New lower pricing for DeckLink HD cards – 4:4:4 for only $1495 !

[Mike Jackson]

“Now is the time to move to HD!”

Well, that’s great… but what about those of us who already did?

I just bought the single-link HDPro at the beginning of the summer, as a stop-gap until multi-bridge ships… for a lot more than $1495. Since Black Magic has no upgrade or trade-in program, my only hope to defray the cost was to sell my card when the multibridge shipped.

So what’s happened instead? No multibridge for my Mac for the forseeable future (since it’s been announced that the PCI express adapter isn’t a priority), and the card I *have* has been devalued to the point where I’d be lucky to get $500 for it.

Add to that my constant frustration with the rarely mentioned secret weakness of the single-link card, the software (rather than hardware) downconversion. I’m using a 2.7Ghz G5 with 2.5 gigs of Ram and it *still* chokes on the downconversion. Not good – The dual-link board is a vastly superior product, not that I knew that when I made my purchase. “Ha ha, I don’t need 4:4:4!”.

So here I am, having dropped a fair bit of coin on a card that doesn’t really fill my needs, and my only replacement options are multibridge (which I suspect may never be compatible with the current generation of Macs), or paying the same full price for the dual-link card and taking a financial bath in the process.

It all makes the new Kona LH look awfully good.

Seriously guys – An upgrade program would make a big difference to me right now. I don’t like being ‘angry customer’.

[Mike Jackson]

Well, to be fair, I’ve gotten great tech support so far… and the card I have has met my *minimum* requirements fairly well. But my search for a single-card SD / HD solution was a nightmare, and it looks like my only option will be to buy a Kona or hope for the multibridge PCI-X adapter… But either way, I’ll be dropping another couple of grand at least, and my resale value on my current card has vanished. And knowing that the vastly superior dual-link card is now the same price I paid for my single-link in MID-JUNE really sticks in my craw.

I always expect computer gear to depreciate rapidly, but the current cycle seems especially brutal. I just switched over to Final Cut from Premiere, and after spending $12,000 plus on my new system (including a firewire / analog adapter and Behringer Ultramatch Pro, accessories I wouldn’t have needed with the multibridge), I now find that both my card and my G5 (if the PCI-express rumors are true) are turning into legacy products. After three months! Arg.

Anyway, all would be forgiven if there was a trade-up or discount program for Blackmagic upgrades. 😉

[John Foley]

THANK YOU BLACKMAGIC! Awsome pricing! Shame some people don’t understand business, although they claim to be in business.

All of you who are feeling raped, just remember, AJA just announced a capture card that does everything except 4:4:4 HD for $1800 so everywhere, prices are coming down.

Black Magic just keeps on pumping out better products for less. And don’t forget they are in Australia where the US dollar varies from week to week.

It is a shame that you can build a capture card for SDI video transfer for under $2K but a deck for the same is $50K???

[Baz Leffler]

[John Foley] “It is a shame that you can build a capture card for SDI video transfer for under $2K but a deck for the same is $50K???”

SHAME SONY, SHAME!!!!!!!!

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Mike,

I understand where you’re coming from and, every time we’ve ever dropped prices on our cards, we’ve heard from happy customers who were just about to buy a card and of course unhappy customers who recently bought a card and wished that they had bought at the new lower price.

Similarly, every time we have ever dropped prices, people make comparisons with other companies and what they do. The software model is often mentioned where customers who have purchased in the past X days would receive a rebate. Then the hardware model is mentioned where computer manufacturers don’t seem to provide rebates to customers who purchased X days ago.

In this case, the manufacturer of the main chip on these models of cards announced that they were discontinuing the chip but that they had a new one to replace it. So we’ve recently switched over to manufacturing the cards with the new component and have subsequently announced the lower prices at IBC. This is something that happens from time to time as suppliers discontinue some components and replace them with newer models. The final result is a card that looks and works the same as before although we have to spend a lot of engineering time programming and testing the new components to work with our cards. The DeckLink HD model uses a different chip and was unaffected by this change.

