[Luke Maslen]

Hi Giuseppe,

I think your problem is beyond the scope of this forum and would recommend you contact your closest Blackmagic Design office .

We definitely do not support Windows Media Center but our support technicians may be able to help you with your codec problems.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Tracy,

I’m puzzled by this as I checked with the engineers and the v7.1 driver release was purely to add support for our new API/SDK. So there were some “under the hood” changes to the driver but nothing that I can see which should have changed behavior in Premiere Pro.

I like Baz’s response!

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Steve,

DeckLink HD Extreme has two channels of balanced analog audio input compared with the 6 channels of output you need to capture from the balanced analog audio outputs of the DA88. One way you might be able to capture all 6 channels if to use the just released Mini Converter Audio to SDI. It will take 4 channels of analog audio and embed them in to SDI video. The other two channels could be ingested via the analog audio inputs of the DeckLink HD Extreme card itself. The cost of Mini Converter Audio to SDI is US$495.

Alternatively, if you have the AES/EBU module (IF-88E) for your DA88, the Mini Converter Audio to SDI accepts up to 8 channels of professional balanced AES/EBU audio and embeds them in to SDI video which you can easily capture with the SDI input of your DeckLink HD Extreme. I’m not sure how many channels of audio the IF-88E module supports with the DA88 but I’m guessing it outputs all the channels you would need and in which case the Mini Converter Audio to SDI would be the perfect way to bring your audio in to the SDI input of your DeckLink HD Extreme card.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Margus,

It’s very important to use the Blackmagic easy setups and avoid tinkering with the preferences if you can as lots of Final Cut problems are due to small changes to preferences which cause problems.

Please go to the Final Cut Pro menu and choose Easy Setups. Select the desired Blackmagic easy setup and then create a new project. The new project will adopt all of the necessary settings for outputting video via your Multibridge. Now drop some of your video on the timeline of the new project and see if it can be viewed on the output of the Multibridge. This should work.

If you still can’t see anything, go to the View menu and make sure External Video is set to All Frames. Now try again and you should see video on the output of your Multibridge.

Please let me know how you go!

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Russel,

The two most likely scenarios to explain your observations seem to be:
1. Intensity Pro is failing to output the expected 1080i signal or
2. The HDMI display is failing to accept the 1080i signal at first and only works after you have switched through several other signals.

If the Intensity Pro if failing to output a valid 1080i signal, then you should be able to see the same problem when connecting it to any HDMI display. Is it possible for you to test with another HDMI display?

If another HDMI display shows the same problem, then the problem is somewhere in the card or the software on the computer. It may be that some software needs to be reinstalled and especially Final Cut Pro and the Intensity drivers.

If another HDMI display does not exhibit the same problem, then it seems likely the problem is with your usual HDMI display. If it has a second HDMI input, try that and see if it avoids the problem. If a second display does not exhibit the same problem, then it would be a good cross-check to find some other source of 1080i video via HDMI and send that to your HDMI display. If it also fails to display on your monitor, then your monitor must have some kind of defect.

So these are a few tests to run and hopefully the results will make it clear where the problem lies.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Devlin and Dino,

That’s a good question and we’ll add the minimum system requirements to our website shortly before UltraScope ships. We just didn’t have enough time before NAB to post that information but we’ll post it soon.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Baz,

Thanks for your suggestion which I’ll pass on to the engineers. I’m not sure that could happen on the current product as there is no RS-422 port but it’s a good idea so I’ll make sure the engineers consider it for the future.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Bob,

I’m really happy to hear your Multibridge is working again. You’ve changed lots of things so it’s impossible for me to tell what fixed the problem and therefore what might have caused the problem in the first place. Hopefully it will continue to behave itself now but do contact your closest Blackmagic office if the problem reappears so they can give you some immediate help.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Kevin,

Bob is right that your deck lacks RS-422 device control and so cannot be controlled in the way that one would usually expect when working with an SDI deck. However you can use FireWire control but there are a few tricks involved to make it work. The steps are included in pages 30 and 31 of the current DeckLink manual for Mac OS X. On page 30, follow the same steps starting with the sentence, “HDV cameras include FireWire device control.” The notes on page 31 regarding the Sony HVR-M25U deck are also directly applicable to your model of deck.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hey Shane!

‘Good to hear you’re still asking the tricky questions! UltraScope is so new that I don’t think there has been time for any discussion of running multiple UltraScope cards in the one PC.

I’ll raise the question when the engineers return from NAB but I’m guessing they will suggest that, rather than buying a more expensive PC which can handle multiple cards reliably, you could use an SDI router and just switch your source signals using the router. I believe that would be a far more reliable and robust solution which would enable you facility to use the scopes on every piece of SDI hardware that you have and allow you to add extra equipment as your facility grows. The number of PCI Express slots in a PC would be quite limiting and would restrict you to monitoring a very small number of SDI video sources so I think a router would provide far greater flexibility.

As you know, we manufacture the Videohub series of SDI video routers. We’ve just introduced a couple of new models at the show. Studio Videohub is the smallest one with 16 inputs and 32 outputs with a price of just US$4,995. It might be small but it supports SD, HD and 2K signals via SDI. We also have the Broadcast Videohub with 72 x 144 and have just announced the Enterprise Videohub with 144 x 288 routing connections.

I don’t think everyone will need an Enterprise Videohub but the Studio Videohub should be great for smaller workgroups and will make a great partner for UltraScope if you don’t already have an SDI router.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design