BlackMagic Intensity Pro for iMovie

I am interested if any one knows if the new Intensity Pro HDMI PCI card by Blackmagic can be used to capture video off my DVR so I can create DVD using iMovie and iDVD. I know the HDMI signal will probably have HDCP copywrite protection, but this card also supports analog Component video which comes out of my DVR. It is my understanding iMovie will need to have video in the DV format. In the product's manual it only talks about high end expensive video editing software like Apple Final Cut Pro, but I only need iMovie capabilities. The product does come with an application called Blackmagic Media Express but there is no documentation on it.
I do not want to go out and buy a $350 card and find out it does not work.

Glenn,
I have posted this before in the PC Buying Guide (post #23 and later), but have a look at this diagram:
The problem is that once recorded to tape, the material is compressed to MPEG and there is no way to get the data back, that were lost during compression. The only thing you achieve is that you lose device control, lose all timecode information, lose all metadata like date and timestamp and exposure data and lose the capability of scene detection. There are no gains to compensate the losses.
Compare it to a glass of orange juice, that was made by heavily compressing oranges. How do you think you can reconstruct the original oranges that the juice came from? Were there 4 large oranges or 6 small ones or a mixture? Were they light colored or were they dark or a mixture of light and dark?
BlackMagic in their marketing may lead you to believe otherwise, but the truth is they can only guess at how many oranges were used, their size and color. It is nothing more than a guess.

Similar Messages

Are there benefits to the Blackmagic Intensity Pro for HDV capture ?

Are there benefits to the Blackmagic Intensity Pro for HDV capture ?
I have a Sony HDR-FX1 that records in HDV 1440 x 1080
I have already captured the footage to miniDV tape.
Can the intensity card get the full 1920 x 1080 video ?
I now use Premiere to capture my video and my HDV is in mpeg2 and my SD is in DV type 2 AVI
What format does the intensity card capture at ?
Are there other ways to capture that would make the footage better.
From what I have read allot of people have had problems with these cards.
Im just looking for the best way to get the footage off my camera with the best resolution.
Thanks: Glenn

Glenn,
I have posted this before in the PC Buying Guide (post #23 and later), but have a look at this diagram:
The problem is that once recorded to tape, the material is compressed to MPEG and there is no way to get the data back, that were lost during compression. The only thing you achieve is that you lose device control, lose all timecode information, lose all metadata like date and timestamp and exposure data and lose the capability of scene detection. There are no gains to compensate the losses.
Compare it to a glass of orange juice, that was made by heavily compressing oranges. How do you think you can reconstruct the original oranges that the juice came from? Were there 4 large oranges or 6 small ones or a mixture? Were they light colored or were they dark or a mixture of light and dark?
BlackMagic in their marketing may lead you to believe otherwise, but the truth is they can only guess at how many oranges were used, their size and color. It is nothing more than a guess.

Which cpu with blackmagic intensity pro for SD stream ( 1 Mbs)

Hello,
when encoding with DV my quad core Q6700 tops to 15 % CPU usage for h264 SD live streaming (< 1 Mbs).
How would encoding from an HD or SD-SDI card go (such as BM Intensity Pro)? is the cpu fast enough or should I turn to core i 7?
thanks.

This is the Final Cut Studio forum. Post this in the FCP X forum where it might be of relevance.

SpeedGrade 2014.2 will not send output via BlackMagic Intensity Pro HDMI to my external monitor.

I occasionally can get a few pixels near the left side of the monitor, and 2014.1 would display the lower half of the frame, but now, after the 2014.2 update, I can't even get that much. Premiere is monitoring perfectly. Any suggestions welcome!

I am having the same problem. I am on Speedgrade version 2014.1 currently and it won't output to either of the monitors I've tried. Both are connected via HDMI.
One is a 22' ASUS monitor, which reads "Out of Range" when I connect it to my blackmagic Intensity Pro output. From what I've read this has to do with the frame size coming out of SP being too large for the monitor.
Next I tried to output to a 50' HD TV. I don't get the "Out of Range" message on this one, instead the monitor is black with an occasional flicker when I hover over a clip or an option in Speedgrade. By flicker I mean the screen flashes a garbled purple mess for less than a second, then goes black again.
I'm running the Creative Cloud Suite on a Mid 2012 Mac Desktop with a 2 x 2.66 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon processor, 52GB of RAM, and ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB graphics card. OSX version 10.8.5.
Been waiting for this capability for a while, any advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks!
Josh

