[Fred Jodry]

RE: = (My single crude answer`s guess is at the bottom).

Intensity Pro connection to Broadcast Monitor
by Jay Lee on Mar 8, 2010 at 1:53:17 pm

Good morning,
I’m attempting to understand the ramifications and differences (if any) of monitoring Apple Color 1.5 via Intensity Pro to a JVC LCD Broadcast monitor Component verses DMI?
Are there any pros or cons with going with one connection over the other? Color space or other issues?
What gives the most accurate output?

Also, regardless of connection Apple Color output when working in ‘Floating Point’ via the Intensity Pro is unusable. Jaggy distorted image. Improved by switching to 16-bit but why?

Source material is 10-Bit Uncompressed QT NTSC SD

All thoughts most appreciated. Cheers, J

A: = Be sure spread spectrum is turned off on your motherboard and the cable from your reference synch source is running good clean signal.

[Fred Jodry]

Gosh, if I knew more about moderating posts I`d host my picture above this forum. In the mean time, endless producers are crippled by hard drive hook- ups that don`t push the juice. Last night, I noticed that one of my computers was making it`s hard drive light get dimmer instead of brighter whenever the only hard drive`s arms got noisier. Those who are waiting for SSD to pass this stuff by, can be disappointed by my news straight from the front. The cheapest passable SCSi SSD, which is the only kind I`d use, costs $5,000 and the price is rising a bit. A week ago I found a company that sells theirs for $1,700 apiece, still too high. Most people who buy a SSD find out they`ve bought a unit that`s the large size cousin of high- density memory. Terrible. For those of you who are still busy building the computers that are to be hooked- up to the high quality Raid storage, here`s a tip in that area. Build a deluxe one that can be varied in speed, and under- clocked to do the off- peak jobs. Keyboard and Mouse manufacturers should make models with a clock- faster, clock- slower rocker switch. I already have a keyboard with a turbo button and lights on it. My favorite SCSi controller series used to be Adaptec. That was before they decided to drop Macintosh compatibility lately. SO FOOLISH. Their advantage was that the C-MOS on their card knew how to detect, adjust, manually type- in override adustments, bit- test, and format hard drives and other storage, all without the maintainer reaching for utility software for the purpose. Less electricity, less time, less software to thumb through. My hint to the rest of the controller manufacturers, the number one physics quote in the nineteenth century was, “Nature abhors a vacuum”. Fred Jodry

[Fred Jodry]

It`s happening at the input of your next unit but caused by your output video signal being too strong or wrongly pedestalled. Terminate both ends of the cable with the right impedances then check your video on an oscilloscope.

[Fred Jodry]

If you`re talking about a photographic camera, I wouldn`t, especially because good ones are near home. If you`re talking about a video camera it partly matters about it`s type, new or old. One check of mine I`d make would be to communicate, two way, with the seller, by more than one type of maedia. Better yet, would be to communicate with his peers. This of course, is just my opinion.

[Fred Jodry]

Alex, my advice yesterday was a bit garden variety but essentially all good. Here are some additional comments:

you, “I’ve learned a bit about genlock but I can’t find a camera within my budget that has a 60p out.”
me, Those types of cameras were made and sold quite a bit in the second half of the 1980`s and through the 1990`s because improvements in the regular NTSC TV quality towards SMPTE-C and beyond required 60 actual frames per second, not 30 frames per second scanning. Also sports productions liked to take even more than 60 frames per second and drop most frames to make strobed study- like moving images. These cameras required the light of the mid-day sun to do it but for a baseball game, who cares? My advice on getting those cameras is to know that broadcast stations have been throwing away those cameras right and left, so the goal is simply to be lucky enough to ask a station or retiring employee of one, if you may have it before it gets chucked. A respectable bath and conversation does more to get this stuff than does a full wallet because the tosser can consider this stuff to be distracting junk, it`s not hi-def!, the same as older equipment. These cameras have horizontal scan rates of 31,000 Hz (or so, math) or higher and feed their outputs through “component” (analog, studio type) monster cables. Your only three competitors in this, three stiff competitors, are the garbage can, the DVD makers, and the (still NTSC) cable stations. Note, some cameras found in Europe also work. Get looking.

