[Bernhard Rummel]

hi,

i have no experience capturing from hdcam-sr, but we use the MB-Pro for hdcam (via HD-SDI to 10Bit 4:2:2 YUV).

but i think there isn´t a big problem with hdcam-sr, because the MB has also dual link HD-SDI. so you should be able to capture uncompressed 10Bit RGB 4:4:4 with Premiere Pro. you just need a fast raid… 😉

if someone has hands-on experiences with hdcam-SR, i would be also interested in.

best,
bernhard.
+++

[Bernhard Rummel]

hi richard!

first: i think there are a lot of nice and committed guys at BM. the price/performance ratio of their products is unbeatable and i guess this make it possible for a lot of little companies to produce sd/hd without spending too much money. but there´s always a “dark” side 🙂
one of course is this x64/pci/ram problem. i discussed it here last year with jaromir: https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/124/867405

well, at the end he got a answer from BM-support: “You are correct in your assessment regarding using more than 2 gigs of ram with the DeckLink HD Pro. When these cards were designed, the market had no need/didn’t exist for 64 bit memory addressing and as such, the hardware was not over engineered to handle this (had we future proofed it, the price for this card would have been much higher). As a result, it is a hardware limitation so it is correct that it will not work with more than 2 gigs of RAM”

in my book it´s not the time for switching to x64 windows, if your main work is editing. but if you create a lot in after effects (CS3 with “Multiprocessing ON” and enough ram for each core) then you will get a big improvement of renderspeed.

best,
bernhard.
+++

[Bernhard Rummel]

hi,

cs3 runs well with decklink cards. we have different raid configurations in our systems, but if you want to capture and edit uncompressed (10 Bit YUV) SD video i would recommend not to use the onboard controller. we did that also with some asus MB for a while and sometimes we got dropped frames. it was very strange, because in the BM speedtest the datarate was more than good (150-200MB/s). also we recognized that when the raid was getting full (more than 60/70%) the datarates were falling dramatically. so we bought a 4-channel sata raid controller from 3ware (9650SE-4LPML). the datarates are now a little bit higher than with the onboard controller, but the important things is, that they are more continuous. also when tha raid is filles up, the decrease is not so big and we had no dropped frames since that.

hope that helps a little bit.

best,
bernhard.
+++

[Bernhard Rummel]

hi,

pci-x anc pci cards will not work with/under x64 windows os. we also tried this and find out that it needs PCI Express. BM also confirmed that – has something to do with the ram/pci etc. management. so, if you plan to build a new x64 system (nice for ram-previews and rendering..) you have to buy new pci-e cards 🙁

we build two systems with a DL HD PCI-E and a MB Pro, no problems under x64 XP Pro and Vista x64 .

best,
bernhard.
+++

[Bernhard Rummel]

hi jaromir,

hmmm.. sounds really tricky with the DL PCI cards..

because of the pci-e problem: you’re right most motherboards have limitations when installing 2 or 3 cards, but it depends on the board. for example our consumer ASUS P5B has two 16x and one 1x slots. but if the second 16x lane slot has a 4x pci-e card in it, than the 1x slot has no function. very funny!

we’re looking out for a new motherboard for capturing HD material (10 Bit, 1080p uncompressed, 4:4:4) with a PCI-E controller-raid-card, a DL HD and of course a PCI-E graphix. and have some reserve slots for eventual other cards (audio etc.) it should also handle a minimum of 8 GB ram, 16 would be better.

anybody here in this forum who has such a system or a recommandation –> would be great!

regards
pixel7
+++

[Bernhard Rummel]

hi jaromir,

well that’s exactly the same reason for my x64 experiment.
but i guess that there is no solution for this problem, i think we will stay 32-bit xp with our PCI cards and have to buy new PCI-E for our x64 / HD systems. i know that’s not very enjoyable 🙁

btw: even if you have only 2gb ram (32bit xp) you can force after effects cs3 to render multiprocessed if you reduce the “Maximum RAM Cache Size” in the Memory&Cache preferences.
it depends how many cores you have. i have a Q6600 with 4 cores and it’s working. but this setting will reduce the length of the ram-preview, not really cool…

i will play around with this “ram/pci/thing” in the next days. if i find any solution i will post it.

best
pixel7
+++

[Bernhard Rummel]

hi jaromir,

just read your post. i didn