FCP capture problem with Blackmagic Intensity Pro

I just installed a Blackmagic Intensity Pro and I am having problems capturing in Final Cut Pro 6. I have a Sony VCR/DVD player with a HMDI out connection that works fine when connected to my TV. The video setting on the VCR/DVD are 720P. In FCP I have chosen the “Blackmagic HDTV Intensity Pro 720P 60 Uncompressed” capture/input setting. If I unplug the HDMI cable from the VCR/DVD and plug it back in I see the video for about 4 seconds and then just a gray screen. I have tried several video tapes all with the same results.
Any suggestions?
Dennis

I am having the same problem. I edit reels and was trying to use the higher quality HDMI input to capture video from my DVD player for client's video reels.
I could be mistake, but I do 'recall' hearing that you cannot record HDMI video (copyright issues) but only play back HDMI. We may be stuck using component.
Intensity Pro's website only mentions recording HDMI video from a camcorder with an HDMI output.
Maybe someone will clear this up for us with a definite answer. I have put a request in to Blackmagic support and will let you know what they say.
Rob

Soundtrack Pro with Blackmagic Intensity Pro Card

Hi
Just wondering if anyone was using STP with the Blackmagic Intensity Pro card to monitor video on a TV?
If so, whta are your experiences and especially does STP allow you to continue using your selected audio device (MOTU Ultralite over Firewire for me) while viewing your Quicktimes on the TV.
Thanks in advance
Gavin
gavin little
echolab
dublin, ireland
http://www.echolab.tv/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1962022/

Hey Bill
Thanks for getting back so quick! No, I've checked the audio/midi and the default audio device is my MOTU Ultralite firewire interface - even when the default output is set to the mac's internal speaker, once you select the external video it mutes the output.
I can still see levels withing STP as if the audio is playing. There is an official Apple Support document about audio not working when you are using external video to firewire and it says that it is a bug that can be bypassed by setting your bus to surround (1-6) instead of stereo (1-2) but this has no effect for me )-:
Would love to know if it works for you! and if so, what way you have things configured
Thanks
gavin little
echolab
dublin, ireland
http://www.echolab.tv/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1962022/

Premiere pro CC + Blackmagic Intensity Pro unusable!

Here we go again, as soon as Premiere pro CC loads the speakers start crackling and the audio for the whole system becomes unmanageble, have to restart computer.
So basicaly I can't use PPr CC. Just to let you know, I'm not gonna waist any time on this right now, PPr cs6 is working fine with the Intensity pro.
I output my audio through the intensity pro for everything
updated Blackmagic drivers, repaired persmision, etc...
OS Mounatin Lion 10.8.1
Blackmagic destop 9.7.5

Hi Peter,
Thanks for writing,
Yes, at the OS level I have in the Sound output tab Blackmagic Audio. I see two new audio devices, Prelude 2.0 and Premiere Pro 7.0
In Premiere I have BlackMagic Audio Selected.
When I open Premiere CC the audio goes crazy as soon as the welcome screen kicks in, so I don't think is a media issue, the audio output are just clicks and pops and basically I have to restart the computer.
The weird things is that I think I just discovered some bug. It was also happening with Prelude CC (audio clicks and pops, have to restart). Now, if I open PPro CC the audio still goes crazy, but, if I also open Prelude CC and open a clip, the clicks and pops stop and I'm able to hear the audio playback.
I've had this set up for many years now, and have been able to use it fine since moving to Premiere like 2 years ago.
I hope this helps, please let me know how to help correct this.
Thanks a lot,
Francisco

Anyone using Blackmagic Intensity Pro with Premiere CS4

I've looked through the threads and have seen similar postings, but no real good answers. Is anyone using Blackmagic Intensity Pro to viiew timeline on a HDTV using the HDMI connector?
I purchasedf the Intensity Pro and can't get it to work with CS4. Any assistance would be appreciated.

