By Ned Soltz, October 16, 2007
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Of all the products introduced at NAB 2006 that could receive the overused accolade “breakthrough,” Blackmagic Design’s Intensity card was indeed worthy of such praise. For just $249, editors with PCI-e computers could achieve capture from the new generation of High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) devices while being able to output virtually any video to an HDMI-equipped device. This would include the vast majority of HD televisions today.
At NAB 2007, Blackmagic upped the ante with Intensity Pro. For just $100 more, the card adds analog audio and video. Like all of Blackmagic’s boards, Intensity and Intensity Pro run under both Mac OS and Windows, and support Final Cut Studio and Adobe’s Premiere (Windows), After Effects and Photoshop.
HDMI basics
Before looking at the features of the Intensity Pro and reporting on my testing, a few words about the growing importance of HDMI, the all-digital interface with specs to carry up to 1080p video and digital audio over a single cable. It has become the digital standard on HD televisions and is finding its way into more and more cameras and decks, as well as HD DVD players/recorders and game consoles. HDMI operates over a twisted-pair cable with three video streams plus a clock stream. Data throughput is 1.65 Gb/s per stream, for an aggregate data rate of 4.96 Gb/s (some rounding went into the 1.65 figure). It differs from the SMPTE standard of SDI in that SDI, running over coax, can exceed the 10-meter, 1080p maximum cabling length specified by Sony, with a wider data path as well (to be able to handle uncompressed signals). HDMI could be subject to some amount of loss (which is why there could be value in buying better quality cables), and it only handles up to what we would effectively call 4:2:2 compression.
With HDMI carrying both digital audio and video over one cable, it creates cleaner installations. And within the HDMI standard, there has been developed a standardized High Definition Content Protection (HDCP) added at transmission or encoding. Its all-digital format eliminates analog artifacts or generational degradation. In other words, HDMI is a standard that we will all need to deal with.
The value proposition
Intensity Pro is a small card which works in a PCI-e bus computer, Windows or Mac. Note that it only works in Intel-based Mac Pros, and not in the last generation of PCI-e G5 machines. In addition to the HDMI in/out ports, it includes a dongle connector with component video in/out, two-channel audio in/out, and AES/EBU audio out. There is no device control for analog gear—that needs to be supplied by any third-party serial controller (bus or USB, depending upon platform). Connectors are also all RCA-type rather than BNC or XLR. Nonetheless, to be able to have a card which handles both SD and HD for $349 is little short of amazing.
Let’s face it, we may be working on the cutting edge of HD technology, but invariably, a local TV station still says “get us the master of that commercial on BetaSP.” Intensity Pro preserves the investment and functionality of legacy equipment. Even more amazing than the price point of this card is the fact that it does what Blackmagic says it is going to do. It does it very well, in fact. Now, you might say, “My camera does not have HDMI, so I have no need for the product.” Not necessarily true. One of the major questions in the move to HD is, how are you going to monitor that HD? Computer monitors do not provide accurate representation. Options include a capture card with output to an SDI or HD component monitor; a capture card with an SDI-to-DVI converter to monitor through a DVI monitor; the Matrox MXO, with its outputs to a DVI, SDI, composite or component monitor; and the Intensity. The Intensity represents the least costly option of all of these and provides the advantage of display on a large-screen TV.
All of these monitoring items represent cost/benefit decisions. A dedicated HD monitor with calibration capabilities will provide the most accurate picture. The MXO is a versatile device which is output-only to a wide range of devices and includes calibration software for DVI monitors. Intensity Pro output relies upon television sets with some limited calibration options: putting up color bars, adjusting set controls or simulating a blue-only mode (with a blue gel placed over the screen). The accuracy of output to an actual set, however, is far greater than relying upon computer monitor previews. And at $349, you get both digital and analog capture capabilities.
Setup
Setting up the Intensity Pro is straightforward. In my test system (consisting of a Mac Pro dual 3.0 GHz, 8GB RAM, an internal 1.5TB RAID and two external 2TB SATA RAIDs), the card went into slot 4, with my CalDigit SATA card in slot 3, per CalDigit’s recommendation. I shot footage to tape in HDV on a Sony V1U, courtesy of Videotex Systems in Dallas.
Blackmagic’s most recent software revision is version 1.6, which installs a control panel app accessible through System Preferences as well as several nifty utilities. The Blackmagic Disk Speed Test is one of the recognized benchmarking apps for drive speed and data rates. Blackmagic Media Express is a capture utility for anything connected to the card, analog or digital. For Premiere Mac users, this compensates for the current inability to capture within Premiere CS3. Owing to the HDCP features of the HDMI standard, Intensity Pro will not capture DRM encoded material. The Control Panel reveals some hidden features of the board. It is possible to select active inputs/outputs, NTSC analog set up, and realtime up-rez or down-rez upon both input and output.
The installation program places Easy Set Up files in Final Cut Pro; on the PC side, it sets up in Premiere for NTSC and PAL, SD, HDV, DVCPRO HD, and uncompressed with HD formats both 720p and 1080i. The software does not support 24p—any such material to tape would need to be captured and then remove pulldown after capture.
The HDMI protocol does not include deck control. Deck control in HDV is achieved through FireWire—this is already set in the presets for FCP and Premiere. HDV capture is identical to capturing HDV via FireWire, complete with all of the limitations already known to those who work in the format.
Capture
There is great news for Mac Pro users: I was able to capture in Apple ProRes 422 in real time. Note that there is no deck control in ProRes capture. While it was a bit of a nuisance to start/stop camera and use Capture Now in Final Cut Pro, the extra work was well worthwhile. File sizes and data rate requirements are greater in ProRes. The HDV material reports a data rate of 3.4 Gb/s while the ProRes 422 was in the range of 25 Gb/s. This is still within the capabilities of fast drives, or, to be on the safe side, even a two-disk array. The real advantage is in processing time.
ProRes 422 converts the footage to all I-frame. As an example, a one-second dissolve in the HDV timeline required four minutes of HDV Conforming time, while that same dissolve in the ProRes timeline fully rendered (despite its “green” real-time bar) in under three seconds. The real difference will be seen in titles and graphics. Working in the more complete 4:2:2 color space will not produce the artifacts and jaggies which would be seen titling in HDV’s 4:2:0 color space.
Output
Intensity Pro can output through any application that has external video hooks. I was able to preview files in Photoshop CS3, After Effects CS3, Soundtrack Pro 2, Motion 3 and even Color. This last point is most important. Color holds tremendous potential for editors to ratchet up the quality of their work through true professional color-correction tools. Once again, though, you cannot accurately preview through the computer monitor. Quality, of course, remains directly related to the quality of the HDMI set which you are using.
Conclusion
HDMI is here to stay alongside its more robust digital distant cousin, SDI. Editors need the ability to preview HD sources, perhaps even more so than SD sources. Yet we still will be working in analog SD realms for the foreseeable future. All of these needs are addressed by Intensity Pro in an inexpensive and straightforward solution.
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