Vegas and Intesity HDMI card?
 

Can vegas capture and more importantly use the HDMI output to preview on an 1080p HDTV? Thanks for any help.

Stephen Eastwood
http://www.StephenEastwood.com

No. I just installed an Intensity Pro on my computer. It works with everything adobe, but not Vegas. I got word back from a Black Magic Design Engineer who said currently they currently don't support Vegas at all.

It will work, but, you need to use the BMD drivers from an earlier version.

The BMD Decklink cards works with the proper driver.

There is no support for the HDMI Intensity line at all.

Any news on the Intensity Pro and Vegas? I have one being delivered on Tuesday and I sure would prefer to use Vegas as opposed to Premiere. I have Premiere v2.0, but I really don't want to use it.

John

What about just using Cineform? or is your budget too low/you don't want to buy anymore stuff?

Any news on Intensity Pro working as preview monitor for Vegas?

I got this today from Blackmagic Design:

"Our engineers are working closely with Vegas engineers towards making it all work together. Unfortunately, I don't have any particular timeframe for how soon this will happen, but it's gonna happen."

In the meantime, check this out:

www.videoguys.com/vegaspro8.html

It looks like in addition to a massively improved titler, we get 32-bit (!) video processing, not just the 10 bit for which we were hoping. We also get HDV smart rendering and BluRay support. Version 8 appears to be a MAJOR upgrade. Kudos to the team in Madison.

John

Good news.
I might fire off an email regarding the info we're hearing the the Studio card's component inputs. Maybe they would share their info on the Intensity Pro component input quality as a comparison to the Studio card.

Any news on this subject? I have just invested in a Full HDTV plasma, and hung it above my desktop. I'd like to use it as the full screen preview monitor in Vegas. Even though this has been discussed in many threads already, I am still not clear whether it's possible to achieve full fps (or at least much better than in the preview window) while playing the timeline in Best/Full preview config. If so, what hardware do I need to invest into? I mean, I'm NOT so much interested in a capturing device as I'm using file approach in acquisition (EX1), but in helping Vegas resample the timeline. Is it viable?

So, is it a good idea to invest in the Blackmagic Intensity card? As I understand it, in terms of fps, even these cards cannot play faster from Vegas timeline than the preview window. Just to make sure :)

Also, can it play back 1080/25p? In the specs, I can oly see 1080i...But even if I send my 1080p timeline as 1080i to the HDTV, it will de-interlace it; only...how much is it worth for previewing progressive?

Well, I guess i I still had the V1E with HDMI out, I'd buy the Intensity without hesitation. But with the file based EX1, is it still worth it? Any comments welcome!

I've been considering a Blackmagic Intensity Pro to output Vegas to an HD monitor for preview. I currently use 2 20" Dells for editing and would like to use these for just timeline / trimmer / and all the rest leaving the HD monitor for preview from an Intensity

Now, this post and others ask the question as to whether Vegas works with Intensity but none of them have any definitive answers! The trail just stops!

I'm assuming that Blackmagic sorted out the Vegas compatibility issue and that's that.

However, can anyone here confirm this before I order it? Also, can anyone tell me whether my edit machine would suffer trying to output to 2 DVI monitors and a HDTV? Pentium Dual e6700 2.66. 2 g RAM GeForce 8800GTS

Any help appreciated!

Yes, the Intensity now works with Vegas. However, Vegas does not take advantage of the hardware acceleration of the Intensity, so you won't see preview frame rates above what you would get by just using the "secondary monitor" function. It does work fairly well if you have a fast computer.

Thanks John, that's good news.

However, what sort of hardware acceleration would PPro and FCP users see then that we Vegas users will not? Will I see any loss in performance as a result or will the preview frame rate be the same as the preview sat next to the timeline?

In Vegas, the Intensity preview rate is the same as the preview window.

Hi John,
I've been trying to get intensity to work AT ALL on my system. I'm currently running Win XP 64 and under Vegas 8.0c I get "Black Magic Decklink" (not BM intensity) come up under the preview devices menu. It has a number of options you can select from, NTSC/PAL etc - none of which seem to produce any output to the ASUS monitor I'm trying to preview on. Under Vegas 8.1 - there's no BMD preview device recognised at all. Interestingly enough, under after effects, it lists "BMD intensity" in the preview devices but I can ONLY get a preview to come out if the settings are put to NTSC output (I'm in PAL land) and this appears pixelated and low res - none of the HD modes will work at all. I have the latest BMD intensity 2 drivers for 64 bit installed. Any ideas? Seems like a total waste of $300 from where I stand.
Thanks,
David.

In the new Vegas 8 "c" is a longer HDV Stream (HV20/30, XHA1, FX1) with Intensity HDMI output (driver 2.1) only 22-23fps! My system is Q6600 Vista 32 + XPprof. 4Gb Ram.
In Vegas 8 "b" is the HDV stream allways with 25fps very good.
---------------------------------------------------------------
answer BM Support:

Hi Wolfgang,

Unfortunately this is more than likely a limitation of the driver’s beta support for Vegas. The only other things I could think of that may cause this is processor speed (this seems unlikely since you both get much the same result on XP and Vista), or possibly a bottleneck with your storage solution.

