-
What’s the verdict…BM or Kona?
I am in the process of putting together a wish list for our Promo Dept. and can’t seem to decipher the best option for our needs. Currently running FCP HD 4.5 on Dual G4s with a Cinewave card and 1.2TB of RAID storage. Hoping to upgrade to Dual G5s(2.7), 4G RAM, FCP 5.0 and either a BM HD Plus or Kona 2 card. As of now we don’t broadcast or acquire HD content…yet. I would like to have an HD “ready” system when that glorious day comes, but for now we’re still SD. My confusion is in what would be the ideal set up with two FCP stations capturing (and outputting) footage from Beta and DV decks? Would MultiBridge be a better solution? I’ve read Pros and Cons in both forums and am starting to believe it’s going to come down to a coin toss. Since I work at a cable broadcast facility, with major corporate financial backing, we aren’t too concerned about the cost. BUT, cheaper is better as this increases our odds of an early Christmas. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Adam Fowler
-
2 Replies
-
Hi Adam,
Most former Cinewave users seem to be more interested in the present and forthcoming Multibridge models than the DeckLink cards themselves. I think this is because the Multibridge allows you to connect in SD and HD with SD-SDI and HD-SDI as well as HD analog and SD analog.
The HD versions of our DeckLink cards have HD-SDI and SD-SDI input and output and two of them have analog video monitoring output. That’s not going to fully support the analog connectivity you need with your older decks. The DeckLink Extreme has everything you need in SD but that doesn’t give you HD.
If you need a solution right now, I would suggest either the DeckLink HD or DeckLink HD Plus partnered with the DeckLink Multibridge. This will provide you with all of the SD and HD connectivity required for your various decks. The DV deck can be captured via the Firewire port in your Mac or else you could use its component analog or SDI connections if it includes those.
We also have new models of Multibridge scheduled for this northern summer and they will connect via PCI Express (PCIe) which will do away with the need for a DeckLink card. Currently Macs don’t have PCIe slots so we’ve been working on a bridge card to allow the PCIe versions of Multibridge to connect to G5’s which have PCI-X slots. Hopefully Apple will adopt PCIe soon but, until that time, we’ll continue to work on the bridge card.
If you are interested in the current DeckLink Multibridge, which does not require PCIe, then you can probably use it with an existing Cinewave card (although I haven’t tested that) or else use a DeckLink or DeckLink HD Plus card. The DeckLink HD Plus adds a few extra features including genlock which you might or might not need.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi Luke,
Does the G5 take a performance hit running on PCIX via the bridge when compared to running on a PC with native PCIe?
Thanks
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up