[Luke Maslen]

Hi Jason,

Vegas 6 is stable but there have been some updates and I recommend you use the Vegas 6.0c updater.

Vegas 6 uses a specific version of our DeckLink Windows drivers and you will need to use the DeckLink 4.8.1 Windows drivers for compatibility. They work very well and are available from the software archives web page on our web site.

There are some Vegas fans in this forum and hopefully they will let you know what they think.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Jason,

All DeckLink cards include the Blackmagic Deck Control utility. It is a very basic utility which simply captures and plays back SD or HD movies in the QuickTime file format. You can capture and playback movies in an 8 or 10-bit format and we include easy setups to configure the format of video that you want to capture, eg HDTV 1080i50 10-bit.

While our Windows drivers do support AVI files through applications such as Premiere Pro and Vegas, as well as for developers via DirectShow, the Deck Control utility only captures to the QuickTime format at this time.

The DeckLink SDK on the software downloads page of our web site contains a number of DirectShow examples to help you build your own custom interface to DeckLink cards if you want to do your own thing. The DirectShow filters are already included with our drivers so you have everything you need to get going without having to buy anything extra.

Blackmagic Deck Control and DirectShow filters are included with the card at no additional cost and hopefully one of these two solutions will help you.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Rick,

In the DeckLink Minimum System Requirements for Windows we mention that Dell Workstations are not certified for use with DeckLink cards and are currently unsupported.

However if you already have one and are hoping to use it with DeckLink cards, then the main thing to check is it’s graphics card. It is very important to use an NVIDIA graphics card as other cards frequently encounter problems when combined with DeckLink cards in these PC’s. We know of some customers who have had success with the 650 and 670 models of PC but others have had too many problems and hence the fact that we do not support this model of PC.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Kai,

Thank you for posting this information and it’s a pity you encountered that problem. Your problem sounds as though it is related to the known problem documented in the support note No video output from PowerMac G5 (PCI) and we also mention this in the DeckLink Minimum System Requirements for Mac OS X.

Your observations are different in that you are at least getting video output on playback so I shall retest this issue to see if we see the same thing. Maybe these Macs are behaving differently now and, if so, we might be able to do something about it.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

You are correct and Windows audio works differently so currently you cannot output system audio via DeckLink. However it is something we will look at to see if it can be done.

Out of interest, why would you want to output system audio via a DeckLink card? That would include system beeps and so on which you might not really want to output via DeckLink.

DeckLink cards use the television standard sample rate of 48 kHz and 24 bit and so it is important to use the 48 kHz format in conjunction with DeckLink cards.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Robert,

You can choose to capture to one of the following two compressed formats for offline editing in HD:

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Paul,

Does this also happen if you disconnect one of your two Apple displays? Each display, including the DeckLink display, has its own desktop and (I think) it’s own screen saver setting. It may be that three displays is too much but that two displays is fine. Try re-enabling the desktop on the DeckLink card and temporarily disconnect one of your Apple displays. I think you will find that the problem no longer occurs.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Jody,

The DeckLink Pro is primarily a digital card whereas your VHS player is analog. You would need to use a DeckLink SP or DeckLink Extreme to capture directly from the VHS player. Alternatively you could use a digital to analog convertor but that would probably cost much more than using a DeckLink SP card.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Ray,

I’m back and sorry not to have been on the forum last week. You are a mind reader 🙂

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Andy,

Thank you for your clear and detailed report. We’ll check it out on our test suite and see if we can work out what is going on.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design