When Vegas 8 support is finalised we would expect this problem to fixed, but sadly for the moment I can only log the problem.
If you need any further assistance, please do get in touch.

------------------------------

i go back to 8 "b".......

Sorry to resurrect this thread, just wondering how well the Intensity is working for people with Vegas 8.0c, and the new 9.0. I believe they recently came out with new drivers for the Intensity to add compatibility with Adobe CS4, wondering if this fixed/broke any functionality in Vegas. Thanks!

i will report the update when i receive V9. So far it doesnt work with V8.0c becuz Vegas engineers would not release interface information to Blackmagic as I was told. I think it is the same for V9

Yet another reason why Vegas doesn't justify the "pro" tag at all - its a hobbyists tool that many use professionally. Its unbelievable that Vegas doesn't work with Intensity card, just like it doesn't work with the Matrox MX02 Mini, just like red magic only bothers to make one of its plug-ins compatible with Vegas whereas everyone of them are compatible with Premiere or Apple FCP.

I love the vegas interface but hate its inability to interface to 3rd party hardware and plug-ins.... aaaagh

In frustration.

Well, it's there, but it's in a really scratchy beta release. Crashed the first time I tried to use external video with it.

Vegas and Intensity HDMI card?
 

I've succesfully used the Intensity Pro HDMI card with all versions of Vegas Pro 8, i.e. capturing via HDMI and preview via HDMI to a HD LCD during edit even though Blackmagic Design maintains that it is only Beta drivers available for Vegas Pro 8.

ONLY INSTALL THE INTENSITY DRIVERS AFTER VEGAS HAS BEEN INSTALLED!! If for some reason you had to un/re-install Vegas Pro 8, uninstall and reinstall the Intensity Pro drivers.

I've installed both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vegas Pro 9. The Intensity Pro drivers do not get installed in the appropriate Vegas Pro 9 directories, for the Vegas Pro 9 32-bit version do the following (these .dlls will be found in the corresponding Vegas Pro 8 directories):

Copy BMDDecklinkVideoProperties.dll to Vegas Pro 9.0 directory
Copy DeckLinkVegas.dll to Vegas Pro 9.0\Video Hardware Drivers directory

Thus far I have not had any problems with Vegas Pro 9 32-bit using the Intensity Pro card. However it appears that the 64-bit version of Vegas Pro 9 does not "recognise" the Intensity Pro drivers, as far as I am concerned, looking at the Vgeas documentation, it is rather a Vegas issue than an Intensity Pro issue as the only ather device apart from Firewire that Vegas will recognise is the AJA card or device.

It is a real pity that Sony actually launched the 64-bit version with many shortcomings, e.g. I can't open any .m2t files captured with Cineform with Vegas 64-bit version. This is discussed elsewhere on the forum. At this point in time the quote "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" is really applicable. So far tests done with footage captured directly with Vegas 64-bit and editing/rendering seems to work well.

Spotted Cat Productions

Thanks for the info! Looking at the intensity driver archives version 1.8.2 added Vegas support (beta). Do you know if the subsequent or latest 3.1.2 drivers break Vegas functionality? It's a shame Sony and Black Magic don't nail this down as the combo is such a great overall value. Especially now that the Intensity Pro retails at under $200.

Is this the appropriate place?
 

Is this the appropriate place to ask why Sony does not support third party anything?

From what I am told, Vegas could take over the industry...except that Sony insists on holding Vegas back, by not 'telling any secrets' that could be used to make Vegas compatible with third party hardware and software.

Does anyone know what gives? Or should I start checking into Premiere/CS4?

Picked up an Intensity Pro on ebay and so far it seems to work properly with the latest drivers. So it seems it works with Vegas, but is not officially supported. It may be a hit or miss thing depending on the OS or other factors. I'll post updates if I come across any issues. Win XP 32bit, Vegas 8.0c, Intensity Pro drivers 3.1.2

Well, this is all fine rumour & all. Perhaps someone even knows the answers, but they'd probably be doing the strategic thinking inside SCS, probably unlikely to share their future strategies.

More speculation: Supporting 3rd party apps or hardware takes money and time, not only for initial development and support, but also lots of maintenance, lots to keep up with. I can't imagine it's an easy decision.

Should you check into Premiere? If third-party hardware/software support is a make-or-break issue for you, then you betcha'. However, Sony's dependence on exclusively tasking the processor (rather than hardware) with functionality has actually worked quite well for most users.

>>Well, this is all fine rumour & all. Perhaps someone even knows the answers, but they'd probably be doing the strategic thinking inside SCS, probably unlikely to share their future strategies.

Well, sorry to whine. It is just so frustrating to love an NLE, and not be able to get the functionality one wants/needs.

I spoke with SCS about it, and they said that they would offer more third party functionality, but that it would make the program cost more, because all of that code has to be written in, and then there are royalties.

I told them I would gladly pay more for an 'Ultra' version of VPro, if it meant I could get more 3rd party functionality. That way those who are happy with the present VPro can keep on using, that; and then those of us who want more could purchase 'the next level up', so to speak. Because I would happily pay more, rather than have to switch.

