Blackmagic Intensity and variable size picture output

[idris]

I recently upgraded form a Canopus to a Blackmagic Intensity Pro.
I am currently using a 4x3 monitor and the RCA phono composite out from the video card.

Different video files are displayed with different size problems.

Some widescreen pics are displayed full height with the edges missing off the side of the screen. (I had this problem with the Canopus.)
Some smaller res pics are displayed with the correct aspect ratio but so they only take up about 1/3 of the screen (Width and height, rather than area) and are displayed in the top left corner of the screen.
Some pictures are squashed into a square, with and unknown anamorphic ratio and are displayed in the middle of the screen.

To further confuse the issue, though I've not had time to verify this, I think some video files may be being displayed differently in different PT sessions.

I've played around with setting in the Blackmagic control panel (in System Preferences) but can get no improvement.

Any thoughts on how I can display these files properly without running them through MPEGStramclip or similar (and rather than getting the editor to send the right pics in the first place)?

[Cheesehead]

Hi Idris

I've had this same problem with the intensity, in sessions with multiple video files in different formats. The card gets confused about the size it should be displaying.
Animators particulary, seem to send me picture files in very weird formats.
The only way I've found of fixing it, is to run them through mpeg streamclip and make all video files the same ratio.
Not too bad on 30sec trailers, more of a pain on 1 hour docs and features.
I've had a lot of success with the prores lite codec. Really good picture quality and very little cpu impact. It makes massive video files though.
I had to experiment a bit with mpeg streamclip to find the setting which gave me a non cropped picture.
Hope that helps.

[idris]

Massive help. Thanks,

[mr.armadillo]

We've done numerous testing and found out that for us,
Apple Foto-JPEG 720p works best - looks great, and not too heavy on CPU and size. We request all our video files to be delivered in that format or use MPEG streamclip to convert.

[macaholic]

Also, if you don't have time to convert them to a consistant size, I've had good luck just putting each differnt size QT on their own video track.

[mikevarela]

we've found that BM prefers standard sizes. we almost exclusively use MJpefgA and ProRes Proxy. try and convert to 480, 720 or 1080 pixel sizes and you'll be fine

[idris]

Thanks for all the input.
Bearing in mind transcoding can impact on quality, and I am mostly working with "off line" quality pics (ahh ... "off line" ... does anyone else remember those days?) am I right in thinking the above recommendations shouldn't impact too much on picture res?

[minister]

Originally Posted by mikevarela

we've found that BM prefers standard sizes.

SOME standard sizes, and MOSTLY, NTSC!

Beware of PAL dimensions 1024x576, which is square pixels, the card does not scale it properly. It also has problems with SD video, stuttering, etc.

If AVID would finally get with AJA qualify the AJA KONA card that would be super duper! Have we mentioned this before????..............................
There are none of these issues with the KONA.

[Cheesehead]

I find ProRes is an amazing codec, with virtually no loss of quality even with the lite version. I think you have to have FCP installed for it to be available though.

I haven't tried Foto jpeg, might give it a whirl.