[Carey Dissmore]

One of the infuriating things is this issue is really hard to track down, as it’s manifesting differently on different systems.

I’ve now tested on 3 machines, one of which has 2 boot systems

Quad G5 2.5ghz 8GB RAM
-OS X 10.4.11, (Blackmagic Multibridge Extreme drivers)
AE 7:
Keys jaggy on Nucleo or multiprocessing renders, clean on standard AE renders

-OS X 10.5.2, (Blackmagic Multibridge Extreme drivers), AE 8:
Keys jaggy on Nucleo or multiprocessing renders, clean on standard AE renders

Mac Pro Quad 2GB RAM (no video hardware)
-OS X 10.5.2, AE 8:
Keys jaggy on Nucleo or multiprocessing renders, jaggy on standard AE renders

Macbook Pro Core 2 Duo 2GB RAM (no video hardware)
-OS X 10.5.2, AE 8:
Keys jaggy on Nucleo renders, jaggy on standard AE renders.

So the only way I can get a clean key rendered right now is to use the first machine, with Nucleo or multiprocessing disabled.

What a PITA! (slowing me down—lost about 4-5 hours to troubleshooting this!

[Carey Dissmore]

I can confirm all the same problems. This is not an isolated incident. My footage is also DV50 and I’m starting to suspect a codec issue, but I haven’t nailed down exactly what is in play just yet. This is a real PITA. It’s costing me a lot of time on a very tight deadline and I can’t afford it! 70+ minutes of footage to key!

[Carey Dissmore]

I tried capturing some analog component 720p on my PowerPC G5 Quad 2.5ghz/8GB RAM/Multibridge Extreme to the ProRes422 (non-HQ) codec. What I got was a 640×360 video instead of 1280×720. (halved).

I did NOT do exhaustive testing as I was in a hurry. Can anyone else share their experiences with the Quad G5 and ProRes 422 digitizing?

[Carey Dissmore]

Kevin, this is in no means personally directed at you, but more of a general statement.

It never ceases to amaze me how many shooters, not to mention producers in the professional video industry fail to grasp the concept of what anamorphic is all about.

Yes, it’s true. There are the same number of pixels in a 4:3 image as in a 16:9 image.
YES. REALLY.

The other thing is…in standard def video production formats…pixels are never perfect squares.

Standard def D1 frame size is always 720×486.
Standard def DV frame size is always 720×480.

YES. For BOTH 4:3 and 16:9 aspect.

What changes is the pixel aspect ratio
4:3 uses 0.9. That means the pixel shape is taller than it is wide.
16:9 uses 1.2. That means the pixel shape is wider than it is tall.

But the number of pixels DOES NOT CHANGE.That’s why it’s called Anamorphic.

You mentioned you were working in Betacam. That is absolutely irrelevant because you could be digitizing to either a D1 or DV frame size (see above)depending on your capture settings.

You should be setting up your AE comps as either D1 or DV frame size and setting the pixel aspect ratio accordingly. When you work in AE your computer monitor WILL NOT look right unless you turn on pixel aspect correction which makes shapes look correct but makes the image appear as if it’s really chunky. I choose to view 1:1 in AE on the computer monitor and just look at my outboard NTSC monitor for preview.

When you render in AE and bring your renders into FCP…remember you want to render at the same frame size as your timeline…you will probably need to adjust your clip, once on your timeline for proper aspect. This can be found by double-clicking a clip in the timeline to bring it into the viewer…then go to the motion tab and twirl open ‘distort’ and set aspect to 0. It probably defaulted to 33.33.

This applies to bringing 16:9 rendered clips into a 16:9 timeline.

Hope this helps

Carey Dissmore

[Carey Dissmore]

Hi Kristian,

I tested the new 5.4.1 drivers and firmware update last night.

Love the reduction in fan noise.

But, alas, my 1080p HD display will still not sync up to the DVI output on the Multibridge Extreme.

Could you guys please add support for DVI monitors that are 1920×1080 @ 60hz? (that is standard 1080p resolution).

