decklink for betacam

[David Roth weiss]

That would be the Extreme card.

[Wolf]

Hi

if you won

[Brian]

what is the sdi capability good for? hd?

[Wolf]

Hi,

Serial Digital Interface (SDI) is a standard for digital video transmission over coaxial cable. The most common data speed is 270 megabits per second (Mbps). Standard 75-ohm cable is used. This is the same type of coaxial cable used in most home television (TV) installations.

The SDI standard uses data words that are 8 or 10 bits in length. Signals are uncompressed and are self-synchronizing between the source (transmitter) and destination (receiver). A signal in SDI can contain up to four independent digital audio signals along with the video signal.

Greetings

Claus-Peter Wolf

[Brian]

thanks, so for sending uncompressed signals. but isn’t the data speed of firewire actually faster? 400mbs?

[David Roth weiss]

SDI on the Extreme is quite useful for DigiBeta and othere decks that don’t have firewire.

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Brian,

The DeckLink SP card is all you need for connecting to analog decks such as the Betacam SP. If you also want to connect to a Digibeta sometimes, then the DeckLink Extreme would be good as it has SDI connections for uncompressed digital transfer to the Digibeta. SDI enables you to run cables of up to 300 feet from your DeckLink card to the deck and doesn’t suffer from the latency issues of Firewire over distance. So you can still use FireWire for compressed DV video with cameras and DV decks but if you want to work with high quality uncompressed digital video, then SDI is the way to go. Of course, these comments are not relevant if you are working with a Betacam SP as it is an analog deck. The DeckLink SP card includes an SDI output which would enable you to output SDI video with audio to an SDI monitor or a SDI deck such as a Digibeta.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Brian,

Before HD existed, SDI was always standard definition digital video and audio. Since HD became popular, we now have both SD-SDI and HD-SDI standards. When people refer to “SDI”, they might be using the term in a general way to indicate an uncompressed digital connection or they might be implying SD-SDI. If in doubt, it is always worth asking to be sure.

The DeckLink Extreme includes SD-SDI input and output as well as analog connections for your Betacam SP.

We have various cards including ones that can be switched between HD-SDI and SD-SDI. They would not be applicable to your Betacam SP and my guess is that the DeckLink SP is all you will need for the moment unless you already work with Digibeta’s or other SDI-based decks.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Brian,

FireWire 400 is capable of coping with SD-SDI data rates but not HD-SDI which is much higher. Even though FireWire is wonderful for use with DV-based formats, you can only use comparitively short cable lengths and it also suffers from latency issues unlike SDI-based hardware. Our web site contains some brief information about the Serial Digital Interface (SDI) which explains a few of its attributes.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design