[Luke Maslen]

Hi Richard,

Single Core Athlon64’s have not been tested. What we have tested is listed in the support note DeckLink Minimum System Requirements for Windows.

The dual core systems are already inexpensive and Matt might be able to comment on the Single Core Athlon64’s when he returns from IBC.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Craig,

We’ve just replicated your problem and so we’ll assign an engineer to fix it. As a temporary workaround, please use software down conversion as it does not suffer from this problem. We’ll hope to have an update for this soon. We’ve got an engineer on it now and will also need help from another one who will return from IBC next week.

BTW, how many channels of audio were you outputting and on which channels?

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Oscar,

I’ll see if someone can test this today or tomorrow and get back to you. From which application(s) are you trying to render to the Blackmagic 4:2:2 codec?

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Lex,

The following features of the DeckLink 5.1 drivers are relevant to your SD card as well as to HD cards:

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Trinity,

You will need a faster machine for HD editing. In the Technical Specifications for Final Cut Pro 5, it states “Macintosh computer with a PowerPC G4 (500MHz or faster) or G5 processor; HD features require 1GHz or faster single or dual processors“.

Please also see the support note DeckLink Minimum System Requirements for Mac OS X which details the need for a G5 with PCI-X slots to support HD with DeckLink cards.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Brandon,

The word “automated” was not referring to scripts. Are you hoping to use Blackmagic Deck Control rather than FCP for some simple capture work? Why would you want to use a script to automate a single capture with specific In and Out points?

Blackmagic Deck Control has some very basic AppleSript support which enables you to start and stop a capture and also check whether the application is capturing or not.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Mike,

You’re welcome and it is always surprising how a thread can unfold!

[Mike Jackson] “. I think I was mostly put off by the gleeful tone in the initial post / press release”

I’m sorry if that sounded gleeful as it was just meant to point out that moving to HD is increasingly affordable. Maybe my posting that news at 4:46am my time wasn’t the best time for choosing my words carefully!

[Mike Jackson] “f you can help me get better performance out of the software downconvert, that’d be great. I’ve just downloaded the new drivers, but I haven’t had a chance to test them yet… I’ll send off an e-mail to tech-support when I get the chance.”

We’d love to help you get this going. Feel free to post here although I recommend you start a new thread as this one is becoming buried. Hopefully the new drivers might help.

[Mike Jackson] “The support note you mentioned (Software and hardware down conversion with DeckLink cards) was posted AFTER I bought my card.”

You’re right. I ran search on this forum and the only references I can find are dated 1st of August and newer. Sorry, I thought it had been there longer than that as it seemed longer. We certainly promoted the hardware down conversion feature of the DeckLink HD Pro 4:4:4 card but not the DeckLink HD Pro 4:2:2 card. I added the down conversion technical note after a number of similar queries indicated that people did not understand the significance of the hardware and software down conversion capabilities.

[Mike Jackson] “You really get a massive performance difference between software and hardware downconvert”

That’s not necessarily the case which is why we use software down conversion on all cards including the DeckLink HD Pro 4:4:4 although there is also the option to use HD1080 hardware down conversion on that card. The hardware down conversion enables the user to perform multiple intensive tasks simultaneously, eg 3-way color correction and down conversion at the same time. Other cards can perform both of these tasks but not at the same time. DeckLink HD Pro 4:4:4 can also perform split hardware down conversion with HD on one output and SD on the other outputs. None of this provides a “massive performance difference between software and hardware downconvert” and you should have no problems using software down conversion, especially as you have a fast machine.

Please post a new thread with details of your problem and the settings you are using and we’ll try to resolve it ASAP.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Chris,

Please see the support note Why is my video output only black and white? This discussed two scenarios which could cause your video to be monochrome and also provides the easy solutions. I’ve also just replied to your previous post below.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Sean,

That doesn’t sound like a driver issue to me. I suggest deleting your FCP preferences and then see if the problem still exists. One way to do that would be to run the DeckLink Uninstaller.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Tangier,

[Tangier Clarke] “Does the 5.1 software downconvert DVCPRO HD to NTSC in real time?”

Yes. HD material for down conversion must have a compatible frame rate with standard definition video. You can use HDTV 1080/59.94i or 720/59.94p for use with 29.97fps NTSC.

If playing out HDTV 1080/23.98p material and down conversion is desired, choose a Blackmagic HDTV 1080 23.98 -> 59.94 easy setup. This will enable 3:2 pulldown and convert the video to an NTSC-compatible frame rate so that down conversion can be used.

See Down conversion with DeckLink cards for further details of the down conversion capabilities of DeckLink cards.

[Tangier Clarke] “Is the hardware based HD up/down conversion feature greyed out because I don’t have an HD card”

Yes, it is grayed out because you don’t have a HD card. However, you can still use your DeckLink Extreme to down convert HD material to SD. Just select a Blackmagic HDTV 1080i/59.94 or Blackmagic HDTV 720p/59.94 easy setup in FCP 5. When you play out the HD timeline, it will automatically be down converted to NTSC on output in real time.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design