Blackmagic & AJA cards - do I HAVE to capture uncompressed?

[dan_aka_jack]

Hi there,

I'm considering finally making the leap to HD and buying either a Blackmagic or AJA card for my Premiere Pro system. However, I'm reluctant to spend loads of money on a RAID array fast enough to capture uncompressed 4:2:2 HD.

My question is: do these cards allow you to symaltaneously capture over HD-SDI whilst converting the incomming uncompressed video to a compressed format like DVC-Pro-HD or Cineform, hence allowing me to ingest HD even though my RAID array can only manage write rates of about 50 MB/sec?

Many thanks,
Jack

 

[MikeCurtis]

depending on the NLE, yeah. Final Cut can do DVCPRO HD on the fly, and Blackmagic cards support PhotoJPEG on the fly as well. I think AIC might be an option too, not sure.

 

[dan_aka_jack]

Hey Mike!

Thanks loads for the reply - I've been a reader of your blog for a while now... keep up the great work!

After reading your post, I went back to the Blackmagic site and found this:

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/hd/compatibilty/

Online JPEG for Adobe Premiere Pro™

On Windows, Blackmagic's full resolution (1920x1080) professional quality compressed HD codec can capture JPEG AVI files in real time using Premiere Pro. Unlike HDV and DVCPRO HD which uses reduced resolution 1440x1080 video, Blackmagic's Online JPEG maintains the full resolution 1920x1080 resolution of HD video without the huge file size of uncompressed HD video. Blackmagic's Online JPEG is so efficient that full motion 1080i HD video can be recorded at only 12 MB per second vs. a massive 119 MB per second for uncompressed HD video.

Blackmagic's compressed files are so compact, that 1080 HD video can be captured to a single internal hard disk or easily transported on a portable Firewire drive! Online JPEG is compatible with Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects and can even be used by editors without Blackmagic capture cards making it one of the most versatile compressed codecs available.

Any clues as to how easy these Blackmagic JPEG files are to grade? Do they throw away a lot of information in the shaddows? I'm planning a shoot with the Sony HDW-750P (HDCAM) and I'd like to edit and grade on my Premiere Pro PC.

 

[dan_aka_jack]

Yikes... the BlackMagic website seems to say that the Decklink Pro HD PCI-E card can't symaltaneously down-convert to analogue SD whilst playing back HD. That's a deal-breaker for me. But the document on Blackmagic's site is over a year old. Does anyone know if the most recent Blackmagic Windows XP driver can do symaltaneous SD down-conversion?

Many thanks,
Jack