Blackmagic Intensity

[Paul Watkins]

BLACKMAGIC Intensity with a Gefen VGA/Compoment to HDMI converter

Sharyn. When you find out if this can or can not be done, please post it. I sent a email to BH about the matter and they don't know if this will work. I hope so, the thought of full HD for less than 500 bucks more has me very excited.

[Konstantin Kirsanov]

Originally Posted by Richard Leadbetter

I have had a pre-order for this card for what seems like forever and there is still no news on when it will ship to my reseller.

It was supposed to be the second week of November, but that's now, and still no dice.

1. Richard, have you received and tested with Intensity card your new Gefen converter/upscaler? Could you share your information with us?

2. I am planning to use Gefen HTS+ with composite input and HDMI output for further HDMI capturing with Intensity card. I asked Gefen if anyone had tested the composite input and Gefen replied that they did not have any information http://forum.gefen.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2326

3. Do you have any information on a new Intensity PRO? I am still interested to use it for capturing composite PAL to a PC (probably without Gefen's upscaler).

4. I did not see any detailed review on the uncompressed HDMI video capturing to the hard disks. There were guesses, that a RAID 0 with 3 disks should be used. My question is if less in number but new and fast, say, 2 fast SATA II disks (Hitachi 1 terabite disk) might be sufficient?

Thanks,

Konstantin

[Igor Babic]

http://www.decklink.com/products/intensity/

[Konstantin Kirsanov]

Originally Posted by Igor Babic

http://www.decklink.com/products/intensity/

Unfortunately I could not find a manual for Intensity PRO, only for the basic model. It is clear that it supports HDMI and component. The question was what BlackMagic meant by mentioning NTSC and PAL (see their quoted discription below). Since S-video is also
supported, which is often close to a composite input, there is a hope that NTSC and PAL actually meant composite video.


"If you're looking for incredible HDMI and analog component, NTSC, PAL and S-Video capture and playback then the new Intensity Pro card is perfect at only....".

[Anton Galimzyanov]

Originally Posted by Konstantin Kirsanov

Since S-video is also
supported, which is often close to a composite input, there is a hope that NTSC and PAL actually meant composite video.

You are quite right!

I am still interested to use it for capturing composite PAL to a PC

Well, I have an Intensity card for direct V1's HDMI ingesting, and Intensity Pro will be a perfect choice for analog HD capture (Z1/HD100) and playback..

[Konstantin Kirsanov]

Originally Posted by Anton Galimzyanov

You are quite right!

Well, I have an Intensity card for direct V1's HDMI ingesting, and Intensity Pro will be a perfect choice for analog HD capture (Z1/HD100) and playback..

Anton, Thanks for your comments and info.

1. RAID 0 number of disks. You skipped my initial Question 4 on the number of disks in RAID 0 to capture HDMI input. If you already did such a capture could you share the details on it.
I re-read BlackMagic’s Intensity support page (http://www.blackmagic-design.com/sup...asp?techID=177) and in the Chassis section found out more information on capturing. The description is a bit vague and raises more questions:
a) uncompressed video capturing needs at least 2 SATA II RAID 0 discs (since no definition is specified, I assume that the SD was meant and not HD),
b) it is explicitly mentioned that HD needs 4 fast discs;
c) since the term “uncompressed video” is intensively used in the description, a question arises if the compressed video capturing is also available via Intensity. Since for my purposes compressed HDV capturing via Firewire from my Sony FX1 is sufficient, a compressed HDMI video of captured VHS would be quite sufficient. But I realize that definitely Intensity could arrange for no compression and only uncompressed HD video is available for capturing and thus the minimum is 4 discs.

2. S-Video Connectors. In the press release on Intensity PRO it is said that the new card would be available with US distributors in early May, so this explains why no reviews could be found on Internet.
In addition to the general Intensity PRO picture I found a cable photo, http://www.blackmagic-design.com/ima...-cable-500.jpg,
which raised more questions than answers. The first question was how S-Video input is arranged as there is no special connector for it. Probably many people already asked Blackmagic this question, so on 18 April 2007 it issued a support note Number 179 http://www.blackmagic-design.com/sup...asp?techID=179 in which it recommended to use a S-Video break-out cable http://www.hosatech.com/hosa/products/VSA-356.html. But this still did not clarify my initial Question 3, if BlackMagic’s mentioning of NTSC and PAL inputs in addition to composite and S-Video actually meant composite video input.

3. Green tint color issue. Recently there was an angry input on Intensity card by wachicha http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...7&page=2&pp=30 on green tint color issue and that Intensity does not deliver what it had promised. Do you have any problem with green tint color or other issues described?

4. Upscaling. Did you test the card’s HDMI standard definition input settings together with HDMI HD output settings. If this works it should mean that the card could be used as an upscaler and one would not need additional Gefen’s HTS or HTS+. If this feature is not available with the basic Intensity, it definitely should be available in Intensity PRO for upscaling to HD of S-Video and allegedly supported composite NTSC/PAL.

