Recording HDMI output from HV40

[Colin McDonald]

A few years back I acquired a BlackMagic Video Assist 4K which does a great job with the HDSDI output from my Canon XHG1s. Unfortunately it does NOT recognise the the HDMI output of my HV40.

The Video Assist 4K is only device I have used the HV40 with (TVs, monitors, projectors and AV presentation systems in churches and conference centres etc) over several years that has had this problem. Needless to say Canon said it was an issue for BlackMagic and vice versa.

I would be interested to hear if there is another video monitor/recorder that definitely does work with an HV40 (expensive!) or some sort of HDMI interface that could sit between the HV40 and the Video Assist 4K (potentially more affordable).

My normal workflow is now fully tapeless but there are occasions when I need to access archive footage on tape and I would like to have a backup for the XHG1s.

Anyone actually using the HDMI out from an HV40?

[Paul R Johnson]

How critical is latency? Most of the double conversion solutions are going to introduce time lag?

[Don Palomaki]

I just checked the HDMI output of my HV40.

FWIW: Using both BM Intensity Pro and Intensity Pro 4K I was able to capture live camera output and HDV tape via HDMI with BM's MediaExpress, no problem.

With MediaExpress one has to set the video type in Prefrences to the exact video stream type; e.g., 1080i59.94. It will NOT see the video if the preferences are not exact; i.e.,, i080i60 will NOT work. But that is NTSC, not PAL.

[Don Palomaki]

With a DeckLink Mini Recorder 4K I was able to capture SD via the HDMI output, but not HD/HDV mode. That was using desktop video 12.0 drivers. The HDV output of th4e camcorder was down converted to SD. Again, this was NTSC. (BMD is not noted for the best drivers and support of legacy formats.)

The best bet might be to find a IEEE1394-capable system. Alternatively try analog capture of the component video output.

[Colin McDonald]

Thanks for the replies!

@Paul: Latency is not important for me for acquiring archive footage from tape so I don’t really mind even a sizeable lag. FWIW my normal work for the last 18 months has been single person crew (and I regret to say that includes the talent!) and I have become used to working with monitoring of the video over WiFi with a fairly horrendous latency. It’s really just a framing and lighting check with a static 4K camera, with much of the finer adjustments done in post since I’m ultimately going down to 720p.

Any specific suggestions for a double conversation? I wouldn’t object to converting to HDSDI first if I knew it was going to work. I did try putting it through an HDMI distribution amp but that didn’t work with the Video Assist either.

@Don: I’ve not kept up with the later BM products so that is useful information. I don’t have any the facility to use a PCI express card at present but I’ll keep that in mind.

I still have a 10+ year old iMac with a FireWire port or two that creaks along though it’s getting difficult to find the right grade of coal to keep it going:-) I was rather hoping to be able to use that HDMI port though.

I did wonder if the HDV ‘stretching’ from 1440 to 1920 or whatever could be contributing but it doesn’t seem to be an issue with projectors etc so the HV40 must take care of that internally.
Even if the HDV is captured with the wrong aspect ratio it’s easily fixed.

[Christopher Young]

Originally Posted by Colin McDonald

Unfortunately it does NOT recognise the HDMI output of my HV40.

Usually, when you run into this problem it is to do with PSF (Progressive Segmented Frames) I just checked and see that the HDMI output from the VIXIA HV40 lists the following formats:

60i, Native 24p Progressive (records at 24p), 24p Progressive (records at 60i), 30p Progressive (records at 60i)

So the only true Progressive recording on the HV40 listed is the Native 24p Progressive (records at 24p).

Quite a few recorders and I seem to recall the original BM Video Assist 4K being one of them would not accept interlaced PSF video. PSF video is actually an Interlaced Video. It's two interlaced fields recorded in a container but without any temporal time displacement between the two fields as there would be in a normal interlaced video signal. This was done in earlier days to allow CRT interlace only scanning TVs and monitors to display these pseudo-progressive formats. This may be the problem. Try outputting the "Native 24p" to the Video Assist and see if it sees that signal without any problem. If it does see the Native 24p signal then that would pretty well confirm for me the fact that the VideoAssist is not seeing the PSF modes out of the HV40. I believe the later BM Video Assist 4K recorders can accept PSF interlaced signals. On the early Atomos recorders, you could toggle between PSF and a true interlace signal. Same with their current ones like the Ninja V.

The other thing that comes to my mind though not yet confirmed is whether the Video Assist will accept the HDV signal from the HV40. The HV40 is an HDV recording camera but it records 1080i as 1440 x 1080 as opposed to 1920 x 1080. The HDV format uses rectangular pixels with a ratio of 1.333 as opposed to the 1920 square pixel ratio of 1:1. Now whether this 1440 rectangular pixel format may be causing an issue for the Video Assist, I just don't know. As I say this is only a side query in my mind, nothing confirmed but it might be worth checking out. Something makes me feel this shouldn't be an issue.

