Black Magic Intensity, or similar, in place of HD recording devices?

A lot of the compatibility issues Blackmagic are trying to disown with that attitude are actually to do with the ability of the system to preview video, not actually making the card itself work. I have built several systems around BMD hardware which were not capable, due to limitations in the tiny low-power graphics chipsets used in embedded motherboards, of prevewing or replaying video as part of a desktop display. The cards often still work fine, and you can spool video to or from a file and watch the results on a monitor connected to the blackmagic card's output.

Of course, you need to write custom software to do that, but the cards in general work even if the desktop video window can't.
 
A lot of the compatibility issues Blackmagic are trying to disown with that attitude are actually to do with the ability of the system to preview video, not actually making the card itself work. I have built several systems around BMD hardware which were not capable, due to limitations in the tiny low-power graphics chipsets used in embedded motherboards, of prevewing or replaying video as part of a desktop display. The cards often still work fine, and you can spool video to or from a file and watch the results on a monitor connected to the blackmagic card's output.

Of course, you need to write custom software to do that, but the cards in general work even if the desktop video window can't.

but still, the card wont set itself on 24p when recieving the camera output (at least from my experience).
i think (and hope) that it can be done on a "locked down" nano recorder or such.
 
but still, the card wont set itself on 24p when recieving the camera output (at least from my experience).
i think (and hope) that it can be done on a "locked down" nano recorder or such.


If you spend a few hundred pounds for Cineform Neo HD - it allows you to preview as well albeit with a small window and also passes the HD image through to a monitor if I remember correctly. It also does automatic pulldown removal ( from a 60i input - 24p embedded) for you as well so you can end up with pristine 24p files. I did have issues with the first few seconds of every take with my HFS10 because it has no flags but once it picked up the cadence it was rock solid. Cineform is an awesome codec to work with and first light just adds so much value in grading. The blackmagic design cards just come alive with Cineform. I never had any useful stability out of them using the stock software and had no time for the mjpeg codec good as it was. Sometimes you need to spend some extra to get good hardware to be amazing.

A Wafian is thousands of pounds but it is incredible that with a magma chassis and the right card from Blackmagic design you can have the same quality for a fraction of the cost.

Phil Rhodes - are you the Phil Rhodes from Cinematography.com. If so - pleasure to meet you and guys - this man is a legend. Only saying.
 
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If you spend a few hundred pounds for Cineform Neo HD - it allows you to preview as well albeit with a small window and also passes the HD image through to a monitor if I remember correctly. It also does automatic pulldown for you as well so you can end up with pristine 24p files. I did have issues with the first few seconds of every take with my HFS10 because it has no flags but once it picked up the cadence it was rock solid. Cineform is an awesome codec to work with and first light just adds so much value in grading. The blackmagic design cards just come alive with Cineform. I never had any useful stability out of them using the stock software and had no time for the mjpeg codec good as it was. Sometimes you need to spend some extra to get good hardware to be amazing.

A Wafian is thousands of pounds but it is incredible that with a magma chassis and the right card from Blackmagic design you can have the same quality for a fraction of the cost.

Phil Rhodes - are you the Phil Rhodes from Cinematography.com. If so - pleasure to meet you and guys - this man is a legend. Only saying.


the major advantage about GH2 is the 900$ price.. if i intend to invest in a good (and very portable!) recorder on my tight budget as it is, i cannot go more than a Ninja anyways..
 
I really enjoyed your tutorial, Henry. Very informative, answered a lot of questions I had about this stuff. That said, I think I'll wait for a Ninja :D
 
Suppose BM supports all laptops with USB 3. It might not work on MBP as Apple is embracing LightPeak from Intel. Those camera makers are consumer electronic companies, and they love HDMI. OK let's have some device that captures uncompressed HDMI device. Then firewire, usb, lightpeak... Can't they make up their mind? I don't wanna lock into one platform.
 
Flattery will get you... er... an after-eight mint.

but still, the card wont set itself on 24p when recieving the camera output (at least from my experience).

No, they don't auto-select input type. I think this may be a hangover from Blackmagic's SDI experience, where HD-SDI devices don't generally try to determine the input signal type automatically.
 
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