HD250 and SDI Setup

[Daniel Patton]

Anyone using or evaluating the HD250 and running through SDI into Blackmagic yet? Do we even have a setup for this yet?

We are running the 250 and could use either FCP or PP2 if anyone knows of a SDI setup that works. The sooner the better would be appreciated as our evaluation period is short.

Thanks

[Joe Carney]

vegas 7 has built in support for bm cards. You can download the trial for free.

[Daniel Patton]

Is it simply for SDI? Or is it specific to the 250?

PP2 has HD-SDI as a setup as well, but nothing works through the Decklink of course, and I can't find a setup in the decklink specific for the 250.

[Carl Hicks]

Originally Posted by Daniel Patton

Is it simply for SDI? Or is it specific to the 250?

PP2 has HD-SDI as a setup as well, but nothing works through the Decklink of course, and I can't find a setup in the decklink specific for the 250.

Daniel,

Is the HDSDI video and signal getting from the camera to your NLE?

Are you trying to do machine control via HDSDI as well?

Have your tried doing machine control over the IEEE-1394?

[Daniel Patton]

Carl. from what I can tell we are getting no signal via SDI through to the Decklink Multibridge Pro. No idea if this is BM or JVC issue. BM has no setup that I can tell for SDI and JVC camera.

No setup for machine control / JVC... that I can tell.

No. not tried 1394 since our goal for the 250 was to avoid HDV / tape and work with SDI to the decklink. I can try it Monday if you just want to know if it works via 1394.

Thank You

[Carl Hicks]

Originally Posted by Daniel Patton

Carl. from what I can tell we are getting no signal via SDI through to the Decklink Multibridge Pro. No idea if this is BM or JVC issue. BM has no setup that I can tell for SDI and JVC camera.

No setup for machine control / JVC... that I can tell.

No. not tried 1394 since our goal for the 250 was to avoid HDV / tape and work with SDI to the decklink. I can try it Monday if you just want to know if it works via 1394.

Thank You

Daniel, I'm not surprised that the Black Magic card does not have a specific SDI set-up for the 250, since the 250 was just released. The NLE products almost always lag behind the new cameras. Try a HDCam or DVCPro HD setting if it has one.

Have you done basic trouble shooting, like for example, connecting the camera's HD-SDI output to a monitor that is HD-SDI equipped to see if you have a signal? I would do this before you go any further. If you're trying to go live HD-SDI into the BM card and capture there, and you have confirmed that signal is coming from the camera, then the issue must be with the BM card or software or a configuration setting. Also, remember that the GY-HD250 camera can produce a 720p or 1080i live signal, so you might want to try it both ways.

In my question to you about using 1394, my thought was to see if the BM card would allow you to use 1394 only for machine control, and use component or HDSDI for the actual signal. Some NLE's will allows this. Of course, this idea is for capturing off tape.


Regards,

[Mark Silva]

You should be able to set the remote control for HDV.
Thats your only option right?

Does the 250 even have an rs-422 port?

I've never heard of serial control over HD-SDI.
Is that possible now?

[Tim Dashwood]

Originally Posted by Mark Silva

You should be able to set the remote control for HDV.
Thats your only option right?

Does the 250 even have an rs-422 port?

I've never heard of serial control over HD-SDI.
Is that possible now?

No. You would need a device like the HDConnect LE or SI to convert 1394 HDV control/TC to RS-422 9-pin. At the moment FCP doesn't seem to allow you to unlock HDV deck control from the HDV capture module. It would be great if you could use 1394 for control and TC and HD-SDI for capture.
They'll probably remove this limitation in the next update.

In FCP, any of the 720P60 capture codecs should work (uncompressed, DVCPROHD, or JPEG.) I don't have a HD250 to confirm this for you, but since I was able to capture 720P60 from the HD100 via multibridge, and the multibridge simply converts analog to HD-SDI, then I don't forsee there being a problem with the HD250 in any 720P mode.

[Daniel Patton]

Originally Posted by Tim Dashwood

In FCP, any of the 720P60 capture codecs should work (uncompressed, DVCPROHD, or JPEG.) I don't have a HD250 to confirm this for you, but since I was able to capture 720P60 from the HD100 via multibridge, and the multibridge simply converts analog to HD-SDI, then I don't forsee there being a problem with the HD250 in any 720P mode.

