Blackmagic Decklink and Datapath Fx4 Recommendations?

Woland

Hello all,

Anyone have a recommendation for which Blackmagic Decklink I should go for? I was considering Decklink 8K Pro (for future-proofing) or the Decklink Quad 2 (because I'm greedy). Thoughts? Experiences? Success Stories? Living Nightmares?

Also looking to invest in a Datapath Fx4, but haven't decided on HDMI vs DP vs SDI. Any recommendations for which flavor to get?

Best wishes,

Woland

barneybroomer

I assume you are going to use these in a PC? According to the Datapath, I was think about that one for the SDI cabling, which makes sense in large scale operations. I got a Razer PCI extender and a huge graphic card instead, I wanted my setup as powerful and yet as small as possible. Everything is now HDMI, and there are some great fiberoptic HDMI extension cables like these https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073... For grabbing I use the Ultrastudio HD Mini in rack mount over USB C. Yes 8K would be nice but I ran in tests already in problems grabbing 4K, but that was 2 years ago...HD,4K or 8K are some serious steps ahead to proces them.

Fred

@woland I would go for the data path DVI model and get some HDMI to SDI converter instead of SDI version, this was you get non SMPTE resolutions.

Capture is a big choice 8k won't be useful for a long time, 4k could be good though. I have the Blackmagic duo 2, it can be configured for 4 in 4 out or 2 in 2 out and the price point is sweet (maybe you get a cheap 4k caputr card as well with the savings)

mark_m

@fred said:

data path DVI model

Often on eBay. I just picked one up for GBP 220.

Juriaan

Regarding your Blackmagic choice :

8K is not something that most hardware can handle, and also only needed for large scale media installations where the budgets are also quite high, so renting or buying one is most of the time inside the project budget. Personally I would go for the Quad 2, our universty has one and it is a blessing to work with. Get some sweet Blackmagic Mini Converters with it and you are all set :)

Woland

@juriaan said:

8K is not something that most hardware can handle, and also only needed for large scale media installations where the budgets are also quite high, so renting or buying one is most of the time inside the project budget. Personally I would go for the Quad 2, our universty has one and it is a blessing to work with. Get some sweet Blackmagic Mini Converters with it and you are all set :)

The consensus seems to be to steer away from 8K, so Quad 2 seems like the better choice. I do also love the Min Convertors. So handy!

Fred

@woland just remember that the way the blackmagic SDK works you get more delay as you add more live inputs, not a lot, but I am guessing by the time you get to 8 it may not be useable as a live feed. I would take a look at saving money on the input card (if you have it) and adding some kind of video mixer/router that will let you use 2 or 4 inputs with more cameras and lower latency. Also the bluefish and magewell cards seem to have lower latency with the right machine and config.

DusX

@woland.

something like this upstream of the capture would be cool.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c...

mark_m

@dusx

Yes, I have one of those on my wishlist! I currently use a Kramer matrix switcher to choose different sources to go to my single channel blackmagic capture devices. The Kramer works well and can be controlled from within Isadora over LAN with TCP/IP signals. However, it doesn't do a clean switch while live, whereas I think that Roland does. I think it may also have a foot switch as an option: certainly some of the Roland devices intended for single person operation (in churches and such) have foot switches!

Fred

@woland You could also look at the Blackmagic cleanswitch, it is a bit of a tricky beast as it will work better with reference (or reference SDI input 1). This would give you a clean switching matrix that could be more useful than a simple mixer. I am pretty sure it also uses UDP, if Izzy gets UDP (it's been knocking around on feature requests for a while) then you could control it within Izzy.