Luke Maslen
Forum Replies Created
-
Hi Margus,
Yes, a three-disk array is plenty fast enough for any of the compressed codecs.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi Craig,
Yes, we will have new drivers for all Blackmagic cards very soon after Final Cut Studio 2 is released.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi,
The XLR connections on your DeckLink Extreme are for professional balanced audio so make sure the audio format received from the mixer is the same. In the System Preferences>DeckLink set your video input connections to analog. You’re going to need a token video source so set the analog input to composite or component as desired.
The DeckLink Extreme is an SDI card with analog convertors on it. This means that is expects video with embedded audio. If you don’t have any video, you won’t be able to capture the audio. You could use the composite output of a video camera or DVD player if you like. If you don’t have a source of video, then try connecting the video output of the card to the video input as I believe that should work. Then choose a relevant easy setup in Blackmagic Deck Control or Final Cut Pro. Even though you’re only going to be interested in audio, you will need to select an NTSC or PAL easy setup to match the video format that you are receiving.
In Final Cut Pro or Deck Control, you can then switch off the option to capture video so you only record audio. This should allow you to digitize your records.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi,
Steve’s advice sounds good to me and DeckLink cards wouldn’t be the easiest way to digitize your vinyl records.
I know that digitizing vinyl records seems like a good idea but, if at all possible, I’d recommend you simply buy them again on CD if someone has already made them available on CD. This is because when you digitize vinyl records, you will also be digitizing every scratch and imperfection and often the result does not sound nearly as nice as you would expect.
If CD versions do exist, you’ll usually find that someone has done a great job at digitally remastering the audio from original tapes and that they have greatly cleaned up the audio so it sounds wonderful. Only digitize yourself if you find that your records are not available on CD.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi Craig,
Apple seeded Color to us some while ago so we’ve been testing with it and it’s all going well. The main factor influencing performance of Color on a Mac Pro is the graphics card and we will recommend the fastest graphics card for use with Color as it makes a dramatic performance difference.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi Margus,
Yes the Mac Pro with the nVIDIA 7300GT works perfectly with the DeckLink HD Extreme. The nVIDIA Quadro FX should be considered if you are going to work with the new Color application in Final Cut Studio 2 as Color can be sluggish with the 7300GT. The Quadro FX makes a huge difference with the Color app but for most other purposes the 7300GT will be fine.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi Alex,
As Dean has mentioned, it is no longer possible to correctly view the movie based upon what you see on the computer screen using Final Cut Pro 5.x. If the client wants to see exactly what you are seeing, they should also view on a broadcast montior to see the unaltered gamma.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi Alex,
Presumably this is not a new problem for you as I believe this problem has existed at least back to the start of Final Cut Pro 5.0? The Apple uncompressed 422 codecs automatically adjust the gamma of your video to match the display which you are using. This is an area of some controversy as we don’t think that’s a good idea and would prefer that gamma be left alone.
The video that you see on your broadcast monitor is output via the Blackmagic card and we don’t tinker with the gamma so it should look as expected. When making comparisons, look to the broadbast monitor for the real gamma.
The gamma filter that you downloaded from our web site is not relevant to this case. It was designed to help people who had previously captured files in the Blackmagic codecs (in Final Cut Pro 4.5 and older) as they didn’t adjust the gamma. When those same files are used in Final Cut Pro 5.x a gamma shift could be seen and so the filter helps avoid that.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi Ben,
I know that the engineers were testing with the Color application before they left for NAB. Testing was been conducted with a number of different graphics cards as Color is a demanding application. There was no doubt that having fastest graphics cards that Apple provides had great benefits over the regular cards that ship with Macs. I think we only had time to test Color on Mac Pro’s before the show but the engineers will be doing more testing before Final Cut Studio 2 is released and before our associated drivers are released. I expect that we might also update our specifications pages in regards to Color so you’ll know what systems run well.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
Hi Robert,
Intensity was always designed to run in PowerMac G5’s but unfortunately there is a technical issue with a chip that affects G5’s but not Mac Pro’s or PC’s. The relevant chip manufacturer has told us recently that they will do everything they can to help overcome the issue so we are hopeful of a resolution but obviously don’t have a timeframe or guarantee of this happening.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design