time. If you put in two of these cards, you can do 8 streams of STANDARD DEF, but not HD. And of course, you need a drive array that can handle recording this much data at one time. A $200 Firewire drive won’t cut it.

So your costs are –
MAC Pro 12 Core with 16 Gig RAM
Blackmagic Quad interface card
4 licenses of Softron Movie Recorder
A big drive array.

Want to do 6 streams – buy another duplicate system.

Bob Zelin

[Elendill Elendill]

I paste you one of the answers someone’s just given me in the Wirecast forum (I want to use these streams in Wirecast)

[QUOTE]
I have 2 decklink duos in a MacPro and Wirecast sees 4 cameras. I’m guessing if you add a third card, you could add 2 more cameras.
I’m using a 12-core for this seup and it’s running at 400% so by that logic you’d need at least 8 cores to be safe.
[/QUOTE]

Whos right ? ^^

[Mike Mcpherson]

$1100 per channel – ouch. That sounds a bit steep considering the entire Final Cut Pro suite costs $999 and so does the Quad hardware. I am too looking for a solution to utilize the Quad to capture at least 3 HD SDI streams simultaneously. Are there any alternatives to the Softron product?

[Ian Liuzzi-fedun]

Bob and Softron are playing it safe. You can get away with less than 12 depending on settings.