Which PC solution should i go for? Blackmagic’s DeckLink card or MultiBridge breakout box?

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Jay,

[jayzejay] “Some staff says she heard that BlackMagic DeckLink cards introduce noise to the picture etc”

All analog devices introduce noise to the picture. That is the nature of analog. If you want to avoid analog noise, then you need to work with a purely digitial workflow which would mean using a (more expensive) deck such as a Digibeta and then connecting it to a DeckLink card via digital SDI connections.

The Betacam SP deck is an analog deck. When you capture from a Betacam SP deck to a DeckLink SP or DeckLink Extreme card, you will be capturing analog noise as part of the capture process. Once the video has been digitized in to uncompressed digital video, it will not suffer from any further noise issues during your editing or when applying effects.

If you then output your video from the computer to a Digibeta deck, there will be no noise issues. However if you output your video back to a Betacam SP deck, more analog noise will be introduced. That is just the nature of analog technology and why using uncompressed SDI video is a wonderful thing. Traditionally working with SDI has been more expensive than working with analog.

It should also be noted that not all digital video is of equal quality. Blackmagic Design is primarily in the business of working with uncompressed video because that is maximum quality and you don’t lose quality when you work on it with effects and when rendering. There are various compressed digital video formats such as DV and HDV. These use lossy compression and may rapidly deteriorate in quality when you apply effects and particularly when rendering video.

In other words, while uncompressed analog video will suffer from some analog noise, it is still uncompressed video and really very high quality. You will often get better results working with uncompressed analog video compared with working on compressed digital video such as DV. I hope I haven’t made that too confusing and please let me know clarification is required.

The internal data path of the Betacam SP deck is 8-bit so the DeckLink SP matches the same quality by using 9-bit analog capture (the extra 1 bit allows for analog noise on capture from the deck) and 8-bit analog output back to the deck. The Betacam SP is fundamentally a 10-bit SDI card with analog convertors on it. So once you have captured from the Betacam SP, you can work in 8 or 10-bit uncompressed formats and then output as 10-bit SDI to a Digibeta if you wanted to do so. You can also use the spare SDI port for monitoring via an SDI video monitor.

The DeckLink SP and DeckLink Extreme cards are compatible with both Mac and Windows. This is nice in an educational environment where parts are often moved around between computers. The DeckLink cards will work fine in a G4 or in the PC and they are also low cost which is particularly important for education.

[jayzejay] “Should we simply go for the gusto and get the MultiBridge Studio”

These aren’t shipping yet but we’re working hard on delivering them soon.

[jayzejay] “or is the DeckLink card gonna cut it? (remember, I do need analog out as we’re pushing outputs to Betacam SP).”

Your requirements are very modest and the DeckLink SP will be fine. If you also need digital in and out, for use with an SDI deck such as a Digibeta, then you might consider a DeckLink Extreme as is has both SDI and analog in and out with the one card. However it sounds as though you only need the DeckLink SP and it will be fine for use on Mac and Windows.

In regards to any issues with Premiere Pro, we have a support note named Premiere Pro 1.5.1 caveats with DeckLink where we list any known issues with Premiere Pro along with any solutions or workarounds. This may be of some help. Our drivers are OpenHD Certified by Adobe and so we keep this support note updated with any new issues as we update our drivers.

Our software drivers also include the following utilities:

• Blackmagic FrameLink – open an 8 or 10-bit AVI movie and see it as a sequence of dpx frames. Add, delete or edit any frame (eg in Photoshop or After Effects) and then immediately play back the AVI movie to see the results of these changes.
• Blackmagic Disk Speed Test – This provides an indication of whether your disk storage is fast enough for working with uncompressed video in various standard definition and high definition formats.
• Blackmagic LiveKey – Key graphics over your video.
• Blackmagic Deck Control – a basic capture and playback utility with RS-422 deck control. This is useful for workstations which don’t need a full NLE such as Premiere Pro, Vegas or Final Cut Pro but simply need to caputre material for editing in applicaitons such as After Effects. You can then use the utility to record back to tape or use DVD burning software to burn to DVD. This saves on the additional cost of NLE software when you don’t need NLE editing features.

This is quite a lot of information to absorb but I hope it helps as I think DeckLink SP will be perfect for you. Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Jayzejay]

thanks for the in-depth response – decklink HD pro is a card we are currently evaluating – it supports analog out as well as SD/HD so we’ll give this a shot…

what i wanna know is how the blackmagic products, mainly the decklink cards differ from the dying Pinnacle Targa Cinewave breakout boxes.

thanks!