Blackmagic Intensity Pro.............

Steve Rusk · February 22nd, 2010, 05:19 AM

This card has been mentioned elsewhere on this site before, but it's good to see it pop up for those who missed it. One guy was doing some high end ads using a Canon XH-A1 and bypassing its HDV compression by feeding the component out directly to his workstation. That's what I want it for. The other features are just icing on the cake.
Their website does talk about hardware requirements and transfer rates needed for each format, but you kind of have to search for it.

Mike Calla · February 22nd, 2010, 09:48 AM

Yep, a lot of people have been doing this for while... HDV cameras take some killer footage prior to encoding!

if you want to capture uncompressed you need a RAID setup that can handle Approx 120-150MB/s

But you can also capture to other compressed visually lossless codecs that can use off the shelf Harddrives and newish CPUs. AVID's DnxHD, Apple's ProRes and Cineform to name a few. There are also some freeware codecs.

Scour the forums and the answers are there. On the COW (sorry Chris) they have a dedicated blackmagic forum, helmed by lazy-forum-mods from the tech department of the company... so you have to badger them until they or someone answers.... but there's lot of Intensity discussions here and around the net but versions/drivers change all the time so some of the info might be out of date

For example, every few months i ask:

"DOES CINEFORM IN VEGAS PLAY OUT OF THE INTENSITY (or DECKLINK) CARD?"

Jack Zhang · February 26th, 2010, 12:57 AM

An alternative to a RAID is a OCZ Colossus 3.5'' Solid State Drive. 240MB/s Sequencial Write from 1 drive that has the equivalent of 4 2.5'' Solid State Drives in RAID. Not cheap though, 120GB goes for $400 at Newegg

Or you can wait for the Sandforce powered Solid State Drives that also gets blazing fast write speeds except it doesn't use RAID and is 2.5''.

Mike Calla · February 26th, 2010, 04:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jack Zhang

An alternative to a RAID is a OCZ Colossus 3.5'' Solid State Drive. 240MB/s Sequencial Write from 1 drive that has the equivalent of 4 2.5'' Solid State Drives in RAID. Not cheap though, 120GB goes for $400 at Newegg

Or you can wait for the Sandforce powered Solid State Drives that also gets blazing fast write speeds except it doesn't use RAID and is 2.5''.

That's very impressive!

I really REALLY want to use the Intensity, but i'm a Cineform/Vegas guy - these three don't work well together for timeline monitoring. Using aja for that now!

BUT BMD has their uncompressed codec and that will work with Vegas and the intensity.

I do short form stuff, commercials bascially. I usually get about 40-50 minutes of footage, so a hard drive that size would be more than sufficient for that amount of uncompressed video.

This might be my no-raid-solution!!!!

I'm think i'll start another thread on this topic!

Seth Bloombaum · February 26th, 2010, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Calla

...I really REALLY want to use the Intensity, but i'm a Cineform/Vegas guy - these three don't work well together for timeline monitoring. Using aja for that now!

BUT BMD has their uncompressed codec and that will work with Vegas and the intensity...

Mike, would you say more on the timeline monitoring issues you see? I use the BMI, but, don't usually have it hooked up for timeline monitoring - my brief tests a few months ago seemed to suggest that performance was equivalent to any secondary monitor? But, I didn't spend much time on Cineform content.

The capture side - my understanding is that you can cap from the BMI directly into the Cineform encoding codec, if you have purchased Neo, for example.

Mike Calla · February 27th, 2010, 12:23 AM

Not so much issues, but just, as usual, in Vegas, we can't use a lot of codecs with third party hardware. Like the Cineform codec on Premeire Pro's time line monitoring out of the Intensity works, but not in vegas. And support by BMD for vegas has been hit or miss, and i only say this from internet chatter and my experience with BMD designs support, which on a few occasions in past, was told by them(nicely), "Vegas V.xx isn't supported".

I had an intensity, bought ASAP upon release, kept it for a year, then sold it. It worked, but at that time just with BMD's own mjpeg codec which i found didn't hold up well during colour correction.

I found the outputted image quality was fine, better than secondary monitor to an actual computer monitor, but i never trusted colour on secondary monitor output to a computer monitor or even through a graphic cards output to a TV. Too manu colour issues - - unless its through firewire out, and using a codec that has translatable colour space i.e: Cineform timeline monitoring output over firewire gives me accurate colour. There are some other codecs that work well, colour space wise when monitoring via firewire OR using an AJA SDI board, buts AJA is too expensive for what i use it for, and i don't want to buy another.

I trusted colour on the Intensity BUT i didn't/don't want to use the mjpeg codec.

I just want to be able to monitor on an HD display, with a codec i like, and know that the colour is see are true!

cineform on vegas via intensity would be a god send for me. But if uncompressed is viable solution then i'd try that as well.

BTW i did start another thread about uncompressed on SSD

Everyone can easily monitor HD on LCD now with many cheap graphics cards but the colour is lying to us.

I said it before - i wish pro video was more like pro audio, where there are only a few formats and they are easily interchangeable!

sorry for rambling, been watching Olympic hockey all night/morning, and i can't keep my eyes open:) yay Canada!

Dale Guthormsen · March 1st, 2010, 03:16 PM

mike,

I was considering this intensity pro sense I got an hdv camera with hdmi. My work flow is cineform/vegas as well.

