Luke Maslen
Forum Replies Created
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Hi Sean,
720p/24 is a Varicam frame rate and we don’t bother to list much in the way of Varicam frame rates as there are lots of them. The only native 720p frame rates are 720p/59.94 and 720p/60. All other rates are Varicam including 720p/24. We support 720p/24 in 8 and 10-bit uncompressed timelines.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi John,
It’s very unlikely that a Mac virus is causing your problems. There are no Mac OS X viruses as such.
There are a couple of trojan horses which rely upon tricking the user in to opening them before they will carry out certain functions. For example someone might write an AppleScript to delete all files in a user’s Documents folder and then place a Microsoft Office icon on it. If you were tricked in to opening it, all your files might be deleted. Trojan horses cannot spread by themselves and are the kind of malware that one might expect from dodgy sites such as P2P networks for pirated music, videos and software. There are also macro viruses which affect Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, even on Mac OS X, but they currently have no impact on the rest of a Mac OS X system.
It is therefore a good idea to keep your video/audio editing system for that purpose and avoid using it for connecting to dubious services on the Internet or for word processing. A far more modest computer can be used for Internet and word processing activities, eg eMac or iBook.
If you do install antivirus software, be aware that any automated scanning of downloaded files is likely to interfere with video and audio work and this will cause dropped frames and other undesirable effects.
I’m quite a fan of the open source antivirus software known as ClamAV which is designed for UNIX systems including Mac OS X. A kind individual has provided a Mac OS X GUI for the software and you can download it from https://www.markallan.co.uk/clamXav/. This software does not scan for Mac OS Classic viruses and neither does it include automated scanning of downloaded files. It is useful if you wish to perform manual scanning or scheduled scanning. It is quite intuitive and includes regular updates which can be retrieve manually or automatically. It can be slow to scan large files and hopefully that is something which might improve in future versions.
In regards to commercial antivirus software, Sophos is very safe to use and it is easy to enable and disable its automated scanning. Unfortunately it is only available for multiple users and you can’t just buy a single copy.
If you have a .Mac account with Apple, then you can take advantage of Virex 7.5.1 which is included with your subscription.
Various antivirus programs have had problems with whole mailboxes being deleted if a virus was found in the mailbox. So check the preferences carefully to make sure that mailboxes are not automatically deleted if a virus is detected.
Finally, when experiencing random problems in Mac OS X, it’s always a good idea to use Disk Utility to repair permissions on your startup disk and Alsoft DiskWarrior 3.0.2 is an excellent commercial utility for repairing directory structure corruption in Panther and older Mac systems.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi George,
I don’t know if software down conversion of HDV will be possible on any DeckLink cards including the DeckLink Extreme. My suspicion is that it won’t be possible but we won’t really know until we’ve had a chance to try. The DeckLink HD Pro 4:4:4 card includes hardware down conversion so I expect it will be able to HDV down conversion as soon as FCP5 is released. We’ll definitely post information in this forum if it turns out that software down conversion of HDV is a possibility with some or all DeckLink cards.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi Jeff,
Thank you for posting both the problem and the solution. That is very useful information for other DSR-1500 users.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi Bob,
That’s an excellent question as the products have overlap and so it’s a little hard to know what you need.
I guess the concept of the capture card is easy-enough to understand. We have digital cards for connecting via SDI to digital decks such as Digibeta, HDCAM or D5. There are also analog cards for connecting to analog decks such as Betacam SP. The DeckLink Extreme card is a standard definition card which has both analog and digital connections so you can connect to either kind of deck. All of our current HD cards are digital and support HD and SD. You can use them with a standard definition Digibeta or a high definition HDCAM. However you cannot use them to capture from analog sources, such as a Betacam SP, unless you use an analog to digital convertor.
The original DeckLink Multibridge is an example of such a convertor. It is bi-directional and can convert from analog to digital and digital to analog. It is a standalone convertor but you can partner it with your choice of capture card. For example, if you had a DeckLink HD card and a Betacam SP, you could connect the DeckLink HD to the Mulibridge using SDI cables. Then connect the Betacam SP to the analog video and audio ports of the Multibridge. If you set the DeckLink HD in to capture mode, the Betacam SP will output analog audio and video to the Multibridge, and this will be converted to SD-SDI which can be captured by the DeckLink HD in your Mac or PC. If you want to record back to tape, the DeckLink HD will output SD-SDI to the Multibridge which will then output analog audio and video to the Betacam SP.
The next generation of Multibridge with PCI Express (PCIe) is due this northern summer. They do away with the need to have a capture card by having the Multibridge act like an external capture card. These units will ship with a tiny PCIe adapter card which connects via a cable to the Multibridge. The advantage of this method over the previous generation is that PCIe is very fast and is 25 times faster than FireWire. It is so fast that it not only allows you to capture and play back SD-SDI and HD-SDI, but you can also play back 2K, ie film quality. The new Multibridge with PCIe also include a bunch of new inputs and outputs which you can read about on our web site. One of the most interesting new features is the dual-link DVI-D monitoring port. You can attach almost any LCD display with DVI-D input and use it to digitally monitor your video. You can use both single-link and dual-link displays and you can even use a display such as the Apple Cinema HD 30″ for monitoring 2K.
If your SD work is all from digital sources, then the DeckLink HD Pro 4:2:2 card would problably be a good choice. It will allow you to work with standard defintion and high definition decks via SDI. It also includes RS-422 deck control, genlock, trisync and analog video monitoring. This means you can use an inexpensive CRT monitor for monitoring your video.
If you are working with both digital and analog sources, then you could use the current DeckLink Multibridge along with any of the DeckLink HD Plus, DeckLink HD Pro 4:2:2 or DeckLink HD Pro 4:4:4 cards.
