[Luke Maslen]

Hi Steve,

You should be able to render trillions of colors with the latest Apple codec included with Final Cut Pro HD 5.0.2. After adding your After Effects project to the render queue, click on the blue “lossless” and then click on “Format Options” and set it to “Uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2” which is Apple’s codec. You should now be able to render to trillions of colors.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Bob,

On some models of G5, it is pretty easy to fit a DeckLink HD in slot 4 but I’ve found it much more difficult on some newer models of G5 and so have just used a 100 MHz slot rather than place too much strain on the card or computer. You might also like to refer to the technical note named How to Fit a DeckLink 2 or HD in the Top Slot of a G5 which provides some hints as to how to do this.

The DeckLink HD series cards use BNC connectors as we found that alternative forms of connections were inadquate for meeting the SMPTE specification for HD-SDI. Unfortunately that means that the bottom connector can clash with a black plastic plug on the motherboard of the G5 and we’ve asked Apple if they would please move that plug out of the way in future revisions of the G5.

It is partly due to the space restrictions imposed by PCI slots that we will soon release the new Multibridge models using PCI Express. These models will have a tiny adapter card in the PCI Express slot and this will connect to the external Multibridge box via a PCI Express cable. This allows us to add as many connectors as we want without having to worry about running in to space restrictions in new models of computers.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Wynn,

I think Olivier’s suggestion is probably the reason for your problem, ie the current generation of G5/2.0 have a problem with their PCI slots which means they cannot play out video to any monitor or deck with a DeckLink card. Please review the technical note No video output from PowerMac G5 (PCI) and see if this explains your problem. If not, please let me know and we’ll try to work out where your problem might lie. I do not believe your previous system is causing a problem as it was DV and Firewire-based and should not interfere with uncompressed video via SDI.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Lex,

Your guess regarding interference if probably a good guess. Please review the technical note named Interference on analog video output and see if you can work through any of the three steps suggested there. If you are see electromagnetic interference from an unshielded AGP card, then these steps should help.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

Thanks for your latest information. No, it isn’t possible to get SDI output through the Kona SD without the DeckLink drivers installed. However as FCP installs its own Uncompressed codecs, you should be able to play back the QuickTime movie in FCP and see it play within FCP but nothing will output on the broadcast monitor.

I’m going to make a review of all the information in this thread and see if we still regard this as purely a QuickTime problem or whether there are other factors that are compounding and confusing the issue. I’ll post back here when I know more.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

Thanks for the extra details. I spoke with the engineers and they said that, due to the 3:2 pulldown process, you can’t just cut your video anywhere. If you do, you will encounter the very problem you are trying to avoid, ie a single frame showing fields from two other frames.

Due to the way the 3:2 pulldown process works, you can only make a clean cut every 5 seconds. That fields in that frame belong to itself and will not cause you any problems so I think that is the answer to your question.

We can do inverse telecine from 29.97 NTSC to 23.98 fps progressive video, and then we can re-insert pulldown when playing back. This is nice because you can work with progressive video in NTSC, and this makes streaming, and effects work much easier. It also allows film editing.

I know the some people say that you cannot do film editing at 23.98, and you need to have “true 24 fps” however this is untrue, and you can edit film fine with 23.98. All NTSC telecined material faces the same speed shift issue, and so you use the same workflows.

Cinema Tools supports 23.98, and everything works fine. However it’s up to the editor when it comes to film, and this feature is used more by effects artists, and people who want to edit in progressive video. We could also add 24.0 support, however we are not asked about it very much, so we have been focusing on other features such as down conversion from HD on all of our cards, and RT color correction on the DeckLink HD card.

That’s also another good option for film editing, and DeckLink HD can do both 24.0 and 23.98 fps, and we also have a JPEG offline mode which allows you to use full resolution HD but at lower quality, and quite low data rates. So this is a nice option for film offline, as you don’t need to convert between video and film frame rates, and you could have a complete 24 or 23.98 shoot, edit and finish workflow. Because DeckLink HD is low cost, it makes a nice affordable solution for this work.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Franklin,

Past postings to this forum indicate that some people love Vegas 6 for its capabilities and because it is very different to other NLE’s. Some people who have become used to other NLE’s don’t like the different way that it works compared with other NLE’s. We think it’s great to have choice and variety so you can choose the NLE that suits you.

Sony Vegas 6 controls DeckLink cards via our DirectShow support built into our drivers. Currently Vegas uses our 8 and 10 bit uncompressed formats for capture and playback and this will work fine with both digital and analog decks. If you use a DeckLink SP or DeckLink Extreme card, you can connect to your Betacam SP for uncompressed capture and playback.

Sony Vegas 6 does not currently support capture to a DV movie via DeckLink cards but I received another query about that today so we’ll ask Sony if they would add that in a future update as our DirectShow filters support that. However if you have captured a DV file some other way, eg via Firewire, you will be able to play it out through the DeckLink card and that means you could output it as uncompressed video to a Digibeta or Betacam SP. Please note that DV files from some sources will need to be rendered before you can output via the DeckLink card. However any DV file captured by DeckLink, eg via Premiere Pro, can be immediately played out in Vegas 6 without rendering.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Claus-Peter,

I’m not sure if you are referring to field flicker or something else. Have you enabled the “Single Field Out When Paused” option in the DeckLink control panel?

Does the flicker happen during capture, or only on playback, or only when paused?

If you are using the DeckLink card to produce a black signal so the deck can sync during capture, please check the technical note about how to successfully use your monitor during capture. You might also want to review the more detailed notes about How to sync a deck with a DeckLink card.

Please let us know how you go.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Dan,

We haven’t talked much about DV support in Vegas as we primarily work with uncompressed 8 and 10-bit material. You can capture to uncompressed 8 and 10-bit in Vegas but you can play out any of DV or uncompressed 8 and 10-bit to tape or your broadcast monitor.

You are wanting to capture to DV and that is not currently possible. However if you also have Premiere Pro 1.5.1, you could use it to capture to DV from the DeckLink card and then you can drop that DV file in to Vegas and it will not require rendering. DV files from other sources may well require rendering so it’s nice to avoid that if possible.

I’m not sure whether DV capture in Vegas would require updates to Vegas or the DeckLink drivers or both. However I’ll place a request with the engineers as it would be nice to do this if we can. Meanwhile hopefully the capture with Premiere Pro will work for you.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

I’m not sure that I have understood your question. Are you saying that you want to take an individual frame and extract one of it’s two fields? If so, that’s not going to be possible as the two fields are captured as one frame. We would have to write different drivers to perform field-based capture rather than the normal frame-based capture.

Is that what you wanted to know? Something else you might find useful is the FrameLink utility included with the DeckLink 5.0 drivers. This will enable you to drag and drop a QuickTime movie on to FrameLink which will then mount the QuickTime movie as if it was a disk full of DPX frames. You can then edit the individual DPX frames, or add and delete frames, and then immediately playback the result in FCP and you will see the modified movie.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design