Here is a link to the specs of the monitor I am using:
https://www.sceptre.com/Products/LCD/Specifications/spec_X37SV-Naga.htm

Here is an image of the monitor in my edit suite.

I specifically bought Multibridge Extreme for its scalable DVI out functionality. So far, I can’t use it. I realize you may not be able to support every conceivable display out there but surely one that is as standard as this one (resolution/refresh-wise) should be supported.

Carey Dissmore

[Carey Dissmore]

Hi Kristian,

I tested the new 5.4.1 drivers and firmware update last night.

Love the reduction in fan noise.

But, alas, my 1080p HD display will still not sync up to the DVI output on the Multibridge Extreme.

Could you guys please add support for DVI monitors that are 1920×1080 @ 60hz? (that is standard 1080p resolution).

Here is a link to the specs of the monitor I am using:
https://www.sceptre.com/Products/LCD/Specifications/spec_X37SV-Naga.htm

Here is an image of the monitor in my edit suite.

I specifically bought Multibridge Extreme for its scalable DVI out functionality. So far, I can’t use it. I realize you may not be able to support every conceivable display out there but surely one that is as standard as this one (resolution/refresh-wise) should be supported.

Carey Dissmore

[Carey Dissmore]

https://dissmore.com/avs/pano_small.jpg

[Carey Dissmore]

Just to clarify that some of what you saw was probably due to the nature of the connection…it probably wasn’t DVI. I’m going to show some ignorance here but I know enough about DVI to know that it’s a 2-way connection in which the video ‘sending’ device (in this case the MBE) communicates with the display to determine it’s resolution and supported mode. Graphics cards do this all the time.

I don’t know enough about the MBE’s internal construction, but if I were designing the thing, I’d certainly include the basics of a GPU display device/scaling engine. The Multibridge Extreme should essentially be able to take any SD or HD video source and output it to any reasonable resolution DVI monitor, and on top of that should offer the user the choice of output mapped 1:1 pixel for pixel, 2:1 doubled, or SCALED to fill the full resolution of the display.

Oh, back to your original question, I was trying footage at all different frame rates, not just 23.98 FPS. The problem isn’t the frame rate of the source footage, it seems to be the requirements of the DVI display I am using. 1920×1080 60hz

Here is a link to the monitor specs….btw one of only 2 1920×1080 (true 1080P) large (37 inch) monitors currently shipping in the U.S. Many at this size are 1366×768. IO plan to do 1080i/P editing so I wanted the full rez.
https://www.sceptre.com/Products/LCD/Specifications/spec_X37SV-Naga.htm

Hope that clarifies…

Carey

[Carey Dissmore]

Hi Steve,

That’s a very good observation. However in this case the frame rate of the video and the refresh rate of the monitor are not connected to that degree.

In much the same way that:

a) You can view Quicktime movies on your computer monitor of pretty much any frame rate even though the monitor refresh rate doesn’t change (most LCD panels are 60hz)

b) You can view your content on any DVI monitor that your graphics card will support via FCP’s ‘Cinema Desktop’ mode, even though the refresh rate of the monitor doesn’t match the frame rate of the video

The DVI port on the Multibridge Extreme should support getting that picture up on the display…and it DOES indeed do that, on certain monitor resolutions.

…but what baffles me is the 37 inch HD monitor I specifically bought to configure as a client monitor in this new system (the native 1920×1080 HD rez was a huge drawing card) turns out to be (currently) an unsupported resolution/refresh rate/scaling option for the Multibridge Extreme. The more I think about this, it seems this drastic oversight (if that’s what it is) by BMD ought to be fixable with a software update. Let’s hope anyway.

[Carey Dissmore]

still no luck on this front. Still no re-post on the 5.4 BMD drivers for Multibridge Extreme. Still no word from BMD. Tried a few more things to get this going today. No luck.

Sure would like to get some assistants/answers on this soon!

With baited breath….
Carey Dissmore