Hey! Blackmagic guy!
 

I know there is someone from Blackmagic design that lurks here, I just don't remember who you are. I have a few install questions, could you help me out please?

I have a Abit KN8 Ultra, with 1 PCIExpress slot, 3 PCIe slots, 3 PCI slots, and one new Decklink HD Pro, and I'm not sure where to stuff the card. The Express slot is waaay longer than the tab on my card. Will it work in the PCIe slots?

I'm not a black magic employee so sorry about that.

I don't think your setup will work to be honest. I just pulled up the KN8 Ultra and like you said it has one PCIe 16x, 3 PCIe 1x, an 3 PCI. To get the Blackmagic card to work you need a PCIe 4x or greater.

PCIe 1x are really short, PCIe 4x are longer and can either be a PCIe 4x connector with a PCIe 1x interface or a 4x connector with a 4x interface. PCIe 8x are the same size as the 16x but only have half the number of channels.

To use the New PCIe decklink you need a True PCIe 4x slot with 4x interface or greater. Why greater, well because PCIe is backwards compatible. You can plug a 1x card into a 16x slot and it will only use 1 channel, or you can put a 4x card into an 8x slot, but you can't put a 4x card into a 1x slot.

So Unless you want to use it in your 16x slot and use a PCI graphics card (do they still make these) I think you need a new mainboard.

Blackmagic do have a very short list of approved mainboards... a very short list.

The only approved ones are a tyan and a high end asus. But what you really need is a true 4x slot

Edit: I mean only approved AMD ones, theirs 2 intel and a supermicro on the intel side of this, but figured you had an AMD board you'd probably have the processor already

Thanks Keith. I tried, but I just couldn't find a straight answer that didn't leave me more confused. I was still up in the air over capture cards, when I did the upgrade. These express slots are new to me, as I'm usually 2 years behind the technology.

Apparently, the Abit board I *should* have gotten, is the KN8 SLI, but I ended up with the Ultra instead. This has been one expensive waste of time.

Ya, the any of the SLi boards should work. Hopefully this all works out for you in the end. PCIe can be a little confusing and it seems that most manufacturers only seem to have either 16x or 1x slots which can be a pain for high badwidth intensive stuff like video editing.

Good luck and hope it works out.

Thanks again. I just ordered an Abit KN8 Sli and 2 gig of ram for just under $250. That officially puts me about $500 over what I had to spend on this upgrade. Not to mention, a brand new board I can't use now.

I'm still not sure if this card is supposed to sit in the Express slot. The tab on the card is much shorter than the express slot. This is still ok?

Also- Does Black Magic have a regular breakout box, like the one the DV Storm has?

Ok... got yet another MB, got new ram for the new motherboard, and got the thing installed. The PC seems to recognise it... all is good, probably till I try to capture.

Now, while I was installing this card, I noticed what looked like a firewire socket, on the very corner, in the very back. Does this mean the card could hook up to a firewire port somewhere?