Blackmagic Performance

[tateaudio]

I am interested in a Blackmagic Intensity or Intensity Pro for my PT8LE DV toolkit rig. My question is will the addition of the card for playback in Pro Tools hinder or improve native processor performance? Will performance suffer when using compression heavy codecs?
Please share your experiences, if any.

[infiniteloop]

I too am interested in this. I think I bought a Canopus at exactly the wrong time

[reichman]

Hello Tate Audio:

As you might expect, it has everything to do with the CPU you have and the kind of video codecs you run.

On my old G5 dual 2.7Ghz, H.264 videos on my Aurora Fuse-X card (which uses the Mac CPU mostly) made the machine (Tiger/PT7) slightly sluggish. For long edit sessions, I would convert to DV or MJPEGA for snappiness. On my new MacPro 8-core 2.8 Ghz with the Intensity Pro, I hardly notice H.264 and don't bother converting. The difference between H.264 and DV on a new Mac Pro is very snappy versus very very snappy.

On the G5, dense automation would occasionally hiccup with H.264, but even then I never ran into a situation where the video was stopping me from doing something with RTAS plug-ins. When the G5 hit the wall, it did it with or without video. On the Mac Pro, I have yet to build a session that uses more than 55% of my CPU (RTAS), and this is the slow Mac Pro!

Also, since switching to eSATA, I've never noticed a performance difference running audio and video on the same drive. Firewire was better when video was not on the same drive as the audio.

Converting an H.264 video to DV is easy via QT Pro or Compressor. It may take a few minutes.

Good luck!

Best,

Nathaniel Reichman
www.nathanielreichman.com

MacPro 2.8Ghz 8-core, 6GB RAM, 10.5.6, Pro Tools LE 8.0.0cs2 with Complete Production Toolkit, Digi 002R, Control|24, Blackmagic Intensity Pro, eSATA hotswap tower, Baby HUI, Soundminer 4, Waves Platinum 6, Audio Ease All-In, Melodyne, SoundToys, Izotope RX, GRM Tools, PSP, Retrospect...

[tateaudio]

Originally Posted by reichman

Hello Tate Audio:

As you might expect, it has everything to do with the CPU you have and the kind of video codecs you run.

On my old G5 dual 2.7Ghz, H.264 videos on my Aurora Fuse-X card (which uses the Mac CPU mostly) made the machine (Tiger/PT7) slightly sluggish. For long edit sessions, I would convert to DV or MJPEGA for snappiness. On my new MacPro 8-core 2.8 Ghz with the Intensity Pro, I hardly notice H.264 and don't bother converting. The difference between H.264 and DV on a new Mac Pro is very snappy versus very very snappy.

On the G5, dense automation would occasionally hiccup with H.264, but even then I never ran into a situation where the video was stopping me from doing something with RTAS plug-ins. When the G5 hit the wall, it did it with or without video. On the Mac Pro, I have yet to build a session that uses more than 55% of my CPU (RTAS), and this is the slow Mac Pro!

Also, since switching to eSATA, I've never noticed a performance difference running audio and video on the same drive. Firewire was better when video was not on the same drive as the audio.

Converting an H.264 video to DV is easy via QT Pro or Compressor. It may take a few minutes.

Good luck!

Best,

Nathaniel Reichman
www.nathanielreichman.com

MacPro 2.8Ghz 8-core, 6GB RAM, 10.5.6, Pro Tools LE 8.0.0cs2 with Complete Production Toolkit, Digi 002R, Control|24, Blackmagic Intensity Pro, eSATA hotswap tower, Baby HUI, Soundminer 4, Waves Platinum 6, Audio Ease All-In, Melodyne, SoundToys, Izotope RX, GRM Tools, PSP, Retrospect...

Thanks Nathaniel,

I am running the same Mac that you are so it's great to get your feedback. So basically the processor performance on the mac will be the same as displaying the QT on the desktop, but with the advantage of running it to an external monitor.

