Vista64 & Decklink – how to get it working?

[Callum Mclay]

Hi Ian

The Decklink card is designed to work with broadcast resolution frame sizes, and as such will not output unexpected frame sizes, such as VGA 800 x 600, even in extended desktop mode.

If you can see the card as a second monitor, try setting the resolution to 720 x 576 (PAL) or 720 x 480 (NTSC). You’ll also need to make sure you are using the extended desktop feature in Decklink system settings.

In Premiere this should be easier, as when you select a Blackmagic setup and create a new project, the audio and video settings will automatically be selected, and you should see your timeline footage on your output monitor.

Regards

Callum McLay

Callum McLay
Technical Support Consultant
Blackmagic Design EMEA

[Ian Mcguffie]

Thanks Callum,
We have been using Decklink cards since they first came out and are very familiar with them and understand your response(we have 6 decklink cards) – unfortunately it is not as basic as your suggestion. Do you have experience with Vista 64bit?

Seeing that you are a technical support consultant for Blackmagic can you answer these basic questions –

Do Decklink standard cards run correctly under VistaUltimate(64bit)?

Do NvidiaQuadroFX1700 cards and drivers upset the card ?

How is Blackmagic able to get around the Microsoft WDDM graphics driver conflict(as stated on their website) where they state that Vista64 can only use one graphics driver – which in theory doesn’t allow for the BM driver. This is what we appear to be experiencing.

Is anyone out there running standard Decklink cards with a 64bit PC and Vista64?

Thanks kindly.

[Aristides Tiropolis]

I do and it outputs fine when working on Premiere, AE and all supported applications. Driver 6.7 fixed some audio issues as well in my case.
Actually my system in its current state (Vista 64 ultimate SP1, you can check my system specs on my profile) is more stable than ever. As a side note the card is not visible on the windows “display settings” window.

[Callum Mclay]

Hi Ian

Please accept my apologies that i was not aware you are an advanced user.

I’ve looked into this a bit more for you. At the moment, our hardware will function great for capture playback on Vista 32/64 bit with the latest drivers. There is also no conflict with the Quadro cards so it won’t get upset in the same system.

What unfortunately is happening, is that we do not currently install a driver for the extended desktop feature, because of the mentioned Windows driver conflict.

Obviously it would be great to bring the extended desktop feature to Vista, but i believe this will rely on the resolution of the driver conflict in Vista from Microsoft first, so that we can then reintroduce our display driver.

But for capture/playback/monitoring purposes your card should work with Vista Ultimate.

Hope this helps.

Callum McLay
Technical Support Consultant
Blackmagic Design EMEA

[Ian Mcguffie]

Just had some advice from another forum that I posted the question on ….. tried it and it now works.

Basically the only decklink card to work with more than 2GB RAM is the PCIe card, not the PCI or PCIx cards.

Thanx

[Stefan Fricke]

Hi Ian,

I have exactly the same problem. How do you solved it ?
On my computer, I have have 2 partitions: one with XP, the other with Vista 64 Bit SP1.
On XP all works fine. But on Vista 64 I can’t see the BMD Monitor. And if I start a BMD project in Premiere Pro CS3, any video doesn’t play.

Regards,

Stefan

[Ian Mcguffie]

Hi Stefan,

The only way the PCI card works with Vista64 or XPx64 is to reduce your RAM to 2GB.
You will need to upgrade to a PCIexpress Decklink card to use more ram.

Hope this helps