Intensity Pro for monitoring

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Pete,

Yes, the Intensity (HDMI only) or Intensity Pro (HDMI and analog) can be used for playback monitoring of your DV and HDV projects in Final Cut Pro. You can capture video via Firewire and then play out via the HDMI and analog outputs of the Intensity Pro. That’s great for monitoring while you are editing.

Given your monitor has HDMI input, you might only need the Intensity card as it will send your audio and video to the HDMI monitor so you maintain a digital workflow without introducing analog noise.

I haven’t seen a Sony GVH-D700 VCR yet but it is very likely you can capture video & audio, from its HDMI output, with the Intensity card. This works with the HDMI outputs of Sony camcorders so it should work with the GVH-D700. This is nice if you want to capture your video to one of Apple’s professional intraframe codecs (eg uncompressed, ProRes, DVCPRO HD, etc) for easy editing. This won’t increase the quality of your video but it will allow you to make your edits at any point on the timeline. HDV uses long-GOP compression so you will often be forced to make your edits a few frames away from where you really want to make the edit. Capturing your video via Intensity solves that problem and enables you to monitor video on your large HDMI display while the video is being captured.

If you are going to need to do much rendering of your video, then you can use the Intensity card to capture your video to an uncompressed timeline. That will retain the maximum quality of your video and you can render it as much as you like without any generational loss of quality.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Pete Peterson]

Thanks Luke, you’ve convinced me.

“life on Guam is great..except for typhoons!”

[Mike Cohen]

I too am using the intensity (CS3 on Windows XP) to monitor SD firewire projects. My one HDV project I have edited in HDV native, only to avoid any workflow hinderances which might arise.
On my setup, i take the audio out from the Intensity into an audio mixer, which feeds speakers or headphonnes.

oddly, the left and right audio outputs of the Intensity are attenuated differently – i had to set the trims on my mixer to even out the left and right channels. Is there some Intensity settings I am not seeing?

Mike

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Mike,

Which version of Intensity drivers are you using and how many audio channels are in your Premiere CS3 project? Do you notice the same audio effect if you play out of Blackmagic Media Express?

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Mike Cohen]

we are updating the drivers today, will let you know if that helps.

Incidentally, can the Intensity Pro on XP Pro cause any Premiere CS3 errors? I have been getting the ubiquitous:

Sorry, a serious error has occurred…

Mike