Yep, everything component works fine from the HD250 to the BM, it's just SDI from the 250 that we wanted to overcome, and no luck there. Since we are looking at the BM device and the 250 with direct SDI to system capture, live during the shoot, my understanding is device control does not apply here.

Carl, we did not expect BM to have setup for the 250, but it was worth a shot. We had a few other considerations for evaluating the 250 early on, and for those items it was worth it. I believe that we will need to do another test once we are sure that the 250, SDI and BM communicate. We did not have an SDI monitor to check output from the 250 (yes this would have made it a little easier), but we did spend roughly 3 hours going through all of the 250's configurations on the Mac Pro, both OS's and on both FCP and PP2 trying to get a working setup for SDI capture. We had the BM monitoring via component to an HD monitor (as Tim mentions it converts) so had we found an SDI setup I believe we would have seen it.

I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea, we kind of expected to run into trouble with the SDI portion of our testing, since I don't believe a setup has been anounced by anyone for use specific with the 250. We had fingers crossed but that's all.

All SDI B*S* aside, the camera with the 13X lens is a super, super nice setup. It's real hard to shoot with anything much less now. I understand that the camera was more richly developed for those who need a good studio camera, and using it first hand I believe the 250 would be an excellent choice for studio work. But it's also very desirable for field work over the HD100, if you have the funding to go that route, you are moving in the right direction.

If no objections to sharing, we took some pictures of the two cameras and compared a few physical features, etc. But I'll save that for another post.

[Bill Ravens]

Daniel...

Sounds you're breaking trail for those of us who follow. I just bought the HD110 to wet my feet and have ordered the 17x5 lens upgrade from JVC. I expect in the coming year my HD110 will become the beta camera to the HD200 or 250. I see no reason the HD200 wouldn't make a very nice field camera. I look forward to your camera comparison. I do wonder about image compatibility between the HD110 and HD200/250, particularly when captured over component vs. HD-SDI.

[Adam Letch]

I'm sure theres a small following of people waiting eagerly to see what sort of image and slow mo can be pulled out of the camera. I don't know if you were familiar with the HD100/101/110/111 to be able to compare, but I'm interested to see what the new dsp can do and the new colour matrix's. And the new glass as well if your not using the standard Fujinon.

[Carl Hicks]

Originally Posted by Bill Ravens

Daniel...

Sounds you're breaking trail for those of us who follow. I just bought the HD110 to wet my feet and have ordered the 17x5 lens upgrade from JVC. I expect in the coming year my HD110 will become the beta camera to the HD200 or 250. I see no reason the HD200 wouldn't make a very nice field camera. I look forward to your camera comparison. I do wonder about image compatibility between the HD110 and HD200/250, particularly when captured over component vs. HD-SDI.

There is a new GY-HD250 owner in my area that is testing right now with a Discreet Smoke HD-SDI system. With his permission, we'll post some results on that sometime soon.

[Greg Milneck]

Hi Carl,
Sorry for the delay, the camera left the day I received it to go out on a shoot for National Geographic. It will return on Wednesday and I'll be able to report results with the Smoke 2K system and HD-SDI out.

[Daniel Patton]

Originally Posted by Adam Letch

I'm sure theres a small following of people waiting eagerly to see what sort of image and slow mo can be pulled out of the camera. I don't know if you were familiar with the HD100/101/110/111 to be able to compare, but I'm interested to see what the new dsp can do and the new colour matrix's. And the new glass as well if your not using the standard Fujinon.

Adam,
Like most of you guys, we are familur with the HD100/16X combination, it's what we currently own. The HD250 was on short loan here thanks to Carl and his contacts, I only wish we could have tested longer. But from my understanding the 250 we used is on a tight schedule and for every day we had it someone else was missing out, so off again it went.

We tested the HD250/13X against our current HD100/16X to DVC-PRO HD direct via component to the Decklink (as mentioned no SDI). I also shot a little bit outdoors so we could see what it looks like to MPEG/tape, it's all at the office or I would be digging through it now. ;) I'll share what I have once we have dug through it.

I'm also real interested to see what Greg finds and what SDI setup he uses for the 250 and Smoke. At this point I'm unclear if all you need is simply SDI capture or SDI and the specific "setup" for this camera/data stream.

[Adam Letch]

look forward to it. The SDI output should put this camera into a new realm, and the indie world can only be a better place when such tools are placed in our hands....