[Luke Maslen]

Hi Martin,

Sorry for the confusion but I chose a bad example. We have not had audio output from After Effects on Windows during RAM preview as the audio output component is never enumerated by After Effects. I should have said that “QuickTime applications” would not be able to output audio with QuickTime 7.0 even though it worked under QuickTime 6.5.2. It is possible that an accidental side-effect of the change in QuickTime 7 might be that audio output from After Effects on Windows during RAM preview might become possible but I won’t know until new drivers are available.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Robin,

The current and next generation Multibridges all work in uncompressed formats. They can convert between analog and digital, and digital and analog, but they do not introduce compression. The Multibridge is supposed to retain maximum quality and hence purely processes uncompressed video.

[Robin] “could I take the component out of the Z1 plug it into the multibridge and caputure into FCP as say… 10-bit uncompressed, or photo-jpeg, or whatever.”

Yes, absolutely.

[Robin] “Will the multibridge do the conversion for me?”

Multibridge will convert from uncompressed component analog video and digitize it in to the HD-SDI or SD-SDI format as appropriate. The nature of SDI is that it is uncompressed. You can then use a Blackmagic Easy Setup in Final Cut Pro to determine whether the video will be captured as uncompressed 8 or 10-bit or in a compressed format such as PhotoJPEG. The choice is yours.

[Robin] “Or do I need to capture in as HDV and then render out as 10-bit or whatever I want it as for finishing?”

No, you don’t need to capture as HDV and then render to 10-bit or conform before finishing. However be aware that if you have already recorded your video to tape in the HDV format, you might achieve better quality capturing via Firewire. Please see the support note How to achieve maximum quality with HDV cameras for different scenarios where this might or might not be a good idea.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Robin,

[Robin] “it’s a bit off-topic, but can this be done with a Z1 out of the component out?”

I don’t know the innards of every camera but I am given to understand that you can indeed obtain uncompressed HD component analog output from the Sony HDV cameras, and bypass HDV compression, if you capture from the component outputs during a live recording. There is a support note named How to achieve maximum quality with HDV cameras which details this and, in light of the announcement by Canon, I had better update it soon 🙂

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Paul,

[Paul from JKT] “Seems like this workflow might let this HVD codec mix well enough with our true HD 10bit footage.”

Yes, if you already have true HD 10bit footage, you will be able to capture from the HD-SDI output of the HDV camera in 10-bit mode so you won’t have to bother with rendering when using your HDV video with existing 10-bit material. This is a really nice workflow for low cost HD with a digital workflow all the way. It will be great when the camera is released.

[Paul from JKT] “Will the Multibridge firewire input be able to up-res the HDV codec to a HDTV 1080 i/p 8-10bit 4:2:2, and will the conversion in your opinion be as good as possibly the in-camera conversion of the Canon H1?”

The Multibridge does not use Firewire. You can just use the Firewire port in a Mac or PC for that. Hence the conversion will be performed in the camera and you will only know how good that will be when it is released.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Jorje,

Thanks for your suggestion which I will pass along to the developers. What deck would you use with this format? It would be nice to add the format but we would want to test it and I can’t think of a deck that supports this format in a non-VariCam mode.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Kai,

Proc Amp is only for use with the input during capture. What are you capturing from and to what are you outputting?

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Sean,

I’m not familiar with Borix FX but I’ll ask around in case anyone has any ideas. Meanwhile I suggest you repost in the Borris FX forum to increase your chances of an answer.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

Good question and the short answer is “no”.

The reason why you should use the DeckLink 4.8.1 drivers with Vegas 6 is that Sony have written specific support for our drivers in to Vegas and they based this upon the DeckLink 4.8.1 drivers. In order for Vegas to work with newer versions of the DeckLink drivers, Sony will need to add compatibility in to a future Vegas update.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Sean,

Not only is the pink ringing odd but there appear to be all kinds of compression artefacts around the text in your image which doesn’t make sense for uncompressed material.

I would sugget reposting this question in the Boris FX forum. We just use the Apple uncompressed codecs and so this isn’t a DeckLink specific question and you may receive more help in the Boris FX forum.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

I’m not familiar with your deck and hopefully others will be able to provide some suggestions. I found a copy of the brochure for your deck online.

It appears to have composite and S-video in/out and you’ve also added the optional Firewire module.

I’m not sure why you are using a DeckLink card with this deck as I suspect you will get best results by performing your capture and playback via Firewire and also using Firewire for device control.

You could use a DeckLink SP or DeckLink Extreme to capture and play back via composite analog video. This will allow you to work with uncompressed video if you are applying lots of effects and text but you will be moving between the lossy DVCPRO format and also introducing some analog noise and so a pure DVCPRO workflow via Firewire might be the best option.

In regards to device control, I noted the following comment in the brochure: When using RS-422 control, AJ-D250 serves only as source machine. In other words you won’t be able to edit back to tape using RS-422. So even if you do use a DeckLink card for capture and playback via composite analog video, I would be inclined to change the device control from Sony RS-422 to Apple Firewire. However if you do want to use RS-422 device control, consider switching the preset from Sony RS-422 to Panasonic RS-422 as this should work better.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design