What other option is there? Aja card, which one?

dale

Mike Calla · March 1st, 2010, 09:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dale Guthormsen

(...) My work flow is cineform/vegas as well.

What other option is there? Aja card, which one?(...)

Cineform doesn't work on Intensity in Vegas. For YEARS the CFO and CEO have been on the forums saying, "we are working on it" but i think Sony is the one holding everyone back...i assume its a business decision but it still sucks!

Any Aja Xena card will work with Cineform on Vegas. But they are expensive, and most of what they can do is what i don't need. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/439543-REG/AJA_XENA_LSE_XENA_LSe_12_Bit_SD_Video.html This is the cheapest card for Windows. It's not HD, only SD.

The HD version is 1300$

ONCE AGAIN My workflow is shaped by what i CAN'T DO in Vegas. IMHO don't pay money for an AJA card if you don't need all the extra features. Use Vegas's DV/firewire out to a professional broadcast monitor, which you can buy with all that money you saved. you can pick up a JVC TMH150CGU CRT monitor. Its SD but has great colour and widespread use in the industry. OR you can pick up an JVC DT-V100CGU HD monitor,(its a CRT so it still looks good with SD signals, lcds and plasmas don't look too good in SD) and you can monitor in SD now and when you can afford to get an AJA, or Intensity works, with Vegas using Cineform you already have a upgrade path to monitoring in HD.

February 22nd, 2010, 09:48 AM	#32
Mike Calla Major Player Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Shanghai Posts: 344	Yep, a lot of people have been doing this for while... HDV cameras take some killer footage prior to encoding! if you want to capture uncompressed you need a RAID setup that can handle Approx 120-150MB/s But you can also capture to other compressed visually lossless codecs that can use off the shelf Harddrives and newish CPUs. AVID's DnxHD, Apple's ProRes and Cineform to name a few. There are also some freeware codecs. Scour the forums and the answers are there. On the COW (sorry Chris) they have a dedicated blackmagic forum, helmed by lazy-forum-mods from the tech department of the company... so you have to badger them until they or someone answers.... but there's lot of Intensity discussions here and around the net but versions/drivers change all the time so some of the info might be out of date For example, every few months i ask: "DOES CINEFORM IN VEGAS PLAY OUT OF THE INTENSITY (or DECKLINK) CARD?" __________________ boxoutsidemedia.com

February 27th, 2010, 12:23 AM	#36
Mike Calla Major Player Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Shanghai Posts: 344	Not so much issues, but just, as usual, in Vegas, we can't use a lot of codecs with third party hardware. Like the Cineform codec on Premeire Pro's time line monitoring out of the Intensity works, but not in vegas. And support by BMD for vegas has been hit or miss, and i only say this from internet chatter and my experience with BMD designs support, which on a few occasions in past, was told by them(nicely), "Vegas V.xx isn't supported". I had an intensity, bought ASAP upon release, kept it for a year, then sold it. It worked, but at that time just with BMD's own mjpeg codec which i found didn't hold up well during colour correction. I found the outputted image quality was fine, better than secondary monitor to an actual computer monitor, but i never trusted colour on secondary monitor output to a computer monitor or even through a graphic cards output to a TV. Too manu colour issues - - unless its through firewire out, and using a codec that has translatable colour space i.e: Cineform timeline monitoring output over firewire gives me accurate colour. There are some other codecs that work well, colour space wise when monitoring via firewire OR using an AJA SDI board, buts AJA is too expensive for what i use it for, and i don't want to buy another. I trusted colour on the Intensity BUT i didn't/don't want to use the mjpeg codec. I just want to be able to monitor on an HD display, with a codec i like, and know that the colour is see are true! cineform on vegas via intensity would be a god send for me. But if uncompressed is viable solution then i'd try that as well. BTW i did start another thread about uncompressed on SSD Everyone can easily monitor HD on LCD now with many cheap graphics cards but the colour is lying to us. I said it before - i wish pro video was more like pro audio, where there are only a few formats and they are easily interchangeable! sorry for rambling, been watching Olympic hockey all night/morning, and i can't keep my eyes open:) yay Canada! __________________ boxoutsidemedia.com

March 1st, 2010, 03:16 PM	#37
Dale Guthormsen Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Saskatchewan Posts: 3,048	mike, I was considering this intensity pro sense I got an hdv camera with hdmi. My work flow is cineform/vegas as well. What other option is there? Aja card, which one? dale __________________ DATS ALL FOLKS Dale W. Guthormsen

February 22nd, 2010, 05:19 AM	#31
Steve Rusk Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Stuttgart Germany Posts: 63	This card has been mentioned elsewhere on this site before, but it's good to see it pop up for those who missed it. One guy was doing some high end ads using a Canon XH-A1 and bypassing its HDV compression by feeding the component out directly to his workstation. That's what I want it for. The other features are just icing on the cake. Their website does talk about hardware requirements and transfer rates needed for each format, but you kind of have to search for it.

February 26th, 2010, 12:57 AM	#33
Jack Zhang Inner Circle Join Date: May 2005 Location: Burnaby, BC, Canada Posts: 3,053	An alternative to a RAID is a OCZ Colossus 3.5'' Solid State Drive. 240MB/s Sequencial Write from 1 drive that has the equivalent of 4 2.5'' Solid State Drives in RAID. Not cheap though, 120GB goes for $400 at Newegg Or you can wait for the Sandforce powered Solid State Drives that also gets blazing fast write speeds except it doesn't use RAID and is 2.5''.