All electronic hardware depreciates in cost over time and trade shows are well know as times when new products may be released or announced and price reductions might or might not happen. When buying any electronic hardware for work, the question is whether it is suitable for the job you need to do and whether it will pay for itself. If the answers to both questions are Yes, then whatever happens next in a few days, weeks or months will not affect the original purchasing decision. The last time we dropped prices, we had a customer contact us stating that he had purchased a DeckLink HD card 12 months earlier and wanted to know how he could receive a rebate for the new price! Obviously that is an extreme example but the point is that someone will always miss out regardless of whether you choose to have a transition period or not or whether you set it to a week, 3 months or a year.

We’ve always prided ourselves on making great products at affordable prices when released and often we’ve been able to reduce the cost over time. We like to pass on these savings to our customers particularly when component prices have been reduced by our suppliers.

Multibridge with PCIe is close but there have been some extremely frustrating delays. Let me give you an example. We are using a new power supply which plugs in to the Multibridges with a nice, firm connector. We tested a small batch and, having found them to be great, ordered several hundred more. However the new ones, which were the same brand and model number, had a different size of plug which would not fit in to the power socket! We couldn’t believe it and the supplier is telling us that it may be several weeks to correct this problem and send us power supplies which are the same as what we tested. This kind of thing happens all the time with all sorts of components but the power supply example is the easiest one to explain.

You mentioned the PCI-X to PCIe bridge card and stated that it is “not a priority” for us. Nothing could be further from the truth and I am happy to tell you about that because it is another source of frustration. We’ve been developing that card for months but eventually found that the bridge chip contained bugs that could not be worked around. We reported that back to the suppliers of the bridge chip and they have told us that it is a complex matter and could take another 2 months to resolve! That’s the bad news. The slightly good news is that whereas that was the only source of such bridge chips when we started developing the bridge card, there are now some new chips from other suppliers that are about to enter the market. So if the original chip doesn’t work out, we will pursue options with the new chips.

I hope this provides you with some idea of what is going on and sometimes when developing this next generation of products it all seems to hard and it would be easier to just do another variation on an existing card and add a few extra features. However we’ve found that to add the extra features that we want, while conforming to SMPTE standards, there just isn’t enough space inside a computer to add everything we want to do. So we’ll keep on doing simple capture cards as that’s easy but we really think the new Multibridges are important and will release them as soon as we are totally satisfied that they are ready.

[Mike Jackson] “Add to that my constant frustration with the rarely mentioned secret weakness of the single-link card, the software (rather than hardware) downconversion.”

Huh? This is no weakness and we’ve never pretended that the single-link had hardware down conversion. That has only ever been advertised as a feature of the dual-link card. Aside from the fact that this is covered in the specifications page for DeckLink HD cards on our web site, it is also covered in great detail in the support note Software and hardware down conversion with DeckLink cards. On Monday I intend to update this technical note with the new information about what you can do with 720p down conversion and 720p to 1080i cross conversion and you can use both of these features with your DeckLink HD Pro 4:2:2 card.

What does concern me is that you say your card is choking on down conversion and that shouldn’t be happening. Can you please let us know what software versions you are trying and a little more about what equipment you are connecting to. Also are you trying to downconvert on capture or playback. This should definitely be resolvable as we’ve tested it on the same model of dual G5/2.7 as well as other models of G5’s including the dual G5/2.0 and it works fine for us. We should be able to help you resolve this problem so that you are happy with your DeckLink card.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Samuel,

That’s a funny way of looking at history because it has always been Blackmagic Design which has brought down the price of products in this market and our competitors are the ones who have had to follow our lead. As I mentioned to Mike Jackson in this thread, we’ve recently had to switch components on three of our DeckLink HD card models and are now able to pass on cost savings to customers, including on the 4:4:4 card which offers top quality but at a fraction of the price of our competitors. Meanwhile we are also working hard on bringing the next generation of Multibridges to market and these should be available soon despite a number of very frustrating delays.

We’ve never “raped” anyone on cost and that really is unfair and unkind. Just take a look at the history of our products and the price points at which they were introduced and what our competitors were charging at the time. You will consistently find that we always came in at a much lower price and then continued to support and add features to these products. We’re still adding features in our software for the original DeckLink cards and even the Kona SD, years after they were released.

