Blackmagic Design DeckLink for Macintosh v5.0.1 software

[Tor Anders]

Hi Luke

My setup is similar to Sean

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Tor,

Thanks very much for this information as it all helps. We think we’ve worked out some, if not all of, the problem. It looks as though the installer itself might be bad and that will be very easy to fix. However we’re going to perform further testing to ensure that we’re not seeing any of the reported problems using a “good” installer. If that works, we’ll re-release the software very soon as we’ve received a lot of requests for the reintroduction of the Blackmagic codec.

Thanks again. Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Chris Tomberlin]

Well Luke, for what it’s worth, this update did seem to fix the display gamma issues in After Effects, as well as the crazy green lines that would show up on 10-bit material when in 16bit mode. I didn’t do much more testing after I tried to play something in FCP and got very stuttery playback in the viewer/canvas (but not on the video out). After reading all the other posts, I just went back to 5.0.

Thanks
Chris Tomberlin
OutPost Pictures

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread. It has been very helpful to receive your feedback and we’ve been investigating the reported problems.

We believe that all of the problems were related to a bad installer which meant that the software was not properly installed. We have rebuilt the installer and all is working fine on our systems with the same software but the good installer.

I have uploaded the good installer to a private location on our web server and it would be great if you could try it out and let us know if it avoids the problems previously reported in this thread. If so, we will publicly release it in the next day or so. We believe there should be no problems with this installer and we’re just being cautious in keeping this update semi-private for a day or two. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Assuming that all goes well, we’d also love to hear from people who have found that this resolves their gamma issues in After Effects as we’ve reintroduced our codec for that and it should help.

The new DeckLink Macintosh 5.0.1r2 (revision 2) installer can be downloaded from this temporary location on our web site.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your feedback and this is great news. The new DeckLink Macintosh 5.0.1r2 (revision 2) installer can be downloaded from this temporary location on our web site and this should overcome the problems reported with the original installer.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Tor Anders]

Thnx for the new drivers! These works. No problems so far. And now: weekend!

Cheers!

[Asaf]

Installer went great, but question what is “Blackmagic 10 bit (DV10)” mean – is this the best 10-bit codec that Blackmagic used on the older stuff? Because in FCP3 i remember the codec just read “Blackmagic 10 bit”. So I want to make that DV10 is the best one to use over Apple’s one.

Also, can I use this codec to digitize using OTHER digitizer cards like AJA KONA for example?

Thanks

[Felix Mack]

I’m still having the gamma issues with AE renders.
The image below shows the FCP scopes’ display of 3 different files rendered in AE from a simple black to white ramp made in AE.

The top left one is a black magic 10bit file rendered using the old codec/fcp4.5 setup. The black to white ramp shows a straight line, which is what one would hope for.

The next image is of the same file rendered with the new Black Magic 10bit codec/FCP5.0.2. There is a gamma shift, indicated by the curved line. This is the same thing that is happening when rendering to Apple’s 10bit codec.

The last scope is of the same file rendered in BM DV10/FCP5.0.2 This also shows the correct gamma.

All I want is to be able to render BM10bit or Apple 10bit quicktimes in AE, that will keep the correct gamma in FCP5.0.2 Is anybody else getting these results or is it just my setup?

[Chris Tomberlin]

Felix,

I’ve been able to determine that with the latest BMD 5.01r2 drivers, the gamma shift is related to where you make your ramp. If you create a ramp in FCP, drop it into a 10-bit sequence, export it, bring it into AE, render it to BMD 10bit (trillions) from a 16 bit comp, you will get correct gamma. In other words, you can make a round trip from FCP to AE and back to FCP in 10-bit without screwing up your gamma. However, if you create the ramp in AE, it will render with a gamma shift. The gamma shift is also different depending on what plug-in you use to create the ramp. The gamma shift you are seeing is typical of the “Ramp” plug-in built into AE. I also did a ramp using the Tinderbox “T_Grad” plug in and got a different curve. So, it would seem that BMD has put in some gamma correction that applies to clips coming from FCP (which solves most of my issues) but does not fix gamma for things that originate from within AE. Here are some scope shots to illustrate:

Hope this helps
-Chris Tomberlin
OutPost Pictures

[Florian Hirschmann]

Hi

I just did a little test. I created a ramp in After Effects on my Powerbook rendered it with the apple 4:2:2 10 bit codec and imported in in Final Cut (on the Powerbook – so there ist no blackmagic card or codec involved). The Scope showed the same result as your After Affects Ramp rendered with the Blackmagic Codec. I also rendered a still image in after effects – the resulting gamma curve was also not linear. So I think there is no gamma shift – the After Effects ramp seems to have this strange curve …

Florian