[Luke Maslen]

Hi Ian,

This exact question is answered in a support note named 2 channel stereo capture in Final Cut Pro HD 5.0. It’s easy once you know how 🙂

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Brad,

Kona SD support is included in the DeckLink 5.x series drivers for use with Tiger and Final Cut Pro HD 5.0. You can find the latest details in the Kona SD support note.

So you should be able to continue using your Kona SD in your new G5. It should work fine but if it doesn’t, please let us know. The DeckLink 5.x drivers use the Apple codecs rather than Blackmagic codecs. Your old 8 and 10 bit files should open fine in to FCP5 without any transcoding as both Apple and Blackmagic codecs were written to the same 8-bit 2vuy and 10-bit v210 standards. Any of the compressed codecs, including DV, DV50 and PhotoJPEG are also Apple’s codecs and so will require no changes.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Todd,

As you have discovered, DeckLink cards include RS-422 support but your deck uses the older RS-232 protocol. If you want to use RS-232 device control, you can use 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 want to use RS-232.

Out of curiosity, are you using your DeckLink card to capture video via composite analog or were you only using it for device control?

Thank you for posting the device control configuration which you found to be successful. That is very helpful information 🙂

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Sameer,

[Sameer Shrivastava] “the system seems to work ok. right now i am using ati 8mb pci graphic card that came with the system. will changing that will help in any way.”

If your system is working OK, I would recommend against changing the graphic card unless you experience problems.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Felix,

It’s great to hear that you have a stable system with the Dell Precision Workstation 670 and the DeckLink Pro card. Thanks for posting your configuration as that might be the key to a stable system.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Paul,

I noticed in your profile the reference to “Twin 23″ Apple Displays” and assumed you had both of these connected to your NVIDIA graphics card in addition to the DeckLink output. Regardless of whether or not you have the HDLink connected to the DeckLink, your Mac will treat the DeckLink as an extra display if the desktop is enabled. In other words it really should not matter how you go about shutting down the HDLink and the LCD monitor which is attached to it.

I will see if we can test out your scenario to see if we can replicate it using one monitor attached to the G5 and the other to the DeckLink card and HDLink.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Paul,

I guess that was a bit obscure! Our drivers contain different kinds of support for different applications. Some applications, including After Effects, Combustion, Blackmagic Deck Control and others use our QuickTime drivers. Vegas and many custom applications use our DirectShow support. Some applications can use our ASIO drivers. Then we have specific code for Premiere Pro as it does not entirely use our DirectShow support.

Open the QuickTime

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Jeremiah,

I don’t suppose you have an LCD monitor with DVI-D input which supports at least 1280 x 720 resolution? If so, consider the entry model DeckLink HD card at $595 and monitor via a $695 HDLink. If that squeezes in to your existing budget, then you will get HD and SD monitoring including Varicam monitoring at full 1280 x 720 resolution.

Varicam 23.98 is not going to down convert to NTSC or PAL and so down conversion is not an option. I talked with the engineers about what inexpensive workflow you could use (with hardware from any company) but we didn’t come up with anything.

So the one idea that did spring to mind is to save $400 on the DeckLink HD Pro 4:2:2 by getting the DeckLink HD instead and then put that saving towards a $695 HDLink. If you alreday have a suitable LCD monitor, then you should be ready to work in VariCam.

Hopefully this suggestion will work for you even if you need to temporarily pinch a colleague’s nice LCD monitor and give them an old CRT for a little while 🙂

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Robin,

Yes in that case the Apple 30″ monitor will be the way to go for pixel and color accuracy. We’ll all be very happy when Multibridge Extreme ships 🙂

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

We tested this out on both Mac and Windows and found very similar results to your observations.

I asked the engineers about this and was told:

1. RAM preview from After Effects is RGB which uses about twice the data of YUV output from an application such as Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro.

2. The RAM preview in After Effects is creating the frames and then displaying them whereas applications such as Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro are simply displaying frames which have already been created.

For both reasons, RAM preview of HD material in After Effects is not real time compared to SD material which is usually real time after it has been played once.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design