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BM Decklink Extreme PowerMAc 2GB Ram limit
Hi all,
we are currently looking for a more stable system than our Decklink Extreme PC running Premiere 1.5 for a project which involves a lot of graphics and keying.
So we are considering buying a PowerMAc 2 x 3 GhZ with Decklink Extreme and Final Cut Pro and 4 Gig RAM.
Now I have reard that currently it is not possible to use more than 2 Gig Ram with Decklink Extreme PCI? Is this still true or has the issue been fixed?
Being restricted to 2 GB RAm might really turn us of the Decklink Solution.
Hoping for good news
Michael
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5 Replies
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Are you getting a G5 or a Mac Pro? I never had problems with 4GB of RAM on my G5, but on my new Mac Pro the Decklink Extreme card took my whole system down everytime I used FinalCutPro (until I removed 2GB of RAM). BM is saying that bug will be fixed in the Decklink 6.2 release, which is due out any day now. But I’m not counting my chickens before they hatch. For $100 more you can get the Extreme HD which doesn’t have the memory problems ( I haven’t tried it, but that’s what I’ve been told) and gives you HD capability. Double check with BM, but that’s probably your best bet.
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Macpro C2D with 4gig.. FCP 5.1.4 and decklink extremeHD.. No problems here.. all working fine eventually.
s
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Hi Michael,
The only cards affected by the 2 GB limit bug are the DeckLink Extreme PCIe and the DeckLink SP PCIe when used in a Mac Pro. The same cards have no such problem when used in a PowerMac G5.
None of the other DeckLink, Multibridge or Intensity products have this problem. It is confined to the two models mentioned above.
If you need an immediate solution on a Mac Pro and are going to have more than 2 GB of RAM installed (which you would need for HD), then I would suggest the DeckLink HD Extreme as it is only US$100 more than the DeckLink Extreme PCIe but supports any amount of RAM, does HD and SD, has two SD/HD-SDI outputs and also supports S-video in addition to the features present in the DeckLink Extreme.
The engineers intend to fix the bug in the two SD card models as soon as they can. The DeckLink 6.2 driver release is a big one as it contains the support for Final Cut Pro 6 and so I don’t know if this bug will make that release but that’s my hope.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi all,
thanks a lot for the input.
So I think we might go for the Decklink Extreme HD.
Cheers
Michael
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This is getting really frustrating. I’ve been patiently waiting since November for the 2GB limit to get fixed. If it can’t get done or won’t get done please just let us know so we can find another solution. I know Apple threw everybody a curveball switching to Intel, but it’s been almost a year now already. Are the SD cards that small a part of your business now, that they recieve so little attention? We’re upgrading to 8-core Mac Pro’s to take advantage of their multi-processing with After Effects and there’s no way we’re going to run them on only 2GB of RAM. I’d hate to have my boss drop thousands on new HD Extreme’s (or AJA’s) then see the fix for the 2GB problem come out.
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