Capturing video using HDMI instead of Firewire

[Danny Hays]

Blackmagic makes a HDMI, component, s-video and composite capture and playback, preview card and usb 3 device, both cost 189$ each. BUT you have to have a quad core with an X58 chipset for it to work.
I built an I7 and bought the USB 3 Shuttle. It works great. It can capture straight from the imager of my HDV camera and bypass the M2T compression. Captures in Blackmagic Motion JPEG and 8 and 10 bit uncompressed if you have a raid 0 array to handle the I/O. Check them out.
https://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/

[Mike Semanoff]

Thanks Danny. So I need a quad core with an X58 chipset even if I am not capturing live footage straight to the PC? I generally have to record to tape in the field then capture at home.

[Danny Hays]

This will still work like that, but you will be capturing the same format as is you were capturing through the firewire. The main reason I got it was live out of most cameras HDMI, DV, HDV is it bypasses the HDV, DV compression and can get better quality straight from the camera imager, instead of DV or HDV. If it captured to tape, then it’s already compressed. Live from the camera component, HDMI or composite, S video is it’s captured before the camera compression, and can be captured as Blackmagics MJPEG or 8 and 10 bit uncompressed avi, but the uncompressed video capture will need a fast RAID array to get that much data in and out in real time.

[Stephen Mann]

I am considering exactly this setup for my greenscreen studio. I am already capturing live to my PC in HDV, but I am not getting as clean a key as I would like because of the compression in the camera.

What RAID do you recommend? What’s your workflow into Vegas?

TIA
Steve

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Danny Hays]

I,m using Motion JPEG wich doesn’t need a raid. I don’t use Vegas for my keying as there is no spill supression. I use Ultra 2 or Keylight in After Effects to key, then bring into Vegas to arange. The best way I know to get a real looking key, with great shadows is Keylight. Check out this video tutorial. This keylight pluggin can be used in the timeline and seveeral instances of it too. Very slow to preview but with practice, it can look very real. Danny
Also the Blackmagic MJPEG keys very well as it’s an avi, not mpeg.

https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/3d_shadows/

[Danny Hays]

That tutorial was for shadows, Here’s the one for Keylight.
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/kramer_andrew/colorkey.php

As far as workflow, that changes depending on if I need to put the same subject in the video twice or more.
Also if you have alot of space and alot of good lighting,if you know how to backlight and eliminate spill, and don’t need shadows, you can use the chromakey pluggin in vegas. Danny