Blackmagic Ultrastudio has 1 Thunderbolt port

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Paul,

You are correct and that means it would be best to place UltraStudio 3D at the end of the chain. At our NAB booth, we’re showing the UltraStudio 3D connected via Thunderbolt to a Promise disk array which has another Thunderbolt port to connect to the MacBook Pro.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Paul Jay]

Thanks for the answer! I understand.
It would be nice though, in case of a 13/15” MacBook Pro to be able to add another Apple LED display in the chain.
Is this a technical limitation?

[Jason Livingston]

Sorry I’m confused… in this picture from NAB it looks like it has two Thunderbolt ports, but this thread (and the pics on Blackmagic’s website) describe it as having only one port.

One port would seem to be very limiting as it would prevent the use of an external monitor (the monitor must be the last device in the chain and won’t have any passthrough ports).

[Don Walker]

Luke,
With all due respect to your company, which makes wonderful inexpensive products. having just one Thunderbolt port is a serious design flaw. This relegates Ultrastudio to the the end of a Thunderbolt chain, which is the rightful place of of a Mac display. What is the thinking that went into this design decision?

don walker
texarkana, texas

John 3:16

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Paul, Jason and Don,

I think that chaining a disk array to an UltraStudio 3D and then to a monitor could exceed the capacity of a single Thunderbolt link in and make it unreliable. I’m guessing that’s the same reason why we haven’t seen any monitors with two Thunderbolt ports for attaching two displays via a single Thunderbolt connection. As with any computer hardware technology, we can expect to be able to do more with it in the future as computer hardware is always becoming faster and more efficient.

It would be nice to add an external monitor but it’s already amazing that a MacBook Pro can capture and play back uncompressed 3 Gb/s SDI and even 3D through an UltraStudio 3D and a disk array. That couldn’t be done yesterday. Tomorrow you might be able to add a 4K monitor to your laptop 🙂

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Don Walker]

The announcement of Thunderbolt by Intel, touted the ability to have up to 6 devices loop through with the last item of the chain being a monitor. This was a day one capability! Can you probe BMD headquarters for details on this lack of functionality? Please? The picture shown above does show 2 ports on that demo machine….. What happened between the time the demo unit was built and the website build? Or could the website be the old information and the demo unit pictured being the actual working model? I would much rather have the loop through functionality and capture no higher than 1080P, then have the ability to capture higher frame sizes, but lose the ability to have a monitor at the end of the string.

don walker
texarkana, TEXAS

[Don Walker]

I am whining about the loop through feature, because if I was considering the Ultrastudio for use with a laptop the lack of the functionality would be a no-buy decision maker for me. iMacs are supposed to be refreshed next week with the anticipation being that they will have Thunderbolt ports. The lack of Thunderbolt loop through wouldn’t have nearly the negative impact with a 27″ imac. I would rather wait and see how the competition in northern California and Montreal handle this issue than not have that capability with a laptop.

don walker
texarkana, TEXAS!

[Jason Livingston]

Hi Luke,
Is that a confirmation that the shipping version of the Ultrastudio 3D will have only one Thunderbolt port, unlike the two port version demoed at NAB?

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Don,

We understand the desire for a monitor at the end of the chain and we haven’t just overlooked it. Obviously 5 external hard drives and a single monitor would use a lot less bandwidth than, say, 6 monitors all chained together as big monitors use a lot of bandwidth. The latter configuration just wouldn’t be possible without more Thunderbolt ports or even more bandwidth on each link. There were several UltraStudio 3D units at NAB and they were all shown using a single Thunderbolt port. Unfortunately the unit in that photo was a prototype chassis and hence the confusion. However we have only advertised and demonstrated using a single Thunderbolt port at NAB and on the website.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Jason,

Unfortunately the unit in that photo from NAB was a prototype chassis and hence the confusion. However we have only advertised and demonstrated using a single Thunderbolt port at NAB and on the website. I believe the other chassis units at NAB only had one port although I wasn’t at the show and can’t confirm that. I wouldn’t want to attempt to confirm all specifications before a product started shipping as things sometimes change. We’ll just have to wait and see what the engineers release.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design