[Brett Howe]

I started this post, as like many others I was frustrated with the progress on the driver front, and fair enough.

Firtly, Kristian, thankyou for keeping us in the loop. It would be much easier to hide out until the drivers arrive, but I think most people here at the cow appreciate the contact.

But Bill, your rhetoric is way mis-directed. And as for speculating on BM’s business future…it sounds like you work for martox!

NOBODY HAS RELEASED DRIVERS FOR CS4!

Not AJA, Not Matrox, Not Bluefish444, Nobody. So before you stick the boot in, why don’t you do a little research.

I have been working on a magazine article, and I have had several “off the record” comments along these lines.

I, as you all, would have assumed, that third party developers had access SDK’s to begin the support process well before the release of the product. It seems likely, that this was not the case, as the premiere release required the .1 update to even cater for third party driver support.

It was alsoo ADOBE who stated on their website, support from 3rd party cards for CS4. The card manufactures themselves, have made no such claim as yet. Interstingly, I think we need to define the term support…as apposed to AVAILABLE NOW.

And thirdly, If you have CS4, you would have noticed some differences right away. The initial setup of a project is new, to cater for the use of multiple resolution sequences in the same project, plus all outputs are exported through the media encoder now. These two issues alone require many software changes from the existing system.

So I can see the issues, and although I don’t like them, and I’m dissapointed I can’t use CS4 to the capacity I’d like, referring to them as lame and ametuerish excuses, is like telling a mechanic he’s crap because he can’t fit the chevy gearbox into your mitsubishi!

Maybe you can tell your clients instead, that the worlds largest creative software company has spread it’s own recources so thin, that in a desperte attempt to get another release out to generate more revenue for it’s share-holders, it forgot, or chose not to implememnt the very things that allowed it to become a professional option in the first place…allegedly!!

Then you can also tell them that you bought it anyway, (with or without the knowledge of driver issues) hoping all would be well by the time you got it all up and running.

For you Bill, I would suggest a “demo” install of CS3, and hopefully. 30 days will be long enough to get you through.

Hey, if you spend as much time reading this, as I did writing it, the time will fly by 🙂

Brett Howe
Creative Director / Producer
Brave Vision Pty Ltd

[Brett Howe]

Craig….your’e cynical!

Please explain your conspiracy theory????

Brett Howe
Creative Director / Producer
Brave Vision Pty Ltd

[Brett Howe]

OK lads, settle down. I’m not feeling the love here anymore!

Bill, I can see you are frustrated. And fair enough, you have outlaid good money for a bucketload of troubles. All I can say is it will get better, and once you are up and running, you’ll love it.

Aristides, you were always opening up a can of worms with your post. Yes, we can all make different choices, but to be honest, If Adobe says it’s supported on their website, then generally that would be good enough for most. Interestly…I did a fresh search today, and there is no longer any such claims…that I can find. Maybe I’m looking in the wrong place. Matter of fact, they now currently support NO HARDWARE officially, according to the online tool for such searches.

And this is where we finally come to the truth of the matter.

I have just had a nice email from one of the Blackmagic Software engineers. He states

“CS4 was released without any 3rd party hardware support. Support was promised to be included in the first patch, namely 4.01, which was made available the last week of November”

So ther was no opportunity for BM to support CS4 until 2 months after release

He continued to state “All hardware manufacturers, including Blackmagic, AJA, and Matrox are all in the same situation…no one has drivers readily available”

They are working on it NOW. All we can do is wait. If you want to give somebody a verbal bollocking…give it to ADOBE for not working more closely with the companies that make thier software a more professional option.

Now we wait.

Brett Howe
Creative Director / Producer
Brave Vision Pty Ltd

[Brett Howe]

Well put Bill.

You are indeed the type of customer I am referring to.

I’m just playing devils advocate here, as I still have suites running CS3, so I’m not so disadvantaged.

For your sake Bill, I hope they sort it soon. I’m sure your’e one of many who have upgraded from CS2, or purchased it outright for the first time.

Brett Howe
Creative Director / Producer
Brave Vision Pty Ltd

[Brett Howe]

This isn’t about complaining or bitching about the product. I have a lot of respect for what black-magic have done thus far…and yes, of course we should stick with CS3 for production until the support is there…that’s not the issue.

The issue here is one of communication. I don’t know about the rest of you, but we are on pretty tight deadlines around here, and the only way we can work effectively, is to communicate. Communicate with our customers, communicate with each other, and manage everybody’s expectations on completion dates. Simple. Everybody’s happy.

So this is my first issue with the BM team. Get some info on your site, to let people know when they can expect to be able to upgrade.

For me, it’s about taking a window of opportunity, between series, to upgrade the whole suite. OS and all. If I miss that window, well it’s another 26 weeks before it will come around again….if I’m lucky.

The other issue also stems from communication. Communication between Adobe and BM. Adobe have BM listed, with a link, on their site, as an option for CS4, when clearly that is not yet the case. Everyday, somebody entering the market for the first time, and choosing BM, will be bitterly dissapointed. Frustrated, and generally unhappy. Nobody wins.

And lastly, it’s about effective support. I find it hard to believe that BM didn’t have access to Beta SDK’s to get the drivers developed before, or within a few weeks of release. As it stands, companies are selling tunkey systems bundled with CS4 and BM hardware, (HP for example)…and they can’t possibly work without the drivers. That’s not good for anybody.

As for your comment on complaining won’t make them program any faster, I beg to differ. In my experience, If I had customers out there grumbling about my services, and it’s lack of progress, then I’d chuck more people on it, and pay the overtime, until the issue was sorted. Goodwill does have a value.

Lets hope BM gets the message. I for one will volunteer as a Beta Tester. Maybe that will help 🙂

We don’t want another Canopus DV storm situation here. (your’e not working on your own editing packaage are you Blackmagic?…don’t do it!)

Brett Howe
Creative Director / Producer
Brave Vision Pty Ltd

[Brett Howe]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Just to isolate any issues.

Intel Core2Duo
2 Gig Ram
Win XPpro
1TB Raid 5
Adobe Master Suite CS3

I’m using Export to Tape with the Adobe serial control into a PANASONIC DVC-PRO deck with R2422 Deck control. I had issues getting the Blackmagic serial control to talk properly with the Panasonic Deck. We have always used the Adobe version in the past.

I triad another export on Friday, and it made it to 33min before stopping.???? Luckily we are in a break for our show, so we are not dubbing daily, but it’s an issue we need to sort.

Thanks

Brett

[Brett Howe]

Thanks Kristian

I did some further tests, and it did seem to drop out here and there, with no rhyme or reason.

Cheers

Brett

[Brett Howe]

You are not the only one to have this issue. There is definitely some kind of bug on the export….I’m not sure if it’s Decklink or CS3.

I was using the CS3 serial control through the Decklink com port. Which tape export are you using?

What I did find, was that if I turned off autosave….it worked fine!

Anybody else got any clues?

Cheers

Brett

[Brett Howe]

There are several issues with The Blacmagic MJEG codec.

The Codec itself is excellent, but it will not work with much outside of Premiere and After Effects. I have also had issues with AE CS3 and writing BM MJPEG.

I have the new Procoder 3, and still no BM MJPEG. Autodesk Cleaner will not work either.

This is a frustrating issue, as we are currently constantly using work-arounds to deal with our media, which is a mixed bag of various HiDef formats.

Please Black Magic, get it to work!

[Brett Howe]

Any joy yet Luke?

I have just written an encoder shootout for DMW magazine. None of the latest encoders supplied could write a BM MJPEG. Curious?