If you're using a Core i7 processor, one of the problems might be with the motherboard. There's only one Intel board that BM has approved (sorry, don't have the model in front of me -- on a piece of scratch paper in my wife's car).
I'm looking to build a new system myself and have been looking at the Intensity Pro card as well. The main feature I'm looking for is real-time preview and program output to an HD monitor that I'd hook up via HDMI. I probably also would use it to capture analog sources for audio and video. I don't have any interest in BM's lossless data capture as it creates monster-sized files. That's why I was also planning to add Cineform once it's fully approved and working for CS4. However, as best as I can tell, the Intensity Pro card doesn't recognize the Cineform codec on the timeline. Does anyone know if and how well these two will function together within Premiere? (I'm also assuming that the new 4.1 release might make these types of Premiere add-ons work better.)
Thanks.

Lag with Blackmagic Intensity Pro

I just got Adobe Prod. Premium CS6 as well as a Blackmagic Intensity Pro monitoring card and an eVGA GTX570 graphics card, and to avoid problems, I did a new Windows installation from scratch on a formatted drive. This was done today, so all the drivers and program updates are completely up to date.
I know the Intensity Pro is about the cheapest card you can get to preview video correctly on a TV set, since graphics cards don't display video in the same way as a dedicated editing card does, so I'm still happy with it, but I would like to find it if I can get around this annoyance until I can get a better card, or if perhaps it's a flaw in Premiere and a more expensive card would not make a difference.
The card has about 200 miliseconds of lag compared to the program monitor in the Premiere window. This is not really terrible, but it becomes distracting when watching the TV screen and the change of frame in a cut happens first in the computer monitor in a small window within Premiere, and a fraction of a second later on the TV screen. Also, it makes it difficult when I have to sync cuts to changes in the music. I guess in that type of situation it would be better to do the cuts on the computer monitor and then switch to the TV set for color correction.
But this is not just in regular playback. It gets worse when scrubbing the timeline, or moving with JKL. In those cases, sometimes it takes it like a second to catch up to what I see on the program monitor.
I also have a GrassValley HD Spark monitoring card for Edius that while it has a little lag, it's much shorter than this and it's not so distracting. That card was connected using the same cable to the same TV set, so that tells me the Intensity Pro has some extra lag, but it's hard to complain about it on a $190 card. However, I was wondering if anyone here has found themselves in the same problem and found a solution? I searched but so far I couldn't find anything.
And as far as these type of cards, what is the least expensive one that will give me perfect preview with no lag?

Thanks, I might try that one, although it's a bit over my budget at $660.25, but I'll have to if I don't have a choice.
What about the Matrox MXO2 Mini, has anybody tried it?
About turning off MPE GPU's acceleration, that is not an option for me. I'm used to edit in Edius, where almost everything you do is real time and you barely have to render anything ever for previewing purposes, and Edius doesn't even require an expensive Nvidia card for that, it only uses the CPU. But, it lacks several features Premiere CS6 has, especially when it comes to artistic effects. Overall I'm really hooked up on Premiere CS6, but only if I can have the same fluidness of work I always had with Edius, so I wouldn't turning off MPE. That's why I spent $280 in a new graphics card.
I really hope that this is just a matter of the BM Intensity being a cheap card and not Premiere, because this past couple of days I've been editing almost all day and while I enjoyed the editing process in Premiere, it's very frustrating to start playback and sometimes it will be fine but other times the audio and video will be out of sync, so I have to position the playhead back and start playing again. When that happens half the times you play something, it's really annoying. This is regardless of real time areas or not. To make sure of this, I forced render of an area that had no effects on it and it still has the sync problem. I had to disable auto playback after rendering because that would cause the problem every time, while if I position the playhead manually and then hit play, sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't.

Using the Blackmagic Intensity Pro Shuttle (Thunderbolt)

Can I use my Blackmagic Intensity Pro Shuttle (Thunderbolt) with anything other than a thunderbolt port? I have a Macbook Pro that has the thunderbolt port (which is why I purchased the thunderbolt shuttle) but I would also like trying to use it with my older iMac that does not have a thunderbolt port. Will using some sort of thunderbolt to firewire/usb 3.0 converter work in this case?
Thank you in advance!

No and the only other model they make is for USB 3. If your other Mac doesn't have TB it doesn't have USB 3.