Once the two Multibridges with PCIe are shipping, you will no lonnger need a DeckLink card and you could just use one of the Multibridges.
Based upon what you have mentioned in your post, my guess is that you only need a DeckLink HD Pro 4:2:2 card. This card requires a 100 or 133 MHz PCI-X slot in your Mac or PC. More system specs are available in the DeckLink manuals avaiable from the Support page of our web site.
Final Cut Pro 5 is due to be released in half a month and will enable you to capture HDV via FireWire and then playout of a DeckLink HD series card to a deck. While Premiere Pro and Vegas have HDV capabilities via FireWire, there is currently no way to play out the HDV material via the DeckLink card as the HDV codec is built in to Microsoft’s FireWire driver and is not available to non-FireWire devices.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi Julian,
HDV is a codec used with high definition video. The DeckLink Extreme card is a standard definition card and cannot be used to play out in high definition, although it is capable of downconverting HD material on playback using any of the DVCPRO HD, uncompressed 8-bit or 10-bit codecs.
To use HDV with DeckLink, you will need Final Cut Pro HD v5.0 and a DeckLink HD series card with a dual-processor G5 and PCI-X slots. You may be wondering why you might need such a fast machine given that iMovie HD reputedly supports HDV on iMacs. The reason is that you can use Final Cut Pro v5.0 to play out from your HDV video as uncompressed video and this is very demanding on your computer. The uncompressed video plays out through any DeckLink HD series card which is necessary if you want to output to a deck, such as a HDCAM or D5, via uncompressed HD-SDI.
The good news is that if you have the right equipment, it is a simple process. You can use Final Cut Pro HD v5 to capture your HDV via FireWire. Drop that in to a Blackmagic HDV timeline and you can play out to a monitor and/or HD deck. You will need a dual-processor G5 with PCI-X slots and any DeckLink HD series card for this to work.
HDV is a highly compressed format and is useful for capturing from a HDV camera. We also support the DVCPRO HD codec which is great quality and is not compressed in the same way as HDV. Both formats have their pros and cons and have specific uses. One nice thing about DVCPRO HD is that we can both capture and playback to this codec whereas it is only possible to playback HDV via a DeckLink HD series card.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi Claus-Peter,
We want to add compressed codec support but these codecs are not included with Window XP so it is not as though we can just add support for a format which everyone can then use. For example, some Windows video applications can capture in the HDV format as the Microsoft Firewire drivers include HDV support. However this support is only available via Firewire and not via any other I/O such as HD-SDI.
This contrasts to the Mac platform where a variety of codecs are available through QuickTime and these codecs are available to all applications. The HDV codec on Mac is primarily for use with Firewire but also can be used via HD-SDI with some limitations.
We are actively working on adding compressed codec support to our DeckLink Windows drivers. It’s tricky and we’re trying to find the best solution for the majority of customers. It is fortunate that the cost of uncompressed storage has fallen and makes this less of an issue than it once was but we still want to add compressed support as we know it would be very useful.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi Oli and Claus-Peter,
We want to add compressed codec support but these codecs are not included with Window XP so it is not as though we can just add support for a format which everyone can then use. For example, some Windows video applications can capture in the HDV format as the Microsoft Firewire drivers include HDV support. However this support is only available via Firewire and not via any other I/O such as HD-SDI.
This contrasts to the Mac platform where a variety of codecs are available through QuickTime and these codecs are available to all applications. The HDV codec on Mac is primarily for use with Firewire but also can be used via HD-SDI with some limitations.
We are actively working on adding compressed codec support to our DeckLink Windows drivers. It’s tricky and we’re trying to find the best solution for the majority of customers. It is fortunate that the cost of uncompressed storage has fallen and makes this less of an issue than it once was but we still want to add compressed support as we know it would be very useful.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi Nimrod,
The answer is both. The Multibridge family of convertors can be used as standalone convertors. You could capture with a camera and output HD analog and have it converted to HD-SDI and/or SD-SDI and/or standard definition analog for use with various decks or other equipment.
If you want to capture video from the Multibridge, then your DeckLink HD Pro 4:4:4 card would be perfect. You can connect it in 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 mode to the current DeckLink Multibridge and capture and playback through the Multibridge.
The new Multibridges with PCIe are not due for release until this northern summer. While you could connect them to your computer via a DeckLink (or other) capture card, they also include a PCIe card which you can use in place of the DeckLink card. The little PCIe card has an external PCIe connector on the back of it and this connects directly to the Multibridge Extreme or Multibridge Studio, ie the two models with PCIe.
So if you simply want to capture and play back to a deck, then your existing DeckLink HD Pro card will continue to be a great choice.
If you want to connect to a range of analog and digital hardware, then the Multibridge models all offer a range of connections for different purposes. It compliments your DeckLink card rather than replacing it.
If you want to add Betacam SP or VHS deck support to your existing DeckLink card, then the current model of DeckLink Multibridge would be perfect. If you want even more connections and the ability to connect via PCIe, then the new models will be the what you need but they are not shipping now. They can be used to compliment or replace any model of DeckLink card.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi Stewart,
The DirectShow support in our drivers, upon which Vegas 6 relies, currently support uncompressed file formats. We want to add a range of compressed formats and hope to have something available soon. Unlike the Mac platform, it is usually necesary to license and purchase compressed codecs for use on Windows and this makes the use of compressed formats less attractive and more expensive. This is a shame and it would be nice if there were more compressed codecs from which to choose and that would be available to all applications rather than locked to a single application using some proprietary method.
In other words, you are not going to be able to mix HDV with uncompressed material in Vegas 6 in the immediate future but that would be a great feature and we hope to do something like that in the future.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design