DeckLink Quad with Sony PTZ cameras?

[Chris Pearse]

Hi Chris,

The DeckLink Quad will only accept SDI signals. SDI is purely digital. To use the Quad with the outputs of the camera you would need to convert the analog signals to SDI. You could use something like our Mini Converter Analog to SDI boxes to do this.

The DeckLink Duo and Quad cards are the only ones we produce with multiple inputs on a single card. An alternative is to use multiple cards in a single system. Something as simple as multiple Intensity Pro cards would give you multiple analog inputs, and could work as long as your system was capable of supporting so many cards.

I would of course also make sure that you have software designed to do what you want to do. Multiple instances of Media Express can be run at the same time to capture each stream of video, but anything more complex than this might need some third party software.

Chris Pearse
Technical Support Consultant
Blackmagic Design EMEA

[Bob Zelin]

Chris –
the capture software that you want to run to capture 4 streams of video at the same time is made by Softron. It’s called Movie Recorder, and it uses the Blackamgic Decklink Quad. NO ONE uses analog composite cameras – if you have them (Sony PTZ cameras have SDI options for SDI out) – then you can get the Blackmagic Analog to SDI converters ($295 each). But the MAC computer to run the Quad will need to be a 12 Core Mac Pro with 16 Gig of RAM, to capture the 4 streams live.

As I say on many forums, about many threads like yours – it requires a LOT OF STUFF to do professional work, and you can’t just spend the money on the Quad, and put it into a cheap PC with nothing else, and expect it to capture 4 streams of live video. It’s not going to happen. SPEND MONEY. Even if the Blackmagic gear is cheap.

Bob Zelin

[Chris Mcentyre]

Thanks for the info Bob. That’s exactly why I’m trying to find forums like this. So I can ask people who know before I start guessing and wasting money. Unfortunately, the cameras we have now (Sony EVI-D70’s) do not have the option of SDI. These are composite and SVIDEO only. I’m not opposed to spending money on a system that has the capability to capture the best quality possible from these cameras. However, we do not have the budget to upgrade to better cameras AND purchase a system to capture the outputs.

Maybe a little background information would help to know where I’m coming from. This is for a children’s theatre at our church. We currently run the 4 D70’s and they are connected to our switcher via composite connections. The switcher is ran during the show and the output is captured to hard drive/DVD recorder. The only output is to burn the video to DVD. The only way we can do any editing is to rip the DVD to get an editable video file. My initial goal is to build a system that can capture the output of all 4 cameras so that we can do post show editing. Ideally, we’d also capture the output of the switcher so that we’d have a starting point when it came time to edit.

Does that help see what I’m shooting toward?

Thanks,
Chris