In regards to the DeckLink Pro, it is a 10-bit SDI card. It can capture and playback uncompressed 10-bit to a Digibeta and it also includes SDI monitoring so you can use it with an SDI monitor and you will see perfect 10-bit monitoring. The DeckLink Pro also includes analog monitoring and has done so since it was introduced some years ago. The analog monitoring output is 8-bit and the quality is great particularly when you think that this card was first released some years ago when 8 bit was the standard and people often forget that. Our newer cards include the newer technologies and the DeckLink HD Pro 4:2:2 is now only $995 and not only supports 10-bit SDI and HD-SDI but also includes 14 bit analog video monitoring which switches automatically between standard definition and high definition, which is great for CRT monitoring. 14 bit absolutely guarantees that there can be no banding in the analog monitoring output and you can still have banding with 10 bit analog output so there wasn’t much point making a more expensive 10-bit analog output when banding could still appear.

So I hope this explains why we have used the technologies that we have at the time that we have. Time moves on and it is always easy to make a product today that uses the latest technologies that are often cheaper than they used to be. The new Multibridges with PCIe are very complex to develop but if you get a chance to see them at IBC, you will be amazed by their quality and we hope to have these available soon.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi John

Thanks for your kind words and your last comment about decks points out the irony of this thread. Traditionally all broadcast equipment was very expensive. If we kept our prices up, I’m sure that many people would complain. However every time we reduce prices, people also complain. Sometimes it’s tough to know how to keep everyone happy but if we’re going to receive complaints about something, it might as well be because we’ve dropped our prices again 🙂

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Peter Corbett]

I agree with Luke. It’s just the way improved manufacturing abilities and a fluid market operate. I wouldn’t want to buy something and the next day it is available for a lower price, but caveat emptor; one should always be aware of impending probable price changes at NAB and IBC time.

Peter Corbett
Powerhouse Productions
Australia
http://www.php.com.au

[Mike Jackson]

Thanks for the detailed response Luke, I do appreciate it.

I was not trying to dis Black magic’s excellent products… I like what I see, and that’s why I bought one in the first place. I think I was mostly put off by the gleeful tone in the initial post / press release – *I* sure would’ve liked to buy the dual link HD card for $1495! 😉 I also would’ve liked to be able to sell my single-link for $1200 or so, to offset the purchase of a multibridge, whenever it’s ready.

If you can help me get better performance out of the software downconvert, that’d be great. I’ve just downloaded the new drivers, but I haven’t had a chance to test them yet… I’ll send off an e-mail to tech-support when I get the chance.

BUT – I stand by my comment about the difference being less than clear when I made my purchase. The support note you mentioned (Software and hardware down conversion with DeckLink cards) was posted AFTER I bought my card. Specifically, it was posted shortly after I had an e-mail conversation with someone at BlackMagic, and they said I had a good point and would see if the difference could be made more clear on the website. You really get a massive performance difference between software and hardware downconvert, and that would’ve tipped the scales on my purchase.

All that being said, I look forward to the multibridge, and I’m glad to know the PCI-X card is still coming!

[Mkramden]

Luke,
I can understand some of the hostility towards BM expressed here. So you are saying you changed a part on the DL HD 4:4:4 card and saved $1000? That just doesn’t make sense. I have never seen any other company of any product continually drop their prices in half in response to competition, and I don’t understand how you think this will not piss people off? So the fact that AJA announced the KONA2 at NAB, and you guys then announced your prices dropping in half after they made there announcement, and now they announce the KONA LH and then you announce your prices are dropping in half after them again, but you feel you are leading the industry? It appears you are just over reacting to the industry. Please give me an example of when BM has lowered the price of one of their products NOT in response to competative pressure.
Now many people are probably saying, so what? If the prices keep coming down I’m happy. I for one am not. I purchased an original DL HD card at $1999. At that years NAB several companies announced new products, and the next day BM dropped the price to $999. This year AJA announced new products, and the next day (see a pattern here?) BM dropped the price to $599. This is my frustration. The same as Sam’s and Mike’s. The products have zero resale value shortly after you by them, and no parts cost drop 75% in 6 months, so I think this is where Sam’s “raped” comments comes from. So even if prices dropped some in that frame time, and you are still able to make money at $599, then you were gouging at $1999. You can’t have it both ways.
So as Mark commented, why is there a problem with offering a customer loyalty program? Many companies do this and it goes a long way to brand loayalty. By not providing such a program, and wildly changing prices is alienating users. It is obvious to anyone who has gotten “burned” by your childish pricing fluctuations that you just have to be the lowest price company at any cost, even if it means pissing off your existing customers. Bad move in my opinion.

Mark