[Luke Maslen]

Hi Trinity,

It’s working well on our test suites so far and we haven’t received any alarming calls about this update so it seems to be fine. The following support note is also worth a quick glance: Should I update to the latest Blackmagic drivers?

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Peter,

Please review the Feature summary table and the notes on Down conversion with Windows XP SP2. The summary is that only the DeckLink HD Pro 4:4:4 will currently perform down conversion on Windows whereas all DeckLink cards can perform down conversion on Mac OS X using software down conversion.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Mark,

You’ve asked some good questions and Adam’s answers are spot on. Further to Adam’s comments, please see the support note Which compressed codecs can I use with DeckLink cards? and scroll down to the Windows section which works through the different compressed options and why we’ve implented the codecs that we have.

One thing we’ve always tried to avoid is the use of proprietary codecs and/or ones that must be purchased at a (typically) high cost. There are always codecs that we could write but usually they are ones that we would have to license and pass on a per-user royalty fee to the licensor of the codec and that’s not very attractive for anyone other than the licensor. Alternatively we could write a proprietary codec but then that breaks the philosophy of using open standards to make it easy and inexpensive to share files with other users regardless of whether they use Blackmagic products or not.

DirectShow for Windows cannot take advantage of the PhotoJPEG QuickTime codec and so we’ve really moved away from suggesting that the PhotoJPEG codec should be used for captures on Windows. We are very interested in both SD and HD compressed codecs for Windows that are available to everyone and preferably and little or no additional cost.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

Based on the discussion above, the DeckLink SP PCIe card should be fine for you. You specifically need the PCI Express (PCIe) version of this card. The older DeckLink SP card is compatible with the earlier PCI and PCI-X Macs. Your dual-core G5 uses PCIe so that’s why you need the latest card.

Bob was suggesting you go for a card with more digital connections so that your card would potentially be more useful than just for monitoring and to avoid having to buy another card in the future if you moved from analog to digital. However if you really are fine with analog output, then the DeckLink SP PCIe card will enable you to switch between composite and component analog video output and also has XLR analog audio output. Furthermore it has a single SDI output which means you could output digital video with embedded audio to some other device, eg a Digibeta deck. The capture side is of little interest to you but it will capture from component or composite analog devices such as a VCR or the analog output of a camera.

You don’t need SDI now but, if you ever do, you would at least be able to output SDI video and audio using the DeckLink SP PCIe card.

The broadcast TV that most people still watch on their home TV’s is simply composite SD video so your Sony PVM 14L1 is still quite useful. Bob’s comments about using a consumer TV with component analog input are also valid as the component output from DVD players is much better quality than the composite analog video transmitted by broadcast TV.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Michael,

Sorry but you must have just emailed us before the weekend so you’ll probably get an email reply today!

Currently our HDMI support in HDLink is limited to HD. However we’ve been looking at adding SD support and we’re going to do it if we can. This is not a promise but I think we can do it. If so, it will appear soon.

Yes you should have SD if you revert to DVI. I wonder if you have switched back to DVI connections but still need to open the HDLink Utility and reset the output setting from HDMI back to DVI? Can you please check that? With bit of luck, that will be the solution to your problem.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Michael,

Sorry, DVCPRO HD does NOT require a fast disk array. A single 7200rpm disk should be adequate unless it is very fragmented.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Michael,

Please update your software to FCP 5.0.4, QT 7.0.4 and latest DeckLink drivers. Contrary to David’s suggestion, you don’t need to manually set the External video setting for Blackmagic. The Blackamgic Easy Setups should set that automatically. Please ensure your external video is set to “all frames”. For HD video you need 2 GB or more of RAM and a fast disk array. Please let us know if you still encounter problems.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Mody,

The hardware down conversion for Multibridge Extreme should appear in one of the next two Multibridge software/firmware updates. So it should only be a short while before it appears. The downconversion code for Multibridge will appear in both Multibridge Extreme and Multibridge HD.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi John,

Apple have both an older 66 MHz PCI and a newer PCI-X Fibre Channel card (as well as a PCIe card). Check that you really have the PCI-X version.

If you were working with a tower G5, I would still recommend that the two cards be used on independant buses to avoid the potential for slowdowns on a shared bus. That is not an option in your case because of the shared 100 MHz PCI-X bus. In theory the bus should be OK for use with two PCI-X cards but maybe it just doesn’t have enough bandwidth for the high demands of uncompressed video.

With a bit of luck, the problem will be caused by the accidental use of an older 66 MHz PCI Fibre Channel card. If you are using the PCI-X version, you might see if you can obtain another brand of PCI-X Fibre Channel card and see if it works any better, eg one of the ATTO cards.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Jon,

If the SDI problem only happens on the monitor but not on the deck, then I suspect the SDI input to your monitor might be misbehaving. If your monitor is a CRT, then you might as well continue to use the component output of your DeckLink card as there is no advantage in using the SDI-component convertor card in your monitor. In fact, many CRT monitors can automatically detect when you switch video formats with component analog video but will not detect a change in video formats if you connect via SDI.

If you find the SDI output of the DeckLink card is causing a problem for the deck, then that would be a different situation which we would need to examine more carefully.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design