[reichman]

Ha. I never tried running the QT on the desktop screens, but if you have a Mac Pro, you will be very happy with the Blackmagic card. Note that Digi (uh, I mean Avid) hasn't actually approved the Intensity Pro, but it works. Check the compatibility listings...

[tateaudio]

Good to know. I didn't mean full screen on the desktop, just a window, but I find myself moving it around to get it out of the way, even with dual monitors.
I noticed it wasn't Digi (or Avid) approved, but I've seen that others have had success with it.

[reichman]

Buy it, you won't regret it. And the prices are a lot cheaper as of yesterday.

[O.G. Killa]

I too am looking into the Intensity Pro. I want to run it on a Video Satellite LE setup synced to my HD rig. But I noticed in the specs on their website it doesn't say it can do 23.98 frame rates. I did notice the $995 Decklink HD Extreme lists 23.98 as supported.

Anyone with an intensity or intensity pro care to share what happens when you try to work with 23.98 QT files? does it work? I'm especially interested in higher res 1080 (or 1920) at 23.98, since a lot of the projects I've been working on lately are 23.98 and I would be requesting a 1080 HD (or possibly 1920 HD) output file from the Picture editors.

Any experiences, comments or insight would be GREATLY appreciated!

[reichman]

12 episodes of an HD series- music mixed and delivered at 23.976 on the setup below.

It's all good. Once in a long while, after a session has been open for a long time, and a lot of scrubbing in a short section has occurred, the video hangs at a certain timecode. This has been frustrating, but has occurred equally at 29.97df, 23.976, SD, HD, DV codec, and H.264 codec, so I chalk it up to one of many bugs in PT8. Restarting the PT app fixes it.

Note though that the Intensity Pro is not officially on Avid's compatibility list last I checked. Also note that I'm not using video satellite.

Best,

Nathaniel Reichman
www.nathanielreichman.com

MacPro 2.8Ghz 8-core, 6GB RAM, 10.5.6, Pro Tools LE 8.0.0cs2 with Complete Production Toolkit, Digi 002R, Control|24, Blackmagic Intensity Pro, eSATA hotswap tower, Baby HUI, Soundminer 4, Waves Platinum 6, Audio Ease All-In, Melodyne, SoundToys, Izotope RX, GRM Tools, PSP, Retrospect...

[O.G. Killa]

Originally Posted by reichman

12 episodes of an HD series- music mixed and delivered at 23.976 on the setup below.

It's all good. Once in a long while, after a session has been open for a long time, and a lot of scrubbing in a short section has occurred, the video hangs at a certain timecode. This has been frustrating, but has occurred equally at 29.97df, 23.976, SD, HD, DV codec, and H.264 codec, so I chalk it up to one of many bugs in PT8. Restarting the PT app fixes it.

Note though that the Intensity Pro is not officially on Avid's compatibility list last I checked. Also note that I'm not using video satellite.

Best,

Nathaniel Reichman
www.nathanielreichman.com

MacPro 2.8Ghz 8-core, 6GB RAM, 10.5.6, Pro Tools LE 8.0.0cs2 with Complete Production Toolkit, Digi 002R, Control|24, Blackmagic Intensity Pro, eSATA hotswap tower, Baby HUI, Soundminer 4, Waves Platinum 6, Audio Ease All-In, Melodyne, SoundToys, Izotope RX, GRM Tools, PSP, Retrospect...

Thank you so much for the response!!! That's exactly what I was looking for.

I know the Intensity Pro isn't officially supported, but Digi does have a note that says it hasn't been tested...and also that "*Other Blackmagic Design video cards such as the PCI-X DeckLink HD, DeckLink SDI, and DeckLink Studio use the same drivers and may work with Pro Tools, but have not been tested."

Also, it doesn't look like they are selling the Intensity anymore, only the Intensity Pro. When I look at the Blackmagic website it only lists the Pro version now. So, for $199 I don't mind buying one and trying it out. If it doesn't work, I'll have to trade it in for the more expensive Decklink Extreme, but at least there is a good chance it will work since it uses the same driver as the Intensity and you've had no problem working with 23.976.

Thanks again!