[Luke Maslen]

Hi Ninetto,

The question of “What is the point of capturing via uncompressed hardware when my camera/deck is compressed” comes up a lot. If you were simply planning to ingest DV or HDV material, perform a few cuts on a DV/HDV timeline and then output via Firewire to tape again, there would be little point in capturing via uncompressed hardware because it would cause generational loss through decompression and decompression back to tape.

However in almost any other scenario, there are significant benefits to capturing via uncompressed hardware.

Uncompressed hardware allows you to work with Realtime Effects without needing to render. This is true even if you capture, say DVCPRO HD video, and then play it out via uncompressed hardware. You’ll be able to use RT Effects this way in contrast to DV/DVCPRO HD/HDV where you will need to render the timeline before you can output via Firewire.

Another major benefit of working via uncompressed hardware is to avoid generational loss. If you work with compressed video via Firewire, every effect, every text overlay, every graphic overlay and every transition will lead to a render which will result in generational loss of quality. If you ever drop text or a graphic on top of video on a compressed timeline, you will immediately see that the edges of the text and graphics become soft. If you drop the same text and graphics on an uncompressed timeline, they will retain their sharpness.

So let us suppose you had shot with HDV and wanted to add some text and graphics and then burn a DVD or Blu-ray disc. If you want the text and graphics to retain maximum sharpness until the final encoding for DVD/Blu-ray, then working with an uncompressed timeline will be critical and the easiest way to achieve that is to capture your video via an uncompressed capture card such as a DeckLink card. You can test this even without an uncompressed capture card by taking your DV or HDV material and rendering it on an Apple uncompressed timeline. That will take a while but you can then drop graphics and text in to it and they will remain sharp without any need to render. Then create a DVD and look at the clarity of the resulting text and graphics. Compare this a DVD produced with the same DV/HDV material while working on a DV or HDV timeline with the same text and graphics. The difference is quite noticeable.

HDV is a useful but frustrating codec as it uses long-GOP encoding. This means that you cannot edit at any point. The frames are encoded in groups and so when you wish to make a cut after a particular frame, you might have to make the cut several frames earlier or later because that’s the way the HDV codec works. One way around this problem is to capture via uncompressed hardware such as a DeckLink or Intensity card or a Multibridge. If you don’t have enough space to store uncompressed video, you can capture the video using a professional editing codec such as ProRes or MJPEG. While this will compress your video, it will eliminate the long-GOP issue so you can edit anywhere you want on a timeline.

That’s a long answer to your short questions but I hope it helps make sense of why you might want to consider using an uncompressed workflow.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Ali,

It sounds as though you are working with both uncompressed Digibeta video and also compressed DVCAM video. If you ingest your DVCAM material via Firewire, then it makes sense to continue working with DVCAM for your effects, editing and grading to avoid unnecessary generational loss and long render times when moving to uncompressed and then back to DVCAM formats.

However if your DVCAM has SDI input and output, then it would make a lot of sense to capture to an uncompressed timeline via the DeckLink card and you can also capture your Digibeta material to the same uncompressed timeline. The great thing about uncompressed is that you can render it as many times as you like, add effects, transitions, graphics and text and there will be no generational loss of quality. Once you have completed all of your editing, you can then output your uncompressed material back to the deck via uncompressed SDI. Your DVCAM deck will record the video and audio back to the DVCAM tape format. This is particularly useful if you need to do a lot of editing where multiple levels of generational loss will become quite obvious when working with a compressed format such as DVCAM. Using an uncompressed timeline takes up more storage but guarantees that you do not lose any picture quality during your editing. Graphics and text remain sharp throughout the editing process and will not become soft before you master to tape. So the resulting master will look as crisp as is technically possible.

If your DVCAM lacks SDI connections, it might have component analog video and analog XLR audio. We have other models of DeckLink cards which can connect to both SDI decks and analog decks. The DeckLink Extreme and DeckLink HD Extreme are two such cards. The DeckLink HD Extreme also features HDMI input and output.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Matt,

Please contact your nearest Blackmagic Design office for a replacement power supply. You can find the contact details at the following link: https://www.blackmagic-design.com/company/

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Ali,

The Intensity Pro does not feature SDI connections and nor does it feature RS-422 device control for controlling the Digibeta. You could capture component analog video without device control but you won’t be able to capture the analog audio without additional equipment. This is because the analog XLR outputs of the Digibeta are professional level, balanced analog outputs whereas the Intensity Pro has unbalanced, HiFi level audio.

