[Luke Maslen]

Hi Craig,

Sorry to ask the obvious question but can you think of anything which may have changed in between the video looking normal and the video turning pink and green? The pink and green color sounds like the wrong color space being used, eg attempting to send out RGB video on a YUV timeline, but that probably wouldn’t explain the distorted audio.

Are you working with a different video format or with video from a different source? Are you using the HDMI or analog connections for monitoring video and audio and what kind of display and audio system are you using?

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Kurt,

It’s taking a few days for the monitor to arrive but it has been ordered and we will test it.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Bob,

You’re on fire! Keep’m coming 🙂

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Pete,

Yes, the Intensity (HDMI only) or Intensity Pro (HDMI and analog) can be used for playback monitoring of your DV and HDV projects in Final Cut Pro. You can capture video via Firewire and then play out via the HDMI and analog outputs of the Intensity Pro. That’s great for monitoring while you are editing.

Given your monitor has HDMI input, you might only need the Intensity card as it will send your audio and video to the HDMI monitor so you maintain a digital workflow without introducing analog noise.

I haven’t seen a Sony GVH-D700 VCR yet but it is very likely you can capture video & audio, from its HDMI output, with the Intensity card. This works with the HDMI outputs of Sony camcorders so it should work with the GVH-D700. This is nice if you want to capture your video to one of Apple’s professional intraframe codecs (eg uncompressed, ProRes, DVCPRO HD, etc) for easy editing. This won’t increase the quality of your video but it will allow you to make your edits at any point on the timeline. HDV uses long-GOP compression so you will often be forced to make your edits a few frames away from where you really want to make the edit. Capturing your video via Intensity solves that problem and enables you to monitor video on your large HDMI display while the video is being captured.

If you are going to need to do much rendering of your video, then you can use the Intensity card to capture your video to an uncompressed timeline. That will retain the maximum quality of your video and you can render it as much as you like without any generational loss of quality.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Ryan,

Regardless of the format you choose on your camera, I believe the HDMI output will continue to output 1080i59.94. There are a lot of HDMI displays which do not support 1080p24 and so it might be better to stay with the 1080i59.94 format. Intensity Pro does not capture in the 1080p24 format. The current supported formats are: 1080i50, 1080i59.94, 720p50, 720p59.94 and 625/25 PAL and 525/29.97 NTSC.

You are correct in saying that, if a clip was captured in the 1080p24 format, it’s properties would say something like 1080p23.98 or 1080p24.

I’m glad you’re having fun 🙂

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Dennis,

Unfortunately that rules out the use of DeckLink PCI cards in your G5. The DeckLink PCI cards are 66 MHz cards which run at full speed in a 66 MHz or faster slot. They also run fine in 33 MHz PCI slots of a PowerMac G4 but, strangely not in the 33 MHz PCI slots of base model G5’s. This appears to be due to the slots not running at full speed.

My guess is that a slower card which only runs at 33 MHz would be more likely to work reliably in these slots but it would be best to check with card owners about compatibility before purchase.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Pablo,

Wow, you’ve asked a lot of good questions!

[Pablo Hill] “I know that if I capture trough HDMI my files will be a lot bigger, but will I have a better quality? What will my benefits be?”

If you capture video live from your camera through the Intensity card, you will bypass the compression to tape or flash disk and capture uncompressed 4:2:2 quality.

If you have already recorded to tape or flash disk, you will not increase the video quality by capturing via HDMI as compression has already occurred. However by capturing via HDMI, you will be able to capture in to a convenient, professional codec for editing. If you capture to an uncompressed timeline, you will not only retain the maximum quality of your video but you can then render and add effects as much as you like without any generational loss of quality.

As you know, codecs such as HDV and AVCHD use long-GOP compression. This is frustrating when editing because you cannot place your edits wherever you like and you are often forced to make them a few frames before or after point at which you wanted to make an edit. By capturing via the HDMI output of your camera, you not only retain maximum quality of your video but you can capture to an intra-frame codec which means that every frame is self-contained and you can edit anywhere you like. You can capture to professional compressed codecs such as ProRes, DVCPRO HD and PhotoJPEG or, to avoid any generational loss of quality, you can capture to an uncompressed timeline. The choice is yours.

