[Luke Maslen]

Hi Keith,

Just use the Blackmagic HDTV 1080i50 easy setup with your 25p material and it should be fine. None of the CRT monitors (with the exception of the Cin

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Neil,

The new Macs were just one of many factors. We originally believed the new Macs were going to have a mix of PCIe and PCI-X slots so that meant we could just dedicate our PCIe efforts to working on the new Multibridges and our existing PCI and PCI-X cards could be worked upon at a later date for PCIe. A few months ago we found out that the new machines would exclusively support PCIe and that meant we would need to transition our entire PCI-based product line to PCIe. That’s quite a few products to transition in a short period of time at the same time as continuing to work on the PCIe-based Multibridge products.

That was a factor but then there have been many other factors such as buggy chips (sent back to the supplier for resolution) and related issues that we’ve had to work through and resolve. We ordered a bunch of power supplies after testing engineering samples thoroughly only to find that the first volume batch had a power connector which was too big to fit in the power socket! It’s unbelievable some of the things that happen when developing a complex product and we’ve just wanted to deal with any issues that we find and then release it when we’re happy. It’s tantalisingly close 🙂

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Jason,

Thank you for the extra details. That is weird but useful to know.

We always use Apple Disk Utility for striping as it does a good job and we know everyone has access to it whereas not everyone has the ATTO utilities. We use ATTO cards but still use the Apple Disk Utility for all testing and that is what we recommend to DeckLink customers.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for your kind words which make it all worthwhile 🙂

[Peter Halverson] “I don’t believe the HVX-200 will be shipping with a codec for Windows.”

That’s strange as it limits the usefulness of the camera with Windows PCs. I’m sure there must be logic to that somewhere!

[Peter Halverson] “Would DVCPROHD files playback realtime in conjunction with the DeckLink HD using Final Cut? or would I be forced to render them into the Blackmagic codec to work with those files?”

Yes, any DeckLink HD series card will be able to play back DVCPRO HD files in realtime using Final Cut Pro HD on a G5 with PCI-X slots. We will also have HD cards for the new PCIe versions of the G5’s in the next few weeks.

Final Cut Pro HD 4.5 and 5.0 install a DVCPRO HD codec which can be used system-wide on the Mac and is not limited to FireWire captures. DeckLink users often capture from a DVCPRO HD camera or deck to a DVCPRO HD timeline in Final Cut Pro HD and then perform monitoring and/or output in an uncompressed format to a D5 deck in real time.

You can even use FCP to capture from a full resolution 1920 x 1080 HD source, such as a HDCAM or D5 deck, and save to a Blackmagic HDTV1080 DVCPRO HD timeline. The captured file is amazingly high quality and this means you can capture and playback full resolution HD to a single disk, such as a FireWire drive. I have even been able to perform sustained capture and playback of DVCPRO HD to my iPod 3G via FireWire which proves how efficient this codec must be. The iPod should never be used for practical use but it demonstrates how nice this codec really is at about 14.5 MB/sec including audio.

Rendering of the files should not be necessary if you use the correct easy setup in Final Cut Pro. We install our own easy setups so that should be easy.

[Peter Halverson] “Any comment on the HDLink and Apple Cinema 20″ for 720p?”

Sorry I overlooked answering that question. Yes, the 20″ display has a resolution of 1680 x 1050 which is plenty for displaying 1280 x 720 material. There will be a black border around the 720p image as it will be displayed pixel for pixel for accuracy rather than being stretched. The discontinued 17″ ADC monitors from Apple were great for 720p as there was virtually no black border around them. If you want a big image and are not so concerned with pixel for pixel monitoring, then a consumer HDTV with HDMI input is a good option as they usually automatically scale the incoming picture to fill the display, no matter what the format. New HDLink’s include a HDMI adapter so you can choose to use HDLink with DVI-D or HDMI displays.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Nico,

It’s not shipping quite yet but as soon as we’ve finished testing it and addressing any bugs, it will ship.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

The DeckLink Pro has both SDI and analog video output. This means you can send the SDI to the other room but you could simultaneously monitor the output on an inexpensive analog monitor. Even a consumer TV will do and you could use the DeckLink control panel to switch the analog video output to composite analog video (NTSC/PAL, Y Out) and then connect the Y Out cable to the composite input of the standard definition TV. You can then easily monitor your video output right next to your PC at the same time as sending the SDI to the projector in the other room.

After setting your DeckLink Desktop to NTSC or PAL, you can then drag Internet Explorer, Netscape or Firefox over on to the DeckLink desktop. Set the size of the browser window to fit within your NTSC or PAL desktop. Anything you do in the browser will then be shown on your analog monitor and via SDI to the projector.

If you really want to project your desktop via the DeckLink card, you could specify the DeckLink desktop to be your primary monitor. However I find that the small size of icons and text in standard definition do not look very good when viewed via a TV although they can look OK in high definition.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Keith,

Which monitor do you have connected to the HDLink? There should only be a lag if the format of video does not match the capabilities of your monitor and in which case HDLink performs pulldown processing to display video on your monitor. It also delays the analog audio output by the same amount to keep the audio in sync with the video.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Keith,

We’ll try to test that tomorrow and get back to you.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

Here are a couple of useful web pages regarding HDLink versus the Digital Cinema Desktop. They are a little old now but the information is still relevant.

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

That’s an excellent display at an attractive price. Please let me know how that goes and even component analog HD monitoring should provide excellent results.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design