I noticed a new post in Creative Cow`s front page starting today, just to mention:

“Hot Industry News, News: Matrox Ships World’s First HD-SDI Scan Converter with Genlock Under $1000”

codec/interlacing confusion for custom software
by Alex Delany on Feb 19, 2010 at 11:21:02 am

I am developing some custom software and am hoping someone can help me figure out why or when my image is getting interlaced. The goal of my software is to allow me to aim my camera at a video monitor and record EACH FRAME displayed on the monitor (tv monitor).

I’m going out from my camera (via HDMI) at 720/60P into my Blackmagic Intensity Pro card. I’ve deduced that I’m actually capturing at 59.94. I am new to this but have gathered that, my DVD player connected to my TV is broadcasting at 29.97 fps.

When I playback my captured video, every other frame is clean. (and every other frame blurs with it’s preceding frame). This is expected, because for every broadcast frame (at 29.97) we are capturing two frames (from capturing at 59.94), and nothing is synced.

But once we compress using MJPEG the captured video becomes interlaced, giving twice as many half-hieght frames (120 per second).

I’m really unclear about what I’m actually viewing when I open the video up in Quicktime or Window’s Media Player. I can’t tell what the player is doing in terms of de-interlacing. Ideally I can just save the progressive frames. If anyone can help me conceptualize this, I’d appreciate it.

Also if anyone has any suggestions on how to properly sync, I’d love to hear. I’ve learned a bit about genlock but I can’t find a camera within my budget that has a 60p out.

Thanks,
Alex

[Fred Jodry]

Sometimes it shovels the problem to the back end too. find ways to capture multiple identified fields for analysis and maybe add a video oscilloscope to the monitoring. My answers are not the ultimate. He who stops asking and checking because he thinks he`s logically thought it all out is too logical. He`s dead from the neck up.

[Fred Jodry]

Answer: when you get the good advice, pencil it down.
Your HDMI card output to the display is usually 59~60 cycles per second because of two reasons, 1. less than 60 flickers per second would be too poor flickering, 2. Hi-def TV was developed largely as a reminder of NTSC TV. An typical example of an HDMI doing far away from a 60 cyles rate would be a Gamer running a 240 frames per second “low blur low flicker” game.

Your recorded DVD can put out almost any vertical rate within reason because it`s recorded audio-video data on a disk. Obviously most examples are same or high-quality cousins of 60 fields, 30 frames TV. Still, one can occasionally find that one has got a DVD that contains whatever field, frame, and line rates that were oddly made and can be viewed on a computered display but not the average TV.

Any composite video outputted (if NTSC) DVD player is primarily used for 60 fields, 30 frames TV but many component outputted types also run on other standards like 60 fields, 60 frames. This can be better if things match but is instantly worse if they don`t match.

So it can be worse. Enters GenLock. More important, enters odd-even field marking. Otherwise your desired video frames can get re- constructed straddling two frames. Also, standards converters can blur frame refresh times, and so on. For the for the freshest answers, often ask a Broadcaster, and some others who know the technical terms and the best equipment. By the way, if you want to check for field, frame blur, see your video on a oscilloscope. When you get the good advice, pencil it down.

[Fred Jodry]

Scott, why don`t you hire a computer code man? (The CORRECT meaning of computer Hacker).

[Fred Jodry]

Klaus, Ubuntu, available as Kubuntu (CD) + added programs (hence not the easiest way but good) or a download of Ubuntu Studio (DVD)”Alternate” 9.10 (alternate means it has Raid, etc built in), makes many types of computer hardware purr. Forget OpenSuse, it`s as problematic and as hard to use as a nasty version of MS Windows and comes specialized towards Business internetting and serving as the style it comes “out of the box”, not what you want to do. It is not simple to add, subtact, or change, added on programs in Ubuntu, it has come of age but isn`t easy there. To make the advice down to size, you`re looking at 3 Operating systems that should probably work easy but added programs are a bigger question. A Mac OS with it`s Unix (Unix- isoLinux?) build and who knows what best software Adobe CS4?, Final Cut? seems the easiest way to go. Ubuntu Studio probably needs no add ons to do what you need, just make sure the motherboard`s choice of slots and bios settings opens up the detection and performance you need. Windows and again, who knows what software, Adobe CS4?, Virtual Dub?, Sony? should be possible too. You haven`t mentioned which BlackMagic DeckLink model you`re aiming for or what your production format is but the above should reduce your number of next questions.

[Fred Jodry]

Chris, contact my e- mail, educationalbroadcasting@hotmail.com
I`ve found some regular sellers of replacement motherboards mostly running $20-45 apiece. Fred