Failing all of the above a unit that will convert your HV40 PSF outputs to true Progressive HD is the "Blackmagic Design Mini Converter UpDownCross HD". I use a couple of these and they do a brilliant job on format conversion. They auto-detect the incoming signal, HDMI or SDI and convert the signal to your chosen output format, simultaneously in both HDMI and SDI. Your desired output format is selected by dip-switches. A table of dip-switch output settings is printed on the rear casing of the Blackmagic Design Mini Converter UpDownCross HD. So easy to configure. They do require power. From 12-19 volt from memory. I run them on older 720p 50/60p cameras to up-convert the signals to 1080 50/60p. Many people have been surprised at the quality of the 720/1080p 50/60 up conversions. It's given the older 720p 50/60p cameras a new lease of life being able to record from them a true 1080 50/60p signal with either the Atomos or BM recorders. Do NOT use a 1080i input to convert to a 1080 50/60p output. It will give you a 50/60p output okay but it will have the motion cadence of 25/30p.

I digress. In your case what you seem to require is a TRUE progressive signal to record into the Video Assist 4K. This Blackmagic Design Mini Converter UpDownCross HD will happily convert any of the PSF signals out of your HV40. Or any other camera that outputs PSF for that matter.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1401679-REG/blackmagic_design_convmudcstd_hd_mini_converter_updowncross_hd.html/BI/2855/KBID/3801

Chris Young

[Colin McDonald]

Thanks for that suggestion, Christopher.

It’s a PAL edition HDV40, so 25fps rather than 24fps not that that should make a lot of difference.
£125 or thereby at UK suppliers so I’m willing to give it a go on the understanding that it’s being ordered for this specific purpose, and it would have to go back if it didn’t work for some reason.

I’ll discuss it tomorrow with the company who supplied both the HV40 and Video Assist 4K to me.

Thanks again.

[Allan Black]

This guy loves his Blackmagic Mini Converter UpDownCross HD units …

‘I use 3 of these to convert cameras from 1080i to 1080p, they work great, however they generate enough heat that I can keep my drink warm on one, cook an egg on one, and then a brownie on the other. IE they are miniature hot plates. Get some good air flow over them and that may help... Otherwise, set them up to cook your lunch while you work.’

Could he be running them all on 46VDC, stacked on top of each other with no proper airflow?

Cheers.

[Don Palomaki]

FWIW: Today I tried a BMD Mini Converter Analog-to-SDI device
I was able to capture both HDV tape and live camera component output from the HV40.
The MiniConverter provided 1080i SDI output to the BMD DeckLink Mini Recorder 4K and MediaExpress capture software.

The MiniConverter Analog-to-SDI is powered by a 12 VDC, 1 amp wall wort.

[Christopher Young]

Originally Posted by Colin McDonald

Thanks for that suggestion, Christopher.

It’s a PAL edition HDV40, so 25fps rather than 24fps not that that should make a lot of difference.
£125 or thereby at UK suppliers so I’m willing to give it a go on the understanding that it’s being ordered for this specific purpose, and it would have to go back if it didn’t work for some reason.

I’ll discuss it tomorrow with the company who supplied both the HV40 and Video Assist 4K to me.

Thanks again.

Right, understood Colin.

The 25fps is 25 0ver 50i so the same applies, its a PSF signal. The Updown Cross sees the PSF for what it is and if you select 25p on its output it will become true 25p progressive not 50i in a 25p container. In other words, it applies pull-down removal to the signal.

Alternatively, you could see if anyone has any of these left, new or used. Atomos have stopped making them. They were called CONNECT and could be powered by Sony NPF style batteries. They were very small and efficient. They also had an inboard battery to keep powering the units if you had to replace a battery while you were still "live" so to speak. Two models were available. HDMI to SDI and SDI to HDMI. Both models could perform the pulldown removal on PSF signals to give you true Progressive output.

Chris Young

https://www.flar.cz/Informace/Atomos_CONNECT.pdf

[Christopher Young]

Originally Posted by Allan Black

This guy loves his Blackmagic Mini Converter UpDownCross HD units …

‘I use 3 of these to convert cameras from 1080i to 1080p, they work great, however, they generate enough heat that I can keep my drink warm on one

Yes, Allan. They do get quite "toasty". A lot of D to D conversion going on there. With the 1080 50i conversion to 25p progressive that is fine. The UpDownCross works well. Normal motion cadence is maintained. If you want to go from 50i or 60i to 50p or 60p it will do this but it will not apply any predictive motion analysis interpolation to the signal. You will indeed get a 50p or 60p output but it will be a 25 or 30 frame doubled output. 50/60 frames but as I said with the motion cadence of 25/30p. Not good for sport or fast action.

For the best 1080 50/60p smooth motion output with the best temporal motion cadence the best conversion we get, by a long shot is to output 720 50/60p then upconvert that to 1080 50/60p. Doing it this way means you start off with an existing 50/60fps frame base and don't have to create frames where none existed before. All that is required is a frame by frame up-scale from 720 to 1080 which the UpDownCross does extremely well with its "Alchemist" inherited algorithms. An Alchemist standards converter was in its day one of the wonders of video conversion. At a cost originally approaching half a million $$$ !!!

Chris Young