no extended desktop?

[Sandy Imhoff]

I’m really disappointed about that too.I really like that feature and I don’t think that I would have upgraded to the 7.2.6 driver and Snow Leopard if I knew that. I heard that the extended desktop will no longer be a feature in any of the future drivers.

[Will Salley]

I’m assuming – and hoping – this is a result of fixing the ongoing nvidia/Open GL/Quicktime issue where the second monitor (not the NTSC or playback monitor) becomes corrupted. I’ve been unable to use my Multibridge Pro for what is going on two years because of this issue. I’ll be more than happy to give up the extended desktop for a functioning capture device.

Primary System Info –
Mac Pro 2×3.2 Quadcore – 10.5.6 – QT 7.5.5 – 14 GB RAM – nvidia8800GT – SATA internal & external storage – Blackmagic Multibridge Pro (Junk)- Open GL 1.5.9 – Wacom Intous2 tablet

[Tristan Summers]

I too miss it. I wish I had been made aware of it before upgrading and would like an explanation of the reasons behind it. However I am finding I don’t miss it as much as I thought I would.
Mind you I could have a seperate software Spyder colour calibration for the extended desktop to check on…

[Simon Murphy]

I was given the response below as to why it has been removed.
I’m disappointed as we used it everyday. We already use both DVID outputs on our Mac Pro’s and were using the Extended Desktop on a LCD tv.

Thank you for contacting us. Yes, with the latest driver update we have
removed the extended desktop feature. In a nut shell it was not supported in
other O.S. Like Vista and Windows 7. On the Mac side there are now less
expensive and better solutions like dual DVID outputs. That is why the
extended desktop feature has been removed.

[Kristian Lam]

Hi Simon,

There are numerous reasons why we’ve removed the extended desktop feature. The main reason is that Apple Color checks each desktop it detects for OpenGL compatibility and because the extended desktop output is not OpenGL, Color fails to launch.

Also, like what Will Salley has mentioned, the way the OS enumerates the displays may sometimes cause issues which are undesirable and beyond our control.

Extended desktop was first conceived many years ago so that users can have proper TV colorspace output from Photoshop and After Effects by dragging the canvases across to the “tv screen”. However, we now have proper plugins so that users can output directly from Photoshop and After Effects so the desktop feature is no longer used much.

However, do keep the feedback coming about this and I’m certainly happy to see if there’s anything we can do or recommend.

regards

Kristian Lam
Blackmagic Design

[Robert Ober]

Here’s more feedback,

Fire the person responible.

Never Never Never remove a feature.

I have used this feature on my G5 with an Aja card and enjoyed having it with the Intensity Pro on my Mac Pro. Although I have not used it since upgrading to Snow Leopard, I had a reason to use it this morning and now I cannot. I have a Sony professional HD CRT monitor and thus no HDMI to use to feed the MacPro desktop to the CRT unless I want to buy an additional adapter of some sort. Perhaps let us ATI users have the feature?

Not happy at all and the situation adds negatively to my already low opinion of the Intensity Pro and Blackmagic.

Robert A. Ober

[Oliver Petz]

after the last years i can told you black-magic-guys your drivers driving me crazy! so many bug all over the time ( example: unable to use blackmagic decklink extreme3 with 3 montitors ) it is pain in the a.. to work with this buggy drivers.
for that reason i changed to avid. but there was one good feature on your cards that works also properly: EXTENDED DESKTOP.

AND NOW YOU KILL THE EXTENDED DESKTOP FEATURE?

this was one of the main features for me to buy a decklinkcard again.
for two months i buyed the decklink extreme3 because my old decklink does not run anymore under X64BIt with 8GB Ram. and now you kill this feature extended desktop! i use this function every for example with cinema4d.
in cinema i have a live “pal-preview” and can see how it looks like on television. this is perfect for testrenderings.

or if you play any videostuff with a mediaplayer. i dont have to start everytime premiere or after effects. just drop the player to the extended decktop.perfect.

now i payed a lot of money for your card and one of the important features is killed.

this is unbeleaveble. you cards are a nighmare for me, the drivers are so bad for years, many bug has been never fixed and so on.this was definately the last time i bought “professional equiment” from blackmagic-design

sorry for my lousy english

Decklink Extreme (PCI-X)
Sony Digibeta DVW-A500P and DVWA510P
Matrox Pahrehlia PCI-Express( Three Monitors)
ASUS P5WDG2 WS Professional
4GB RAM
QX 6850 quadcore extreme
Xp Prof. 32-BIT service pack 2 with
all patches and updates
Adobe Creative Suite Production Premium CS3 with all patches and updates

[Hugues Ménétrier]

I totally agree with people who have lost their key feature.
It is a shame ! Because of this f…. Color, I do not believe it. I just bought a 900 € video card and they tell me after buying “We have removed Extended desktop, you know, it’s an old feature, no one uses it anymore”, and all this b….s… !!!
I’m feeling like a guy to whom surgeons have cut the left hand, saying that they noticed I used it less than the right one.
Let me decide by myself how I use hardware and what is important for me !

I use more this feature than the others, even if I use it as an acquisition card too. My work is live events, and I work quite exclusively with softwares which are NOT FCP, NOT AE, and nothing to do with V-Out component … You kill a large part of my job with one shot, good shot. I could output a lot of signals, from PAL to HD, instead of VGA or DVI, and it was great.

I add ;
if I knew that Extended feature has been removed,
I would NEVER NEVER NEVER buy an Decklink HD Extreme 3.

PLEASE GIVE US OUR FEATURE BACK !

Hugues Ménétrier, an old and angry user, and poor english writer.

[Mike Halper]

I’m very disappointed this feature is gone as well. I have a dual 30″ display and was using the Multibridge Pro 2 to give me a third display on a plasma. Who cares about the Color issue. The simple fix for me was to turn off the Extended Desktop and restart, then load Color, do my thing, then go back to Extended Desktop. Looks like I’ll have to find different hardware now. Goodbye BMD.

[Maxhowarth]

i understand that there is an (obvious) need to move forward with a product but i think this situation could be very simply resolved: restore the option in the decklink preference pane to switch extended desktop on or off.

if a user switched it on they would get a pop up warning (dismissable with no repeat warnings if preferred) that apps like color won’t start up correctly with it activated.

best wishes
max

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http://www.redfacilities.com