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Filed under: Hardware •Post Production •

DeckLink HD Extreme Review

HOW IT WORKS

Once you have the card installed, you can fire up your machine, but before you can get to capturing and outputting, you need to install the included Blackmagic CD to make sure you have the drivers and other goodies in place.  It’s also a good idea to always check their website, as their may be firmware or driver updates that have been released for any one of their products you might be using.  Installed from the CD are the:

Blackmagic DeckLink drivers

• Blackmagic Deck Control application
• Blackmagic System Preference
• Blackmagic QuickTime codecs
• Final Cut Pro Easy Setups, presets and enablers
• Blackmagic Disk Speed Test
• Blackmagic FrameLink
• DeckLink Utility

I’m going to assume, for the sake of this article, that you are editing in Final Cut Pro, so there are really only a two tools that you will primarily focus on which are the FCP Easy Setups and the Deck Control Application. One thing I want to mention before I go on is that once you have installed the Blackmagic CD, you will notice that your desktop now extends past the edge of the monitor on the right side, and inside your System Preferences (OS X), you will see that you have two displays (even though you might only have one monitor).  The size of the “second” display will vary based on which card you have installed.  What this feature basically does is set the “second” display to send your computer’s extended desktop to the DLHDE.  Why would you want this?  Well, this is how you can edit on your computer monitor, and send your full frame timeline video to the “secondary” display for real-time monitoring.  If you don’t want or like this feature (like I do), you can simply turn it off by sending black to it, and restarting your computer.

Once you launch Final Cut Pro, you will be able to navigate to your Easy Setup, and you will now notice that you have access to all the Blackmagic easy setups you could possibly need for SD, HD and 2K workflows.  I really like the fact that they have included up/down/cross conversions in the Easy Setups as well.  Very handy!

To be perfectly honest, once the card is installed, you will really not even notice that it’s there, as I didn’t have any problems with dropped frames (capturing from an HDCam VTR 1080i and 1080 23.98psF to DVCPro HD on external FW800 drives) or anything like that at all.  It was smooth sailing, except for one small problem that really bothered me.  One feature I do NOT like about Final Cut Pro is that it does not support SDI timecode.  Not a big issue, as Kona cards do.  Sometimes I just want to plug a deck in quick (rentals), and simply connect the power and HD-SDI and start capturing, and I can do that with the Kona 3 and the AJA VTR Exchange.  I cannot, unfortunately, do that with the Blackmagic Deck Control application (BDCA).  The BDCA is a little capture application that saves you the hassle of going into Final Cut Pro to do all your digitizing.  It also let’s you buy multiple cards for capture stations, and having one main system that will do your editing (great workflow idea…....I’ll give that one out for free).  It would just be so useful to have the capability to capture timecode without having the RS-422 cable.  Oh well, maybe for version 2.0 of the software!  Anyways, like I said, the BDCA is the other main tool you will be using to save yourself time, as you can do all your logging and capturing without even having to go into your editing application (FCP, Premiere Pro, ect).  The tough part about writing an article like this is that there is just so much a card like this can do, you can only really scratch the surface.  Needless to say, this card is a real powerhouse, and wait until you see how much you are going to pay for it!

VALUE FOR YOUR DOLLAR

This is a no brainer, as the card, with all it’s features, formats and extras sells for an unbelievable low price of $995 US, which is an awesome deal, considering the Kona 3 from AJA retails for $2999 US. 

PROS

• Simple to install, simple to use
• Handles all the formats and connections you could possibly need
• Excellent support across multiple applications
• Can’t go wrong for $995

CONS

• No SDI Timecode support
• Breakout cable is about 6 inches long (12-18 inches would have been helpful)

Final Say - Even with no SDI T/C, it’s still a great capture card for the price

Whether you are a long time pro, or someone new to the world of post production, Blackmagic Design’s Decklink HD Extreme (2009 release) is a capture card that you shouldn’t overlook, and like I said earlier, I can really only scratch the surface, and you really should head over to Blackmagic’s website, and check out all the details on this excellent capture card.  For more details, or to find out where you can purchase one near you,  check it out at http://www.blackmagic-design.com .

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Kevin,
Have you had any experience making playing out to tape on a high end deck like an HDCam or D-5?
I have always found Kona cards to be a bit flaky when attempting to do insert edits on high end decks.
—TM.

Posted by Techmanager  on  12/13  at  06:00 AM

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