Sony M35U Connection

[Bob Zelin]

The HVR-M35U has no RS422 VTR control. You will use the HD-SDI ouptut of the M35U to get the HD-SDI video with embedded audio into your blackmagic card. I cannot describe the correct way to use the FW cable to get “pseudo” VTR control from your MAC to this VTR. The HVR-1500A from Sony has full RS422 control, not the 35U.

there are many Decklink cards. I can’t tell you how to hook it up to your monitor until you say exactly what model you have.

BobZelin

[Kevin Matluk]

I have a Blackmagic Decklink HD Extreme card. We have it connected to the deck but not the monitor yet. As I understand you cannot control the deck through HD-SDI cable? What are the best presets to use to import video into Final Cut, via the codecs? And can we hook the monitor up straight through the HDMI output on the card? thank you.

[Bob Zelin]

As I understand you cannot control the deck through HD-SDI cable?

REPLY – that is correct. Most people use RS422 to control a VTR, and Blackmagic gives you an RS422 cable, but you have chosen the wrong VTR. You should have purchased the HVR-1500A from Sony. The HVR-M35U has no VTR control other than the firewire port, and I cannot tell you how to do this with the Blackmagic (or AJA) cards.

What are the best presets to use to import video into Final Cut, via the codecs? And can we hook the monitor up straight through the HDMI output on the card?

REPLY – you have not stated what monitor you have. How can I tell you if you can use it in this manner, if I dont’ know what monitor you have. If your monitor has HDMI, you can take the HDMI out of your BMD card, and go to your monitor. Or you can use the Analog component outputs from the BMD card to go to your monitor. What codecs should you use – what everyone uses – Apple ProRes422 or ProRes422HQ.

Bob Zelin

[Margus Voll]

Hi.

If it works as hdcam cameras then fw control is fairly easy.
Just connect fw to your computer and to your dec.
In finalcut change audio / video settings so that the device control is DV or similar and you should have control if the vtr supports itˇ.

Hope this helps.

Known issues: Imported material that was also captured through fw on avid media express for offline did not sync by edl. I never got it solved which one was bad my time code or avid capturing. When i stayed in the same machine all worked fine.

—

Margus

https://iconstudios.eu

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Kevin,

Bob is right that your deck lacks RS-422 device control and so cannot be controlled in the way that one would usually expect when working with an SDI deck. However you can use FireWire control but there are a few tricks involved to make it work. The steps are included in pages 30 and 31 of the current DeckLink manual for Mac OS X. On page 30, follow the same steps starting with the sentence, “HDV cameras include FireWire device control.” The notes on page 31 regarding the Sony HVR-M25U deck are also directly applicable to your model of deck.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design