Uncompressed SDI out to HDMI Black Magic Intensity Pro

C

chrismartin

Member
I'm trying to capture uncompressed 1920x1080 with my HPX-170 to my computer (bypassing the P2 card). I just bought a Black Magic Intensity Pro Card. The Intensity Pro has 2 options for inputs. Component and HDMI.

I could use the component but this is where my knowledge is limited. If I did it that way, would I be getting a degraded picture quality since I would be going digital (camera) to analog (component cable) then back to digital (Intensity Pro/Computer).

Or would it be better to go SDI out from the HPX-170 to an SDI/HDMI converter then capture it that way?

Thanks!
 
Depending on how your camera is processing.

The Sensor is analog anyway. Then there is some processing - and THEN the signal gets converted to digital and send to your HDMI.
If the camera hands the analog signal to the RGB out and you go digital in the Intensity it´s just a question of which AD converter is better - your camera´s or the Intnensity`s.

Just make some tests. It all depends how your camera is handling the internal signal processing.

Frank
 
Ok, thanks. I wasn't sure if the sensor was digital or analog. I had it in my head it must digital. But if it's not, what you said makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up.

I don't have an SDI to HDMI converter to do a test, and they cost about 500 dollars (which I would pay if I knew that that was a sharper picture) but I'm guessing the Intensity Pro A/D converter would be as good as or better than the in camera one.

One thing I still don't understand: I have the camera connected to my 1080 TV with the component cables and the picture looks horrible. It has a LOT of large compression artifacts. I guess the TV has an A/V converter and it is not a very good one? (Out of curiosity what type of codec does it use?)

In this case, would the camera's A/D converter most likely be much better than the TVs and I'd see a much sharper picture using a SDI to HDMI connection?
 
Black Magic is known for their excellent signal processing quality.
Also, if you ever consider a converter, I would recommend one from them.

TVs have often very crappy converters and do funky things to signals sometimes.
I would try to connect your camera via RGB to a professional monitor - or better - to a vector scope and send out the cameras color bars to see what really comes out of that RGB cable.

Frank
 
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