Prices of HDMI capture cards could drop as availability increases...

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/02/28/pre_cebit_brief_asus_goes_hdmi_crazy_to_launch_triple_hdmi_input_capture_card/

This seems like it would be cool in conjunction with the new media center pc cases they have out. Not sure of the professional uses for this thing though, Blackmagic's own hdmi card seems like it's more geared towards consumers than pros. This could drive other companies to release more pro oriented hdmi stuff.

Very cool!

I'm confused, the article keeps talking about sound cards, but it's HDMI. Huh?

I'm confused, the article keeps talking about sound cards, but it's HDMI. Huh?Yeah, it's a bit strange.

As fas as I can tell, it's a sound card that also has HDMI capture capabilities.

It makes sense in that the sound card market is dead for consumer apps. (Pros still buy soundcards, but in smaller numbers and from companies with pro reputations.) I think that by adding HDMI capture and HDMI audio outputs, they expect to differentiate themselves from on-board audio, but still appeal to integration with (high volume) consumer products.

Hopefully, the HDMI capture isn't audio only. That would make little sense.

As I read it there is the Xonar DX soundcard in development which is covered in most of the article. By the end the Xonar AV1 is mentioned as another deveopment AV card with HDMI.

Who knows what they come out with...

George/

The biggest question would be about the codec. I doubt that this is geared toward uncompressed capture on a RAID array.

I also wonder what software will be bundled with it.