[Luke Maslen]

Hi Michael,

I’m not quite sure what’s causing this but would suggest that you repost the question in the https://www.creativecow.net/forum/view_posts.php?forumid=124” target=_blank>DeckLink Cow forum. That’s where Kona SD questions are handled with the DeckLink drivers so hopefully you will receive some answers there and we might get a better idea when some of our engineers return from WWDC.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Peter,

Yes and no. Yes you will be able to display SD video on an Apple Cinema HD 23″ Display via Multibridge Extreme, much as you can already do with the HDLink. However the main focus of HDLink has been HD and I expect the same will be true of Multibridge Extreme and Studio. SD video is interlaced whereas LCD monitors are progressive. We have an interlace simulation mode which helps display interlaced video on progressive LCD displays but sometimes it just makes sense to use an interlaced display, ie a conventional, inexpensive CRT monitor. Generally we find that many people like to display HD matieral on an LCD monitor but simultaneously output to their old CRT monitor for the best of both worlds.

You can display your SD at 2x scaling which makes it fill most of the 23″ LCD display.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi James,

Officially we’re recommending a dual G4/1.25 GHz or faster for use with Tiger and Mac OS X 10.4. The change in requirements is related to our complete switch to the Apple uncompressed codecs. They require something faster than the previously recommended dual G4/800 MHz and the your dual G4/1 GHz might be OK but ours died a while ago so we couldn’t verify that model. Chances are that it will work OK but it will be at the low end of what might work and so that’s why we posted conservative requirements of a dual G4/1.25 GHz or faster.

If you continue to work with Panther and Final Cut Pro HD v4.5, then your Mac should be fine as this configuration only requires a dual G4/800 MHz.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Joao,

That sounds really odd and, while I am happy that you finally got it working, we’re going to do some testing today to see what could have caused the problems you saw. It’s early days for Multibridge and we’re always nervous when a product is newly released and so we appreciate your detailed reports. We’ll look at it today and see if a firmware update is required or if something else strange was happening with your system.

In regards to documentation, we should have a manual released in the next few days and we hope it will help with most issues.

Thanks again for your reports and we’ll investigate at our end. I’ll let you know if we find anything.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

Thanks for your reports. We removed the Greek beta “

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Jeff,

Please try rendering before export to tape. The effects you listed are not realtime effects and therefore require rendering before recording to tape. Please let us know if you still encounter the problem after rendering.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Ed,

You don’t need to erase anything prior to installation. Install Mac OS X 10.4 and then update to 10.4.1. Install the update to QuickTime 7.0.1 and then install FCP Studio. Finally install the latest DeckLink v5.0 drivers and all should be well.

If you have some critical work coming up, it is always a good policy to postpone the upgrades until you have some extra time should any technicalities arise.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Adam,

Most former Cinewave users seem to be more interested in the present and forthcoming Multibridge models than the DeckLink cards themselves. I think this is because the Multibridge allows you to connect in SD and HD with SD-SDI and HD-SDI as well as HD analog and SD analog.

The HD versions of our DeckLink cards have HD-SDI and SD-SDI input and output and two of them have analog video monitoring output. That’s not going to fully support the analog connectivity you need with your older decks. The DeckLink Extreme has everything you need in SD but that doesn’t give you HD.

If you need a solution right now, I would suggest either the DeckLink HD or DeckLink HD Plus partnered with the DeckLink Multibridge. This will provide you with all of the SD and HD connectivity required for your various decks. The DV deck can be captured via the Firewire port in your Mac or else you could use its component analog or SDI connections if it includes those.

We also have new models of Multibridge scheduled for this northern summer and they will connect via PCI Express (PCIe) which will do away with the need for a DeckLink card. Currently Macs don’t have PCIe slots so we’ve been working on a bridge card to allow the PCIe versions of Multibridge to connect to G5’s which have PCI-X slots. Hopefully Apple will adopt PCIe soon but, until that time, we’ll continue to work on the bridge card.

If you are interested in the current DeckLink Multibridge, which does not require PCIe, then you can probably use it with an existing Cinewave card (although I haven’t tested that) or else use a DeckLink or DeckLink HD Plus card. The DeckLink HD Plus adds a few extra features including genlock which you might or might not need.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

We reposted the drivers yesterday and they are available in the DeckLink v5.0

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Peter,

You’re most welcome and thank you for your kind words which are appreciated.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design