Konstantin

[Igor Babic]

I have BMD HD Extreme. It is esentialy same technology like Intensity pro ( Intensity is cut down in RS422 & HD SDI, but I dont have HDMI) Thru Component inputs and outputs you can record&play analog signal. Those are standard 3 BNC conectors. In Decklink control panel you have choice of inputs and outputs and my HD extreme uses same 3 bnc for all combinations. Component SD/HD for pro standard (betacam) and consumer standard(Z1 and LCD screens). For composite signal connection is used Y conector from Y,Pb,Pr component BNCs. At same time two other BNC conectors (Pb&Pr) are chroma and luma signals for S video, and that why thay say you have to use s video break out cable. This is cable that on one end has two BNC connectors(or cinch with bnc adapters) and on the other S-video connector. I dont know that you can actually buy this kind of stuff (10-15 years a go, maybe, because Amiga monitors have use those conectors...) but with little google and soldering iron it is very easy to make one.
Uncompressed/compressed/SD/HD:
SD uncompressed 8bit with BMD cards: for capture, one SATA 2 WD 160GB, 16Mb cache type of disk is enough. Beware that to the end of disk speed drops, so thats way among other reasons they say that you need 2 of those in raid 0. ( if you go 10 bit definetly you must do that) For real time playback of two streams Raid 0 is a must.
SD compressed is for now only 8 bit Mjpeg ( it is variable bit rate and you can't change compression ratio) and for recording and play you need only one Sata 2 disk like I was mentioning before and that goes also for HD 8 bit Mjpeg compression too. Quality of that codec is great in SD and HD, but I wish is 10 bit too.
HD uncompressed in 8 bit is 3 disk raid 0 minimum just for recording, but 10 bit goes over the roof specialy with realtime two streams(I think that PPro2 cant even do that).
And at last motherboard and processor. They set specs real high for a reason.
Uncompresed is no kidding and older boards can't handle it very good. But Intesity is PCIE so you probably have chipset that is atleast Intel945 and dualcore proc's you probably can do all those stuff with not much problems. On my Supermicro Dual Xeon 3Ghz, Mjpeg SD eats 50% of one procesor in capture. So keep this as a warning (but uncompressed eats up about 10%). I haven't yet tryied upscaling and downscaling but I will in next two weeks definetly. But I belive that this works too. Intensity has some dificulties with some cameras thru HDMI but next driver release should solve this and they do that regulary. BTW Most if not all HDMI equipment is 8 bit for now. I hope this helps you.

[Konstantin Kirsanov]

Originally Posted by Igor Babic

I have BMD HD Extreme. It is esentialy same technology like Intensity pro ( Intensity is cut down in RS422 & HD SDI, but I dont have HDMI)

Igor,

1. Thanks for your helpful information. I made a conclusion that for Intensity PRO video capturing I would need (i) a RAID 0 of 4 fast disks, (ii) one of the recent motherboards with Intel 975/965 chipset, and (iii) a most recent Core 2 processor, probably Quad, for H.264 encoding of the timeline and disk authoring.
2. Probably BlackMagic has sent its cards for preview to the hardware websites and we would be able to get more detailed information soon. Otherwise we would need to wait till mid May when Intensity PRO becomes available with the retailers and the first purchasers would share their firsthand information.

Konstantin

[Wayne Morellini]

I have been hoping they would do a portable version using express card (266MByte/s) or GigE/USB2.0 (using an Analogue wavelet codec chip you can get 100/200Mb/s, even 400Mbits/s 4:4:4). Swapping out your hard drive you should be able to archive 200Mb/s sustained (maybe 400Mb/s sustained portable disks will be available). But these companies seem a bit confused.

It might even be practical to use an cheap Ultra mobile tablet PC as recorder and viewer (having an fast enough hard disk again).

[Holger Leonhard]

Originally Posted by I J Walton

I have a HC3 and there is no control over shutter speed. You do however have 4 settings for slow shutter effects and a fast shutter effect through the "Sports" mode. These speeds are all I need really.

There is also no focus ring, instead you have a small wheel which can be switched for either Focus or Exposure.

I would reccomend the camera to anyone, I have shot a few short films with it (using MB looks in post too) and people thought I had shot on 35mm film!

a bit late but anyway, 4 info this little workaround:
you cannnot control the shutter directly BUT you can set it to a cine shutter of 1/50 (europe model, I goess 1/60 for the US version) with the following trick:

- switch to "auto shutter" (touch menue)
- darken the glass / e.g. cover it with your hand
- while you do this switch auto shutter to "off"

now the shutter is fixed to the slowest possible rate !
(PAL -> 1/50)
Works fine and looks very film like when deinterlacing later.

to check:
record some seconds -> playback and set "show camera data" -> now you can see what shutter was set. You should do this check after the little trick to be shure.