For those of you who have successfully gotten the BlackMagic Intensity Pro to work with Vegas, what codecs are you capturing with?

Thanks in advance.

So far, the Intensity Pro has been painless and fun to implement on the playback side, using Vegas Pro 8.0c. Previews to the HDTV in the next room look great. One of these days I'll stick one on the wall in front of my editing station.

The capture codecs included with the card stopped me cold. These codecs are not compressing enough for my 2-drive SATA Raid0 to sustain a 1080i/p stream. 720p - OK, SD - OK.

But I want 1080i. I hope to get it from Cineform's capture app/codec, but won't be able to start work on testing this until mid-July.

Hi Seth. How fast is your processor?
Norman

Hi Bill.
From
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/what-happ...mi-card-2.html
________________________________________
I've successfully used the Intensity Pro HDMI card with all versions of Vegas Pro 8, i.e. capturing via HDMI and preview via HDMI to a HD LCD during edit even though Blackmagic Design maintains that it is only Beta drivers available for Vegas Pro 8.

ONLY INSTALL THE INTENSITY DRIVERS AFTER VEGAS HAS BEEN INSTALLED!! If for some reason you had to un/re-install Vegas Pro 8, uninstall and reinstall the Intensity Pro drivers.

I've installed both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vegas Pro 9. The Intensity Pro drivers do not get installed in the appropriate Vegas Pro 9 directories, for the Vegas Pro 9 32-bit version do the following (these .dlls will be found in the corresponding Vegas Pro 8 directories):

Copy BMDDecklinkVideoProperties.dll to Vegas Pro 9.0 directory
Copy DeckLinkVegas.dll to Vegas Pro 9.0\Video Hardware Drivers directory

Thus far I have not had any problems with Vegas Pro 9 32-bit using the Intensity Pro card. However it appears that the 64-bit version of Vegas Pro 9 does not "recognise" the Intensity Pro drivers, as far as I am concerned, looking at the Vgeas documentation, it is rather a Vegas issue than an Intensity Pro issue as the only ather device apart from Firewire that Vegas will recognise is the AJA card or device.

It is a real pity that Sony actually launched the 64-bit version with many shortcomings, e.g. I can't open any .m2t files captured with Cineform with Vegas 64-bit version. This is discussed elsewhere on the forum. At this point in time the quote "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" is really applicable. So far tests done with footage captured directly with Vegas 64-bit and editing/rendering seems to work well.

Spotted Cat Productions
____________________________-

I sure hope that helps.

Norman

This particular machine is a 2.4GHz Core2 Duo with 2GB RAM running XP Pro SP3. Near the end of its life as my primary station - an i7 roughly per the build Jeff Harper has described is next.

The Intensity Pro comes with drive speed test software, here are my results:
2-drive SATA Raid 0 - 73.3MB/s read, 76.7MB/s write.
Per their report, this will get me 18/19fps for 1080 4:2:2 8bit, 41/43fps for 720p, 109/114 for SD.

For 10-bit 4:2:2 - 13/14 at 1080, 31/32 at 720.

This raid is hardware managed via a dedicated mobo controller, not windows managed.

Well now. That's odd. I just ran a speed test on a partition of my system drive, non-raid, and got better results than the raid drive, at 94.4MB/s read, 95.9MB/s write. That still only gets me 23/24fps for 1080, but is an indication that something's wrong with my raid setup - it ought to give me something like 150MB/s or more.

Oops. Looks like I have some 'splaining to do... these Raid0 results don't count. Perhaps a properly configured and optimized 2-drive SATA Raid 0 is going to be fast enough for the BMD codecs at 1080.

Hi Seth.
It sounds like you've got a lot more knowledge and experience than I do. Please let me know what you find out about your RAID 0 setup.
Other users have said that 2.4 GHz is marginal, and that 2.6 GHz is better...but it sounds like you have more of a handle on this particular problem than I do, at the moment.
I will be interested to know how it works out.
Norman

The Intensity can capture either uncompressed or using its Motion JPEG codec. Capturing 1920x1080 uncompressed at 59.94 fields per second requires a data rate of about 120 megabytes per second. This is too much for a single high-end hard drive. The Intensity's MJPEG codec requires about 13 megabytes per second at 1080i-59.94 and virtually any hard drive can do this without breaking a sweat.

John, thanks for that clarification. I hadn't really gotten to wringing out the capture side, and, due to unfamiliarity, was mislead by the disk speed test app.

Confirming what John said, the disk speed test app that comes with the IP has uncompressed capture benchmarks built into it. It also gives you raw data, but you gotta' know how to interpret it!

I'm now doing some test captures using the BMD MJPEG codec, and though I'm just at my desk, with no examples of smooth motion to shoot, it appears to be capturing just fine.

Regarding CPU (Core2 Duo at 2.4GHz)... this is a pretty stripped down editing machine, there's nothing extra running in the background. I'm doing 1080-60i running about 88% processor load, peaks up to about 93%. Short tests, lots of camera motion.

No time to get into the Raid 0 configuration right now, but I'm hopeful of getting that speed up significantly.