OT: HD-SDI licensing – does it does 6K?

[Mark Burton]

Silly typo in the title. Should be:

OT: HD-SDI licensing – does it cost 6K?

[Bob Zelin]

Mark –
perhaps I don’t understand your question, but WHAT THE HELL are you talking about ? Blackmagic products, including their lowest cost $295 Decklink cards handle embedded audio with the SDI video. All the HD-SDI cards handle embedded digital audio. HD Cameras have HD-SDI or analog HD outputs on them. You can take the HD-SDI output of a Canon XL-H1 (for example) and stick it into a Blackmagic HD-SDI input – but it’s A CAMERA, not a microphone – same applies to a Sony HD Cam, or Panasonic Varicam (if you have analog HD Y Pb Pr outputs, and want to use the HD-SDI input, you can go into an analog to HD SDI converter like the HD10A). To my knowlege, if you record audio on the Canon XL-H1, and play this tape back within the camera, the signal DOES NOT come out of the HD-SDI BNC on the side of the camera (but I could be wrong about this) I have NEVER EVER heard anyone discuss a licensing fee for embedded audio.

Canons application for HD-SDI out is for studio output, so you can (for example) setup a 3 camera studio configuration, genlock all cameras together, and send the HD-SDI signals from each camera into a HD switcher (like a For-A Hanabi, or similar switcher). In this situation, you would use microphones on your talent – not the mic via the camera.

Embedding audio is not an expensive process anymore, and there are many audio embedders on the market, but ALL HD VTR’s will play HD tapes back with embedded audio anyway. I do not believe that the Canon will play back ANYTHING from it’s internal HDV VTR thru the HD-SDI jack – video or otherwise.

Bob Zelin

[Mark Burton]

Hi Bob,

I am in agreement, but you misunderstood me. My question came about because I was talking with someone who was convinced their was a $6k licensing fee to use an HD-SDI port with video, audio AND TC on a product. I was sure there wasn’t such a fee as some products (hence posting this in the Decklink forum) have such connectors and sell for under a $1000 dollars.

This is NOT about what the Canon camera or any other HD camera can and can’t do over its HD-SDI port, this is simply a question of whether using an HD-SDI port (I’m NOT talking about SD-SDI) in a product requires special licensing and how the signals carried affects this licensing cost (if there is any).

Secondly I wondered if the Decklink cards or Multi-bridges carry all 3 signals on their HD-SDI ports?

Thanks
Mark

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Mark –
by coincidence, I got to use a Canon XL-H1 for the first time today, but unfortunately on an AVID Adrenaline HD, not a FCP system with Blackmagic cards. The Canon XL-H1 DOES play out it’s video from it’s VTR thru the HD-SDI jack on the side of the camera (and the audio plays out of the RCA analog audio outputs. Because the AVID Adrenaline currently does not handle embedded SDI audio (the new release will) – I could not test the embedded audio feature out of the camera’s HD-SDI output.

The Blackmagic card will ABSOLUTELY accept an embedded audio stream from any HD VTR that feeds it embedded audio (like Sony HD Cam VTR’s and Panasonic DVCProHD VTR’s). I simply don’t know if the Canon XL-H1 will spit out embedded audio from it’s HD-SDI output.

Time code is read by Blackmagic cards via the RS422 control port – and all professional VTR’s (like Sony JH-3, Panasonic AJ-HD1200A) send TC thru the RS422 serial control port.

If you want to use RS422 control on the Canon XL-H1, there is a LANC connector on this camera, and you can use an Addenda RS-4/L to convert the LANC to RS422 – it’s $148.

Bob Zelin

[Kristian Lam]

Hi,

The XLH1 does not support SDI embedded audio.

regards

Kristian Lam
Blackmagic Design

[Kaspar Kallas]

Also BMD products can deal with embeded TC – but only in Deck Controll aplication – suposedly some sort of limitation of FCP

-Kaspar

[Accountneedsrealnameupdate]

I’m coming to this post late, good question, I’ve never heard of any licensing like you mention but I’m disappointed you got such off-topic responses, I thought your question was well framed and quite relevent to users here. For the timecode would it not just be VITC and in the video signal anyway?
Glenn Stewart
1k Studios