please recommend a blackmagic card for me…..

[Ray K]

I think the basic declink card is your is your answer.
Price is rite and it rocks …. Just have fast enough drives

[Adrian Tecson]

I would recommend you go and get the Decklink Extreme. I’m currently using it for SD as well with Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 and it works great. It’s very stable, especially with the new drivers. And for the price, I think it would be a much better investment than an ADVC, which only allows you to capture using the DV codec(not too good for FX work).

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

The great thing about all DeckLink cards is that they capture uncompressed video from your Digibeta. That means you can capture and edit in uncompressed 8 or 10-bit video without introducing compression artefacts which happens with any compressed format including DV.

All DeckLink cards include RS-422 deck control so just connect this to your Digibeta so you can control it. We have our own RS-422 plug-in to Premiere Pro 1.5.1 so you can control the deck from within Premiere which is great for things like batch capture.

Uncompressed video needs more disk space than the DV so you will need some kind of disk array. At a minimum, you would need two SATA disks in a RAID 0 format for 10-bit uncompressed standard definition video.

However you can also use the DeckLink card to capture from the Digibeta and store the files in the DV format if you are using Premiere Pro. This is great for saving space when working offline. When you have finished editing and applying effects, you can export an EDL and then recapture the online version in an uncompressed format. This is great for maximum quality video when disk space is limited.

You can move DeckLink-captured movies back and forward between Premiere Pro and After Effects. You can preview out of Premiere Pro and we also support RAM preview out of After Effects directly to the broadcast monitor.

You only need SDI connections for your Digibeta and could go with the entry level DeckLink card which is only US$295. This has an SDI monitoring output which you could connect to an SDI broadcast monitor or else to a digital-to-analog convertor and then to a inexpensive analog monitor.

If you have an analog monitor but do not have a digital-to-analog convertor, then you should consider the US$595 DeckLink Pro. It is the same as the entry level DeckLink card but also has analog video monitoring so you can use it with a component or composite analog TV. It also includes Genlock if you need that too.

If you need to use older analog decks, such as Betacam SP, then the DeckLink Extreme is a good choice as it has both analog and SDI connections.

It’s a good idea to check out our Windows minimum system requirements at https://www.blackmagic-design.com/support/detail.asp?techID=47. In particular, check out the inexpensive dual core systems which can be used with DeckLink standard definition cards and only require a 32 bit PCI slot. They are very attractively priced. https://www.blackmagic-design.com/support/detail.asp?techID=47#DualCore

Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Michael Duff]

thanks heaps for your help. So….
I will only ever be capturing SDI, never ever a need for analogue. So if i get a cheaper unit, will I lose any other features besides the anologue in/outs?

Also, if I was to look at a HD card will I lose any of the SD features/quality? HD isn’t a “need” but could be handy in future. We have one betacamHD machine….but no cameras 🙁

Also…sorry for all the questions….but what sort of hard drive setup would I need to handle capturing HD?

Luke…can you recommend a blackmagic reseller in Australia (or more specifically Canberra, Australia)

Cheers for the help,
Michael

[Hawkfinn]

Hi,
I just want to capture video/audio through sdi as a dv quicktime. Would a simple $295 Decklink work? Also do I need to purchase a disk array in order to do this.
Thanks.

[Hawkfinn]

Hi,
I just want to capture video/audio through sdi as a dv quicktime. Would a simple $295 Decklink work? Also do I need to purchase a disk array in order to do this.
Thanks.