[Luke Maslen]

Hi Michael,

[michael engel] “I tried every configuration possible using the keyspan adapter.
The only thing left to do was send it back for a replacement.
I hope a new one will do the trick.”

That is a good idea and I would be surprised if the “High Speed” USB Serial Adapter (Part#
USA-19HS) did not work as customers have reported a 100% success rate using this adapter with the UVW-1400a deck. Hopefully you did just have a faulty adapter and a replacement should fix that.

[michael engel] “Why can’t it control the deck though?
Personally, it was one of the main buying
points to getting the Decklink card!

It’s a pity that no one at Balckmagic has solved this problem.
It seems like such a waste of cables”

That’s easy to answer. The DeckLink card provides built-in support for the RS-422 serial protocol used by most professional decks. Some inexpensive decks, and some much older decks, only support the older RS-232 protocol and this makes it a bit tricky to control the deck. RS-422 is a more modern standard with greater abilities and that’s what our cards support.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Sebastian,

It is not currently possible to use more than one DeckLink card in a Mac or PC. We would like to do that and we’ve worked on the project several times but it has been pushed aside by other developments. If you need a solution today, then the DeckLink Extreme would enable you to connect to either Betacam SP or Digibeta. Hopefully we’ll be able to support multiple cards in the not too distant future but I don’t have any definite schedule for you.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Kushal,

Please disconnect any cables from the DeckLink Pro. Launch either Final Cut Pro or Blackmagic Deck Control and you should see a window which says “No video input.” Now use a barrel connector to connect the “SDI to deck” or “SDI Monitor” cable to the “SDI from deck” cable. If the DeckLink card is working, the “No video input” message should disappear and just be replaced by a black display. This will prove whether the card is working correctly or not.

Ensure the Digibeta is in “remote” mode and that the SDI in and SDI out cables are connected to the deck as well as the RS-422 cable.

Please let us know how you go.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Margus,

The DeckLink Extreme has component analog video connections and XLR analog audio connections for use with your Betacam SP. You will not need to purchase anything else to make this work. The SDI connections can be used with a Digibeta or other SDI deck. The SPDIF output is designed for digital audio monitoring and would not usually be used with a deck.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Michelle,

HDTV 720p23.98 is a Varicam setting and we don’t advertize downconversion from Varicam formats as sometimes these work with Final Cut Pro and sometimes they don’t. However, while 720p23.98 is a Varicam setting, in reality it should output 720p59.94 and the DeckLink card should be able to down convert that to NTSC and then send that out to your Multibridge. If you have a DeckLink HD series card, you will need to enable down conversion in the DeckLink PrefPane of the System Preferences. If you have any DeckLink SD series card, down conversion will already be enabled and you don’t need to change anything. When Multibridge Extreme has been released, the engineers will then work on a new version of down conversion (compared with what is currently used in DeckLink cards) and they intend for the same down conversion firmware to be used in the existing Multibridge as well as the Multibridge Extreme. This would be available from the software downloads page of our web site.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi David,

It doesn’t. DeckLink cards do not perform format conversion between NTSC and PAL. You would need an expensive piece of hardware to do that or else there are software options. One popular solution is the US$100 Standards Converter V2.5 which is a third-party plugin to Final Cut Pro which enables PAL <-> NTSC format conversion. There is a demo version available so you can see if it works for you.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

I think that component analog might be a better solution here. All CRT monitors are analog. While some expensive CRT monitors may well be referred to as “SDI monitors”, in reality they just have a DA converter in them and ultimately they are an analog monitor. The same would be true when converting from a digital HDMI signal to analog for the CRT display.

There would be nothing wrong with using the HDMI output of the HDLink with this monitor assuming that it works as we haven’t tested HDMI with CRT monitors. However it would probably be cheaper to just use component analog input and I would expect the result to be just as good. The DeckLink HD Pro cards already have component analog monitoring output in SD and HD so if you’ve got one of those, you probably won’t need the HDLink.

If you were to use LCD display with DVI-D or HDMI input, then I would certainly suggest the HDLink for an all-digital workflow with maximum quality.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Sameer,

Unfortunately nothing other than a DV camera can work with Avid Express DV because its not QuickTime based so nothing can plug into it. I know it can export and import QuickTime files on the Mac, but not sure if that’s in the Windows version. For it to work with our card, it would need to have full QuickTime or DirectShow support.

This would allow hardware boards to plug into the Avid software, and then we would be able to make it work. Until Avid become more

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Michael,

DeckLink cards include RS-422 serial control but not the older RS-232 standard. The trick is not to us an RS-422 to RS-232 adapter but simply use an RS-232 adapter. The manual includes the following information in regards to RS-232 deck control.

Some low-cost decks, such as the Sony UVW1400a still use RS-232. Final Cut Pro can provide deck control via RS-232 with the addition of a Keyspan High Speed USB Serial Adapter. You will need to configure the RS-232 protocol by going to the Audio/Video Settings, in Final Cut Pro, and then click on Device Control Presets. Edit each preset for which you want to use RS-232. This solution works fine if you have to use RS-232.

Please review pages 23, 24 and 25 of the DeckLink Macintosh manual for specific information about the UVW-1400a in the following sections:

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Brad,

It shouldn’t matter which card you use. All of your legacy media should continue to work fine with a new system no matter which card you choose 🙂

We’ve always used open standards and QuickTime is a key part of that. QuickTime makes it easy for different users to open files captured with different hardware and software systems and that is why it should not matter which card you choose. Mac users are really lucky in this way compared with Windows where some applications support certain technologies but not others. On Mac OS X, you can count on all video applications supporting QuickTime and this makes it easy to share files around and collaborate with other Mac users.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design