Still no realtime timeline output with Blackmagic?

[Deniz Ahmet]

I was surprised to see that the option to enable live HDMI timeline preview is as yet not available from Cineform and CS5. Is it coming? I remember it being promised.

This is with the Blackmagic Intensity board btw.

Thank you.

[Robert Young]

Deniz
I'm curious what is the difference b/t HDMI out to full screen overlay monitor from my Quadro 3800, and "live" HDMI out from the Blackmagic Intensity card??
Thanks

[Roger Keay]

I can't compare with your Quatro card but I can comment on the Black Magic Intensity Pro and my ATI card. In short, when using the BM motion-JPEG timeline, the HDMI output on the card tracks the video window (source or timeline) that you are using in PP. More important in my opinion, the BM card will output interlaced signals as interlaced. The ATI card does not handle interlaced source signals accurately and appears to either play the fields in the wrong order or de-interlace to progressive resulting in an appearance I would describe as motion ghosts. The problem is not resolved if the ATI output is set to 1080i output. Playback through the BM card looks the same as a direct playback from the camera (Canon XH-A1). The BM card also carries the audio which is very convenient if you are monitoring with a consumer HDTV.

The BM card will not play at normal speed from the CF timeline but will reproduce still frames and off-speed playback from the source monitor. On the source monitor it is useful for adjusting video and setting edit points. The BM card works with the FirstLight application.

I think both Cineform and BM would benefit from making this card work properly with CF timelines on the PP timeline. The card is inexpensive and does a good job. It already works for CF capture from HDMI and analog sources so why not finish the job?

[Geoff Gartside]

When we worked with HDCAM, Blackmagic & CS2 a few years ago we just took our Blackmagic timeline monitor output for granted! Now we use a Red One with Cineform RAW and are grateful just to get a good monitor o/p from FirstLight (without which we would be lost).

Cineform did promise improved support for BM well before we bought into Prospect 4K, over a year ago.

Come on Cineform - it's about time we had a BM timeline output!!

[David Newman]

FirstLight supports BlackMagic cards directly, along with AJA and NVidia HDSDI. For timeline monitoring in CS5 you will need to use a Blackmagic editing mode, that should work fine. We made the descision that hardware vendors support their cards best, and we even dropped AJA support and now defer to their editing mode. This is better for all users as we can focus on develeping on the core product, rather than spending engineering time on a subset of I/O cards. AJA, Blackmagic, Bluefish and Matrox I/O devices should all work with CineForm sources, if not they should be contacted. Many of these companies are now CineForm licensees and will be adding native live CineForm capture to their feature list soon.