AJA & Blackmagic use same UC right?

[Jeremy Garchow]

I just don’t find this to be true as I just tried it. I have some dv and dv50 SDI captured footage on my machine right now. I start a new project, import those two different files. First I select the DV-NTSC easy setup (the default FCP one, non AJA), make a new timeline and drop in the footage. The media bar is registering as ‘Media File’ which it should, no rendering, no weirdness, no nothing. Same for DV50. Same for DVCPRO HD as well, actually, just tried that. All of these were captured SDI, then put in timelines using FCPs easy setups, not AJAs.

OS 10.4.9, QT 7.1.6, FCP 5.1.4, MacPro

Any chance, Chris, you can post a 2 second dv capture somewhere so I can download it and see what’s going on?

Jeremy

[Christopher S. johnson]

“Any chance, Chris, you can post a 2 second dv capture somewhere so I can download it and see what’s going on?”

Im on another job right now with just plain FW Macs. Mattso, can you provide one?

-Christopher

[Christopher S. johnson]

OK, this is from Blackmagic tech support today! I wrote them about this.
————————————————————-
“Christopher,

Okay…so long as both of you are using a modern version of FCP (5 or later)
then it should work well as both Blackmagic and AJA use the native QT
codecs. There should be absolutely no difference between them.

There may be problems on older versions of FCP as both AJA and BMD had their
own codecs to make up for the lack of proper codec support for QT.

Joshua Helling
Director of Support
Blackmagic Design Inc.
http://www.blackmagic-design.com

On 8/11/07 11:44 AM, “christophersj@earthlink.net”
wrote:

> Name: Christopher S. Johnson
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Product: DeckLink Extreme PCIe
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Driver Version:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> OS: Mac OS X
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> OS Version:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Message:
> Hi, Im wanting to buy the HD Extreme card for Final Cut Pro. My question is
> this.
>
> The files I capture in DV, DVCPRO-50, DVCPRO-HD, and Uncompressed SD and HD —
> can my client, who has an AJA Kona card, play them back and edit them with NO
> RT performance hit. Are the codecs exactly the same on both sides? Or are
> there small differences that will make green RT bars show up on an AJA?
>
> I need my client to not notice any difference between my captures and his —
> in HIS FCP timeline.
>
> Thank you.
>
> -Christopher
>

[Jeremy Garchow]

Yeah, that’s what I have been trying to say. If you guys could post a 2 or 3 second clip that’s been captured via Decklink, it’d be really helpful. If you can’t, I understand.

Jeremy

[Christopher S. johnson]

No. I dont have a BM card yet. This was an exploratory question before buying the card.

Anyone else have a BM captured UC, DV, or DVCPRO-HD file they can share with us?

Thanks,

-Christopher

[Szumlins]

Decklink cards DO NOT have hardware scalars. If you ever plan on ingesting signal to DVCProHD, you will experience lossiness. In addition, the lack of hardware scalar and tie in to RTExtreme means that a Decklink card is not doing any math scaling out your images for output or monitoring. This literally equates to less real time using DVCProHD (even if you captured using a P2 card).

AJA’s cards all have hardware scalars on the card. This frees up processor time by handling all scaling of non full raster codecs (HDV, DVCProHD, XDCAM). You can argue that you don’t need the real time performance on output, but I would think that when doing a capture/transcode to DVCProHD, the quality of your ingest would matter.

There are more reasons, but I would think if DVCProHD workflows are important to you, this would be a big sticking point.

—
—
-Mike

[Sean Oneil]

[JeremyG] “That truly doesn’t make any sense.

Can anyone shed some light on this?”

You’re right, it doesn’t make sense.

DV/DV50/DVCProHD are all Apple codecs. As far as RT playback, it makes absolutely no difference what you capture it with. It’s just a quicktime movie encoded with an Apple codec. Might wanna check the anamorphic flag. That could cause non-RT playback if the sequence isn’t set for the same.

As far as capturing over SDI vs. Firewire, the image quality can definitely look different. Capturing FW is like copying a file from a disk. Capturing SDI means that the deck is first converting it from DV to Uncompressed (SDI only carries Uncompressed video), and then the Mac’s Quicktime engine re-encodes that file.

As far as differences between capturing SDI->DV over Blackmagic vs. AJA – they should look identical. Quicktime is doing the encoding, not the card. If they look different, that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. The Kona 3 has hardware assited DVCProHD decoding. But not encoding.

Sean

[Sean Oneil]

[szumlins] “Decklink cards DO NOT have hardware scalars. If you ever plan on ingesting signal to DVCProHD, you will experience lossiness. In addition, the lack of hardware scalar and tie in to RTExtreme means that a Decklink card is not doing any math scaling out your images for output or monitoring. This literally equates to less real time using DVCProHD (even if you captured using a P2 card).

AJA’s cards all have hardware scalars on the card. This frees up processor time by handling all scaling of non full raster codecs (HDV, DVCProHD, XDCAM). You can argue that you don’t need the real time performance on output, but I would think that when doing a capture/transcode to DVCProHD, the quality of your ingest would matter.”

I’m sorry, but it just amazes me what a lack of understanding there is around here. If you’re so nit-picky about the quality, why the hell are you capturing over SDI instead of firewire?

You realize you are re-encoding it. This is a very LOSSY process. No matter how good the scaler is. Firewire avoids this process entirely.

I know there are very, very respectable people here (like Walter) who capture these formats over SDI. But reality is reality. You are decompressing it to uncompressed, and then re-compressing with a completely new lossy process. And it makes no difference that the codec you choose happens to be the same codec that camera used. All that information is thrown away once you plug it into the SDI port.

There is one very odd and very complicated exception. Certain situations it may be better to upscale from DV to 4:2:2 using hardware instead of software (if you use FCP chroma smoothing filter it makes no difference). I don’t want to get too much into this – all that matters is that it doesn’t apply to DVCProHD whatsoever.

Sean

[Sean Oneil]

[mattso] “I will bet HARD CASH”

I’ll take you up on that. How much are we talking? Cause I know you are completely wrong.

I have both Blackmagic and Kona machines in my studio. We share all kinds of media.

They both use the same Apple codecs dude. Sorry, but whatever problems you’ve had are due to something else.

Blackmagic and AJA have never made a DV codec. Nor an HDV, DV50 or a DVCProHD codec. Never. Cinewave may have. Pinnacle may have. But not BMD or AJA. They’ve only made uncompressed codecs and those are for legacy systems and 4:4:4 RGB only.

Sean

[Walter Biscardi]

[Sean ONeil] “I know there are very, very respectable people here (like Walter) who capture these formats over SDI. But reality is reality.”

I have captured DVCPro HD via Firewire in the past but switched over to SDI when our Mac Pro was having all sorts of audio issues via Firewire from DVCPro HD decks. No clue what happened there, but we switched over to SDI and what was explained to me by AJA is that it is still a lossless process coming in via SDI and in fact, the quality is a smidge better. The compression artifacts can be less noticeable and softer than when it comes in via Firewire.

Now with HDV to DVCPro HD via SDI I see absolutely no perceptible difference between the original HDV image and the image that the Kona 3 transcoded to DVCPro HD. I know there’s something there because as you said we’ve transcoded the image to another format and if I were to really blow up the scopes, the noise would be there. But viewing on a 50″ Panasonic Pro Plasma that really emphasizes noise and compression, you can’t tell the difference using your eyes, at least I can’t.

This is just my own personal experience. DVCPro HD, HDV can both be captured Firewire and edited just fine using the Kona systems. It’s really a personal preference at that point.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi