New “Stuff” on BMD website

[Steve Connor]

Jonathan,

Nice timing from BMD as the new 3 CMOS Sony camera has an HDMI output – Very nice idea for low budget HD studio production.

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Jonathan,

Intensity respects HDCP and does not let you bypass HDCP.

– If you have a DVD which has no copy-protection, your DVD player should output a signal with the HDCP copy bit disabled and you will be able to capture with Intensity.

– If you have a DVD which has copy-protection, your DVD player should output a signal with the HDCP copy bit enabled so you will not be able to capture with Intensity.

– However some DVD players fail to output the HDCP copy bit at all. Where this copy bit is missing, the HDMI standard requires that the signal be treated as one with copy protection enabled which means you won’t be able to capture the signal.

Yes, if someone gave you an SD or HD file captured on another system, you could play it out of the Intensity card to a HDMI display or projector.

I’m not sure about the mixed card use in the one Mac Pro. I think that’s something we’d like to do but I don’t know if the drivers do it yet so it would be best to check with the engineers on the stand at IBC. I will also try to find out but they don’t answer email much during the show 🙂

That’s a nice suggestion for the Mac Book Pro and I’ll pass it on. I’m not sure if the ExpressCard34 slot has enough bandwidth for uncompessed HDTV capture and playback and, even if it did, there would be the question of how to capture that to disk. It’s a nice idea though and if the ExpressCard34 slot did have enough bandwidth, then one could at least capture to a compressed codec such as DVCPRO HD to a single disk. Thanks for the suggestion which I will pass on to the engineers when they return from the show.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Sean Oneil]

Will intensity capture 1080p? Can it read signals that are not HDTV signals. Such as VESA signals from another computer’s DVI output?

I hope you guys realize that this thing is going to sell through the roof. Not so much from us in the niche broadcast profession, but from consumer home theater enthusiasts. This kind of product, along with Blu-ray and HD-DVD coming out, will motivate a certain element to “bypass” HDCP (by no fault of yours of course) and thus the demand for Intensity will be enourmous.

[Sean Oneil]

Another question. I have a Sony M25U HDV VTR which has HDMI output. But it has no 9-pin for deck control and TC. Can I use Firewire for deck control but HDMI for video capture?

I’ll take that question one step further. Is it possible to capture video over HDMI, but capture audio over HDV firewire and have them be in sync? The HDV deck doesn’t have any digital audio outputs.

And that makes me think of another question. Does the Intensity capture audio that is embedded on an HDMI stream?

[Martin Frédéric]

Hi there, this is my first post.

I will be highly by such product (hdmi in an express card 34 or 54).

Apparently you have a 2.5gbs bandwitch with the expresscard 34, and with the new hdmi cable up to 20 meter you will get an extremly affordable recording solution for the upcoming hdv sony camera.

Actually several notebook are available with two raid0 disk (like the quosmio from toshiba or the 9800 series from acer) so you could probably use your new jpeg codec with them 🙂

By the way, will it be possible to record the signal with a quantification of 10 bit ?

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Sean,

[Sean ONeil] “Will intensity capture 1080p?”

Yes, the specs page for Intensity lists the following supported formats: 1080p24, 1080p25, 1080i50, 1080i59.94, 720p30, 720p59.94, 720p60.

[Sean ONeil] “Can it read signals that are not HDTV signals.”

It reads both SD and HD formats as listed in the specs page.

[Sean ONeil] “Such as VESA signals from another computer’s DVI output?”

If the computer’s DVI output was outputting an SD or HD format as listed on the specs page, and a DVI to HDMI adapter was used, then maybe it might work. However the DVI output from a lot of graphics cards is not a wonderfully stable signal and even if it was outputting in the right SD or HD format. I’m guessing this would not work well in real life and would only work for SD or HD formats and not other computer screen resolutions.

Of course we would love for the demand for intensity to be enormous but Intensity does not let you bypass HDCP. If the copy protection bit is enabled or missing in the HDMI signal, then what is captured to disk will not be usable. The copy protection bit must be disabled and that will only happen if you Blu-ray or HD-DVD source which is not copy-protected. If your disc is not copy protected, then there should be no problems capturing from it with intensity assuming the disc player correctly outputs the signal with the copy protection bit disabled.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Sean,

[Sean ONeil] “I have a Sony M25U HDV VTR which has HDMI output. But it has no 9-pin for deck control and TC. Can I use Firewire for deck control but HDMI for video capture?”

Yes, if you are using Final Cut Pro, you can switch the device control to Firewire and then capture from the HDMI output of your deck.

[Sean ONeil] “Is it possible to capture video over HDMI, but capture audio over HDV firewire and have them be in sync? The HDV deck doesn’t have any digital audio outputs.”

I don’t think that would work so well as Firewire tends to have some latency so the audio and video would be out of sync. I would suggest capturing both the audio and video via HDMI as Intensity supports that and I believe the HDMI output of your deck does too.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

HDMI cable length is going to be an important topic. We’ve tested with a range of cables from very cheap to very expensive. Cheap cables seem to work fine for about 2 meters or 6 feet. However for any cable over 5 meters (15 feet) in length, you really need a high quality cable. Ideally shorter cables are always better. However if you want to use a long one, make sure it is high quality and test it first before you have to use it.

All of the cameras and other HDMI sources that we’ve seen are using 8-bit codecs. However you can capture to an uncompressed 10 bit timeline if you like and that could be useful if you want maximum quality for graphics and titles as well as transitions and effects.

Thanks for your comments about the notebooks and some of the new and fast technologies are exciting and have possibilities for the future.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Sean Oneil]

[Luke Maslen] “I would suggest capturing both the audio and video via HDMI as Intensity supports that and I believe the HDMI output of your deck does too.”

Thanks. I actually emailed Sony and they said it doesn’t. But they could be wrong. I’m buying an Intensity regardless.

Sean

[Thomas]

Is the Intensity card using the HDMI 1.2 or 1.3 specs? Some hater asked this question on another forum.