Picture Softness: Enable HDTV Up/Down Converter

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

I’m guessing you are using Final Cut Pro. Which Blackmagic Easy Setup have you chosen for your HD material?

Which Blackmagic product are you using? Multibridge Extreme and DeckLink HD Pro 4:4:4 (PCI-X) are the two products that include hardware down conversion.

Upconversion is not yet enabled but that is the plan.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Brandon Kraemer]

I am using FCP. I am working with 23.98 PsF clips in a timeline of the same setting, then my playback settings are 23.98 -> 59.94. I have the original Decklink HD card, on a G5 dual 2 Ghz with 2 GB ram.

The footage looping through the HDCAM deck and comming out its downconvert looks rock solid. But comming right out of the deck link card looks quite soft in down convert mode. Also, If I am using AfterEffects and previewing with the decklink card images seem soft, but not as soft as from FCP, but this could be my imagination.

Thanks in advance,

Brandon Kraemer

[Luke Maslen]

Thanks Brandon,

We’ll run some tests and check it out. If improvements need to be made, I’m sure we can add something in a driver update. When you are working in After Effects, which HD1080 frame rate are you down converting which looks soft? I’m guessing it was 1080i59.94 but want to be sure.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Brandon Kraemer]

My comp settings are set to 23.976 in adobe AE. The image looks the same if I am just previewing a single frame or doing a RAM cache. And the hardware downconvert vs. software downconvert… will my computer/ Decklink Hd card only support software?

Thanks,

Brandon.

[Chris Borjis]

Hey its great to know you guys are going to enable
SD to HD conversion on the multibridge extreme.

Not having that option had me thinking about going to Kona Hardware.

But I definitly won’t if the multibridge extreme will support
hardware upconversion in the future.