If your PC has a spare PCI slot, you could the US$295 DeckLink card. It has SDI input and output as well as RS-422 device control. This means you can capture and output 10-bit, uncompressed, digital video and audio via SDI. The DeckLink card supports 8 channels of audio via SDI which is more that enough for the 4 channels of audio in your Digibeta. There is a spare SDI output on the DeckLink card for monitoring and an SPDIF audio output for 2 channel audio monitoring. This card is specifically designed for use with Digibeta decks and would be a much better option if you mostly work with Digibeta decks.

Hard disks are fast these days and you can usually capture uncompressed standard definition video to a single SATA hard disk inside your computer. However if you are using real time effects, it’s better to use two or more disks striped together to improve performance. If you want to fit a lot of video on your disks, you may choose to use the MJPEG codec. It is a very high quality, compressed codec which is perfect to use if you don’t have lots of storage space on your disks. I would recommend the MJPEG codec over the DV codec as MJPEG is much higher quality and retains the full 4:2:2 color space so your colors will be preserved.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Matt,

Any of the PCI-X Macs listed at the link you provided would perfect for use with your DeckLink Extreme PCI card. In fact, the card will operate at its full speed of 66 Mhz when placed in a PCI-X slot. It only runs at 33 MHz when used in a traditional PCI slot. PCI-X slots have more bandwidth available so your DeckLink Extreme card will take advantage of the extra bandwidth and run at 66 MHz.

PCIe is different to, and incompatible with, PCI-X. The size of the slots for PCI-X cards is physically different to those for PCIe cards. So while PCI-X slots provide backward compatibility for the use of (most) older PCI cards, PCI Express (PCIe) is quite different and you must use PCIe cards in PCIe slots.

The last generation of G5’s had PCIe slots and all Mac Pro’s have PCIe slots.

In your case, you can use any of the PCI-X G5’s listed in your link.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Matt,

If you have a DeckLink Extreme PCI card, you can use it in a G5 which has PCI-X slots. It was only the base model G5 in each series of G5 which has the problematic PCI slots.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Jeffrey,

According to page 40 of the NTSC manual for the Canon XHG1, when you shoot in 24F Mode, “The video signal will be output from the HDV/DV terminal in 24 fps progressive mode. The signal output from the HD/SD SDI terminal and the COMPONENT OUT terminal will be down-converted to 60i….”

In reality, the 60i will almost definitely be 59.94i. It is very common for video hardware manufacturers to refer to “60i” because it’s easier than spelling out 1080i59.94.

In other words, try setting your timeline to Blackmagic 1080i59.94 and see if you can capture. Avoid using Firewire device control during this part of the test and simply capture to a Blackmagic 1080i59.94 timeline without device control. Once you can successfully capture your video, the next step will be to see if you can use device control with the camera.

Firewire device control might be tricky as the Firewire port should be outputting 24p whereas you are capturing your video at 59.94i. If you are using Final Cut Pro, use a Blackmagic HDTV 1080i59.94 easy setup to configure your project and then change the device control for the project to Firewire NTSC. Follow page 109 of your camera manual to enable down conversion on the Firewire output, ie “Set [PLAYBACK STD] to [HDV] and [HD DOWN-CONV] to [ON].” This should make the Firewire output provide a regular NTSC signal at 29.97 Hz which will match the Firewire NTSC device control setting in Final Cut Pro. A little trial and error might be required but I believe you should be able to make this work.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Mike,

The DeckLink HD Extreme works in 4:2:2 whereas the Multibridge Extreme works in 4:2:2 and dual-link 4:4:4 if you need it. The Multibridge Extreme had built-in DVI/HDMI monitoring.

If you don’t need 4:4:4 dual-link, then the DeckLink HD Extreme and HDLink combination should be a good configuration for your needs.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Tom,

To find the version number, go to your System Preferences and click on DeckLink. The title bar of the DeckLink PrefPane will show you the version number.

Please ensure you are running the latest DeckLink 6.2 drivers and let us know how it goes. If you haven’t done so already, please run the DeckLink Uninstaller and then reinstall the drivers and then see if the green tint still appears.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Karsten,

Please open the DeckLink control panel and set the input connections to SDI and Analog XLR audio. That should be the solution.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design