Is blackmagic just blowing smoke up my rear re: HDMI out and HDV

Ed Kishel

Ed Kishel

Veteran
I am interested in purchasing the intensity card but have 2 tech questions first. I know the card captures full HD at 4:2:2 when the camera is hooked up live to the card but since I will be going to HDV tape first:

What’s the advantage to the intensity card over firewire card if you are capturing from pre-recorded HDV tape? If HDV tape is 1440 by 1080: is the intensity card just stretching it out to turn HDV into full HD (1920 x 1080)?

Or is the camera stretching the HDV tape source up to 1920 x 1080 for HDMI out?

And is this the same process for the color space, just adding info (either camera or card) to get 4:2:0 to 4:2:2?

After speaking with Blackmagic design- their salesperson stated that as long as you are using the HDMI out and not the firewire you are getting the full uncompressed 1920 x 1080 4:2:2 even if you are playing off tape. I understand how this works live because you are removing miniDV tape from the equation. But I thought once its on tape, its stuck in HDV specs.

Thanks!

Ed
 
I believe once it is laid out to tape, it has gone through the compression of HDV and is now 1440 by 1080 at 4:2:0.......
 
There is no advantage to capturing through an intensity, if you've already recorded to tape first.

You might still find the intensity interesting as a monitoring card, for live playout to an HDMI monitor. But for capturing from tape? No improvement.
 
thats what I thought. But on their website it states:

"If you're capturing off HDV tape, you can still enjoy editing video in full resolution, so your graphics and effects look sharp because only uncompressed video eliminates the horizontal scaling that’s required when rendering HDV footage with graphics and effects."
found here: http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/quality/

I am not sure how to interpret that. I will probably get the card for HD mornitoring but only after getting some real facts from BMD or owners of the product.
 
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