Softron Media Services announced today that the entire suite of OnTheAir Video and Movie Recorder products will work with the newly shipping DeckLink Duo from Blackmagic Design.

DeckLink Duo features two independent SDI capture and playback engines built into a single card with a 4 lane PCI Express connection. DeckLink Duo is ideal for Softron customers who need two or more completely independent capture and playback streams in and out of a computer. Since there are two SDI inputs, and two SDI outputs plus a common tri-sync/black burst reference the DeckLink Duo appears as two independent SDI cards to the computer, but only uses a single PCI Express slot. Softron engineers have tested the latest Blackmagic Design drivers extensively and are extremely pleased with the performance of the Duo cards.

“The Decklink Duo is simply ting an awesome solution for customers requiring two or more inputs or outputs in a single Mac platform. We see a lot of Xserve customers jumping on board with this product to update their current single in or out solutions to multiple in or out solutions. Even MacPro workstation users will see the unique benefits of this card bundled with our software,” said Mike Skibra, Business Development Manager for Softron Media Services. “We have validated four streams of uncompressed SD video ingest as well as output using two of the Duo cards. We can ingest six stream of compressed SD with no problem. Ingesting two streams of ProRes 422 HQ is likewise no problem, but because of processor requirements that is the current maximum that you can achieve with HD ingest . However four HD outputs from the same MacPro workstation is no problem at all,” added Skibra.

Softron Media Services expects that many customers looking to output multiple channels of video will take advantage of Softron’s new OnTheAir Node with one or more DeckLink Duo cards. OnTheAir Node is designed for network use. One MacPro or Xserve, equipped with a single Decklink Duo card and the appropriate number of Softron OnTheAir Node licenses can provide two channels of broadcasting in either SD or HD – and be controlled by any Mac on the network with either OnTheAir Live, the playlist manager that comes bundled with the OnTheAir Node application or with OnTheAir Manager, a scheduling application that will also be demonstrated at IBC. Each output can be individually controlled from any Macintosh that is on the network.

Softron’s MovieRecorder ingest application will also support the DeckLink Duo. Using MovieRecorder Control, the two inputs on a single DeckLink Duo can be controlled from any Mac on the network as well for gang recording. Of course, more DeckLink Duos will add more outputs using OnTheAir Node or inputs using MovieRecorder across the network and will be accessible by all users.

“Blackmagic Design has worked closely with Softron Media Services for many years and we are very pleased that they are one of the very first companies to announce support for one our new products, the DeckLink Duo, ” said Dan May, President of of Blackmagic Design, USA. “Their new products and ours mesh well together. Their customers and ours will be very pleased with the ongoing relationship.”

OnTheAir Node is Softron’s next generation playout and ingest engine for the Mac. It has been designed to be an inexpensive, reliable and customizable video server that uses existing off-the-shelf technology. OnTheAir Live is a playlist manager that comes bundled with OnTheAir Node and provides the user interface for adding media and controlling playback. OnTheAir Node is designed for network use and multiple licenses can be installed on any number of workstations in a network to output multiple different channels.

In addition to being controllable by OnTheAir Live, OnTheAir Node can be controlled through Telnet, an open, standards-based protocol used in a lot of broadcasting equipment. Softron Media Services has also announced that it will soon ship OnTheAir Manager, a scheduling application that will allow users to prepare scheduled programming for output from any of the nodes installed on the network.

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, color correctors, video converters, routers, waveform monitors and film restoration software for the feature film, post-production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in the television industry, while the company’s DaVinci EmmyTM award winning color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984 and continue ground breaking innovations including stereoscopic 3D and 4K workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. For more information, please check www.blackmagic-design.com.