Blackmagic and HDV set up

[Todd Hallam]

Hey Robin

We just started work on an hdv production. We’ve got the 2.7 dual G5 with 2 20 inch monitors and a third 23 inch display for monitoring in Hi Def. The 23 is hooked to the computer via an HDLink box which gets its signal from the Blackmagic Decklink HD Pro dual card. The 23inch is all you need. It will display all the pixels of your hd signal. 30 would probably be overkill. We also have the Sony HDV deck for digitizing. You will need the dual card if you want to monitor your SDI output on the display and output SDI to a digiBeta deck. So far the editing has been fine. A few slowdowns here and there but not as doom and gloom as I expected. I was surprised to find out output to tape was not as easy however. Seems FCP needs to “conform” the timeline prior to output and on a half hour program this is an overnight deal. Not very handy. Haven’t worked with it too much so I don’t know how it handles it but I’m wondering about conforming the timeline and if I need to make a change if the whole thing needs to conform again. This is only necessary on a Edit To Tape function. Print to video is straight out – no conforming. But no locked code either. We may go this route, just do a wild print and then do a digibeta tape to tape insert at the proper code. Our external drive is a Lacie FW800, rated at around 75 mpbs, fast enough to do the job no problem.

As for broadcast monitor, this is what I’m looking for is a good crt display but they are getting harder to come by. Will keep you posted…

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Robin,

The 23″ display would be the way to go with HDLink and you can find this information in the technical note Does HDLink support the 30-inch Apple display? at https://www.blackmagic-design.com/support/detail.asp?techID=100.

In summary it says that you should use an Apple 23″ display for use with HD1080 video. HDLink is not designed to work with dual-link DVI-D displays such as the Apple 30″ display.

However the forthcoming Multibridge Extreme and Multibridge Studio includes both single-link and dual-link DVI-D support so you could use an Apple 30″ display with those new units. These new Multibridges plug in to a PCI Express slot whereas G5’s have PCI-X. Hopefully G5’s will have PCI Express soon but we’ve also been working on a PCI Express Bridge which plugs into any PCI-X 133 MHZ slot and adds a PCI Express connecter on the rear of the computer to connect to Multibridge.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Robin]

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