Why buy a BM Intensity Pro?

[jseelye02]

So, is there any quality/performance advantage using a BM Intensity Pro over just using my 3-output ATI Radeon HD 5770 in my mac pro for HDMI video output to my projector? (I'm running two LED monitors for Pro Tools and a 1080p projector to the screen).

A buddy of mine was telling me I "needed" one, but I can seem to figure out why... nor did he have a compelling reason. It doesn't seem to offload processing, it kind of limits what you can throw at it resolution-wise (since, through my research, it sounds like it can be picky sometimes) and it's just one more thing to not work within Pro Tools on that day when nothing works! Haha!

What am I missing?

[MIKEROPHONICS]

Not gen lockable - so not great for post

[Meads]

Also in PT <11 you don't get real full screen without an external graphics solution.

[jseelye02]

Gotcha. That may eventually be a thing, but we're probably sticking with 10 for a bit. Anything else? Those of you that have a 5770 or better and a bm card, why'd you get the card?

[mgoorevich]

You cannot connect 3 displays on MacPro - only two. Even though it has 3 ports only two clocks are supported. So for connecting a third monitor you'll need a reclocking active device (PITA). Thus many people use BM cards or similar.

[jseelye02]

Say what? I'm doing it right now... I have two 24 inch LED monitors and a projector coming off the card running 3 desktops. ???

[Dode]

I have both Hd5770 and a Bmd Intensity Pro, just because i wanted a real hd fullscreen under Pt 9/10 and not just a scaled window with an unhidable ugly title bar.
Plus Intensity Pro is cheap, works well with Nuendo too, and only needs a bare Hdmi cable even for long distance (no adaptater needed), and works quite well with 1080p Prores and Dnxhd, with a very low impact on the Mac Pro cpu. It just works.
My 2 cents.

[matt-o-]

I am working with a 30" and a 1080p Sony beamer. I used to work with both connected to the ATI 5770, but the 10m (30ft) DVI to HDMI line to the beamer was very unreliable, I constantly had a flickering projection (though it had worked perfectly fine with my 1stGen MacPro with the Nvidia 7300 GT !!! - it seems, that the line-driving capability of the 5770 is vastly inferior to the old 7300 card, QT playback was smoother as well).
Since I changed to the BMpro the projection is without any problems and seems to me more constant in the framerate (without frozen images in between) as well.

It was definitely an improvement for me.

Greetings

[Craig F]

Signal distribution is another reason,
the 5770 is HDCP aware and a PITA if you try and mix monitor types

the 5770 will run all 3 outputs but you need an active DP to DVI adapter

[jseelye02]

Thanks for all the replies!

My buddy actually brought his over and we installed it and did some tests... At least for my purposes I couldn't really see the advantage over my 5770. In fact, I can see how in some cases it would be limiting: it can get fussy depending on the codec and resolution whereas the video card, obviously, is just another screen so it'll display anything (there's always that one commercial guy that needs to see his weirdly compressed h264 on the screen NOW). And with various settings on the projector it's easy to crop out that title bar...

What's more is since my projector is connected via SDI and blackmagic converters the cable run/signal quality aren't affected either way. When A/Bing a handful of codecs and resolutions we really couldn't see a difference, both in image quality and smoothness of playback, even when in a giant 5.1 feature film mix session.

Lastly, watching both the PT system usage and the activity monitor in the OS while switching between the two there was no difference in performance, at least based on those tools.

As anything else, I'm sure in certain cases it could be really useful, I was just looking for reasons that it's better than the 5770 for my purposes... I can see how some of the higher-end cards with more features and sync capabilities would be beneficial, though.

Either way, thanks for the info!