For example, if you want to capture video and then add text and graphics prior to burning a DVD, it would be best to capture to an uncompressed timeline so that the text and graphics remain sharp during the editing process prior to encoding for DVD. If you capture to a compressed timeline, you’ll notice the edges of your text and graphics are likely to be soft and this will look even software and/or suffer from conspicuous compression artifacts when encoding for DVD. These compression artifacts will be far less prevalent if you have worked on an uncompressed timeline.

If you are intending to send video back out through Firewire, then you should go with Firewire for both ingest and output. However if you are not outputting through Firewire, then capturing via Intensity makes a lot of sense.

[Pablo Hill] “is my setup enough and how will I be able to control the deck if I’m not connected using firewire? Or maby I should stick with firewire.”

The Intensity Pro card is not suited for use with a Betacam SP deck. It lacks RS-422 device control and the audio inputs and outputs use HiFi level audio on RCA connections rather than the professional balanced XLR audio required by the Betacam SP deck. If you want a card for use with professional and broadcast decks, as well as for capturing the HDMI output of prosumer cameras, then the DeckLink HD Extreme 2 card has all the connections you need. It has professional and consumer breakout cables for connecting to almost any video and audio equipment and the cost is US$995. It also includes RS-422 device control and reference input for locking to other devices. It even includes 3 Gb/s SDI connections for use with existing SD and HD SDI equipment and new 3 Gb/s SDI hardware which supports up to 2K film quality via a single BNC cable.

[Pablo Hill] “I know that’s a lot but I have this going around in my head for the last week and the web does not have an answer for such a specific setup. “

You’re questions are the right questions to ask before starting your projects so please ask more if there is anything that isn’t clear.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Margus,

Yes, I’m pretty sure that would be possible in theory although one never knows until you try! I know we’ve received this suggestion before so I’ll raise it again with the engineers to see if we could add audio-only support.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Bryan,

Plasma monitors seem to have better black levels than LCD’s and so are great for HD monitoring but I don’t think anyone makes a Plasma higher than HD resolution so you can’t use a Plasma display for full-resolution 2K monitoring. So if you’re working in 2K, then a DVI-based 30″ LCD is the technology available today for full resolution monitoring.

Another option is to use a full-resolution 1920×1080 Plasma display and connect it to the HDLink Pro via HDMI. This will be a great solution for SD and HD monitoring. If you want to monitor 2K, you will be able to play out the 2K material via your DeckLink HD Extreme and you will see a cropped 1920 x 1080 image of your 2K material on the Plasma display. This gives you the benefit of being able to see much of your 2K image and enjoy the deeper black levels provided by Plasma displays.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Shaun,

The DeckLink HD Extreme sounds perfect for your needs. It has both professional and consumer breakout cables so you can connect to almost any video and audio equipment.

It includes both HDMI input and output so you can capture from the HDMI output of your camera, and from HDMI-equipped decks, and then play out to large LCD and Plasma displays or video projectors.

The DeckLink HD Extreme includes the latest 3 Gb/s SDI technology so you can even work with full resolution 2K video in real time so the card is future-proof.

We include a diverse range of easy setups for Final Cut Pro so you can use the standard Apple codecs including Uncompressed 10-bit, Uncompressed 8-bit, ProRes, HDV, DVCPRO HD, PhotoJPEG, DV and others. We include support for native frame rates as well as Varicam frame rates.

The DeckLink HD Extreme card can also be used with the other Final Cut Studio applications such as Motion and Color, as well as Adobe Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere Pro and many other applications which use QuickTime inputs and outputs.

If you’re working with Macs and PC’s, you can also use the DeckLink HD Extreme with Windows PC’s as driver software for Macs and PC’s is included as standard so you don’t have to buy a different card if you’re moving between platforms.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design