FMLE + blackmagic intensity pro: Cannot adjust framerate

Using FMLE with blackmagic design intensity pro on windows 7 professional with 720p60 input, I am unable to adjust framerate from the default input value.
I want to set framerate to 30fps but the encoded output (H.264/VP6) is always 60fps.
Using ffmpeg along with bmdcapture tool, I am able to encode 500kbps, 30fps correctly.
Following are some of the FMLE configuration settings I have tried with Intensity pro:
1. Input=1280x720, Framerate=30fps, bitrate=500kbps, output size=720x576.
Result observed on statistics screen and also verified by dumping the content: output bitrate=1Mbps, Framerate=60fps.
2. Input=1280x720, Framerate=60fps, bitrate=500kbps, output size=720x576.
Result observed on statistics screen and also verified by dumping the content: output bitrate=500kbps, Framerate=60fps.
The output framerate remains unchanged irrespective of the framerate we request from FMLE. Instead, the bitrate doubles up if we try to reduce the bitrate to half.
I see same behavior with FMLE GUI / FMLEcmd.exe.
Is it just me or it is a known issue with FMLE with Intensity pro on windows?
Any pointers on how to go about fixing the problem will be much appreciated. Thanks.

I have exactly the same problem!
Please, add an fps limit feature to FMLE so that for example a 50fps device output can be lowered to 24fps (I can actually choose different fps but it still broadcasts with 50fps no matter what settings).
For now, does anyone know a kind of directshow capture proxy that captures the device (blackmagic intensity pro in my case) at 50fps, lowers the fps and puts it out (with no quality loss!) to FMLE (there selectable as a virtual camera)?
Thanks!

FMLE + blackmagic intensity pro : locally saved f4v files are choppy/jerky

Hello,
I'm successfully using the blackmagic intensity pro with FMLE for live streaming.
Unfortunately, although the streaming is perfect, the local f4v files recorded by FMLE during the streaming are not proper : they appear all jerky or choppy. (they are correctly post-processed by f4vpp)
From the strange effect on the video, I'd say the problem seems to be a interlace/progressive confusion in FMLE when recording locally, but why is the stream good...?
I tested both component or composite input of the bmip and it's the same. I've tried all interlacing/progressive settings possible in the BMIP input and on the camera too.
I precise that the same setup is working very well with DV input from the same camera (the purpose is to change for a non-DV camera with BMIP).
Is there somebody who faced that and solved it ?
Alexis

up !!

Blackmagic intensity pro drivers download ubuntu 14.04

You can download drivers off of the manufacturer site http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support

Does anyone know were I can download the drivers for
blackmagic intensity pro card I am using Kdenlive video editor
This topic first appeared in the Spiceworks Community

Blackmagic Intensity Pro Video Card

I am in need of a HDTV/HDMI video out solution when playing back Quicktime movies in Logic Pro 8. Can anyone report success with the Blackmagic Intensity Pro card? Or are there better alternatives (besides Firewire out).
Thanks.

hi,
ihave bought it and am using it with my quadcore g5 2.5 ..
for now i switched back to canopus because its much more stable and not
"touchy" when i jump around in the timeline...
but this may have a lot of other reasons ..
with finalcut its very nice ans stable, i think the drivers have been written
to be compatible with fcp rather than logic.
I wantd to have the picture for an HD Movie in Llogic but now i prfe to have
stability,
bets regards,
andy

Blackmagic intensity pro not working. Has PCIe been broken with 10.7.4?

Hey there
I have a 2010 Mac Pro (5,1). 8 core. 24 gigs or RAM
I'm having trouble with my Blackmagic Intensity Pro PCI card. I've installed all drivers, tried all the different PCI ports and still my MP fails to recognise it. In the system preferences panel, all options are greyed out and a message says "No Settings Required".
At first I thought it'd be a faulty card, but then I tried the card on my friend's 2008 Mac Pro, and it works just fine. What could possibly be wrong? Are the PCI slots on my machine damaged? Is there anyway to test this?
I'm under a massive deadline, so any help will be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks,
Federico

Thanks for your replies. My friend's MP... I don't know what he's running (hes away at the moment). Prob not 10.7.4 but something before that.
And resetting the SMC: if that is just a matter of turning power off and disconnecting AC cable, wouldnt that automaitcally be done every time i unplug the MP to put the PCIe card in?
In any case, if its of any interest to anyone, the BM Intensity card is notoriously bad capturing VHS tapes (which is what I wanted to do). Frames drop everywhere, audio drifts out of sync wildy...
In the end, the best solution is to hookup the VHS deck to a DV cam and capture via firewire. Simple solution. Looks perfect

BlackMagic Intensity Pro for iMovie

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