Blackmagic Intensity Pro with FCP

[Mark Chafe]

Hi. I recently purchased a blackmagic intensity pro card and would like to know the correct settings to use with FCP

I seem to be able to edit and view everything in real time no problem, however when I try to print back to video tape (Canon HV40), i get compatibility errors saying this project or sequence is not compatible with HDV.

My sequence, capture and video output settings are all Blackmagic Intensity Pro HD - uncompressed. I ingest from a Canon HV40 via firewire and i would like to output back to HV40 with Print to tape. Should any of these be changed to something else?

Any help would be appreciated. Any tutorials or screenshots?

Thanks

[Romuald Martin]

Run some tests. Create a small sequence in HDV format (it will re-render your uncompressed captured clips) and try to export.

[Mark Chafe]

Just wondering if I do set my sequence to HDV would my realtime preview still work out of my blackmagic? Sorry bit confused here. Used an imac before this so never had any hardware acceleration options.

Thanks
Mark

[Paul E. Coleman]

If you're capturing via firewire you're completely bypassing the Blackmagic Intensity Pro. And if you plan to go back to tape, you'll need to output HDV, not AIC ProRes or uncompressed. The Blackmagic ingests via HDMI, Component, S-Video and Composite to whatever codec you decide. You should be able to set your final sequence to HDV, render it all and output to tape.

[Mark Chafe]

Yup. Managed to get it working last night. Thanks Romuald and Paul. This is actually a friend's system i am working on. This is my first HDV computer, only worked with SD up until now so a few things to wrap my head around. I was originally thinking that for the realtime processing, the sequence and capture settings had to go through the blackmagic card, however because it was not HDV, it couldn't go back to the camera. I trid switching the sequence and capture to HDV and everything works now.

However, I do now have an issue with some SD footage on the same machine. If i create a NTSC-DV project, all settings to DV / NTSC, when he goes to print back to tape, it says 'not compatible with hdv', which is obvious since all settings are DV/NTSC. Also, when we tried this, FCP stopped seeing the camera (HV40). To get it back i had to unplug the camera, load FCP, close it, plug camera back in, then load FCP again.

Any suggestions?

Sorry very big newbie here. Thanks for your help and patience.

Mark

[Romuald Martin]

Mark,
What do you intend to do with the DV (SD) footage? To add it to HD sequence or just edit as DV?

In general you are talking two flavors here: HD and SD. Remember that HD comes in 1080 or 720,
while SD is 486 (720x486) frame size.
I'm guessing here (don't know your camera), but probably you have to change some settings if plan to work in DV. Looks like when you change your timeline settings some compatibility issue arises.

[Per Johan Naesje]

Originally Posted by Mark Chafe

However, I do now have an issue with some SD footage on the same machine. If i create a NTSC-DV project, all settings to DV / NTSC, when he goes to print back to tape, it says 'not compatible with hdv', which is obvious since all settings are DV/NTSC. Also, when we tried this, FCP stopped seeing the camera (HV40). To get it back i had to unplug the camera, load FCP, close it, plug camera back in, then load FCP again.

Any suggestions?

Mark, I think you have to go into the camcorder menu and set it to DV LOCKED. Remember that you have to unplug the firewire before your are able to change this values in the camcorders menu!