What computer system to purchase
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I purchase two SSDs from OWC and a Data Doubler kit and install both drives internally and then use the hard drive the mini comes with as a spare.
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The only big con with the Minis is that all your outputs have to be the same resolution and refresh rate because that's how TripleHeads work. You also don't have the option of adding a second graphics card for three more outputs although a 4-Core Mac Pro would struggle mightily with 6 outputs anyways
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Do you think the lack of processor speed compared to the Mac Pro is significant? Or do you think with the ssd and an upgrade in ram you wouldn't know the difference?
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I think with with dual SSDs and an upgrade in RAM you will not see significant performance differences. That being said, I just went back and reread your original post and I'm not clear on how you are planning to hand video capture with the Mini.
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I started wondering that myself. I would need two thunderbolt ports and it looks like the mini only has one. One port would be the doublehead2go and one would be a Blackmagic intensity extreme for capture. I think I am back to either an iMac or a Mac Pro. Now my question is if I go with the iMac should I go with the 27" since I can get the 1 gig graphic card? The 21.5" only comes with 512 mb of ram on the graphic card. With the IMac I do get the two thunderbolt ports I need. If I go with the Mac Pro I will just install a Blackmagic Decklink Studio card for capture and use the 5770 to output to the two projectors. Any thoughts on that? Thanks.
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Once you're at the point of spending iMac money I think you might as well just get a Mac Pro and have the additional expansion options. Plus PCI capture cards are cheaper than thunderbolt ones and the iMac only supports a single internal drive.
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Thanks Matthew!
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So what is the best pci e video capture card on the market? I am planning on purchasing the Blackmagic Decklink Studio. I like that it has both analog inputs and sdi inputs. We purchased one for our Coolux system but I have heard the the Blackmagic drivers aren't that great. They can be a little touchy. But they are priced pretty well.
Thanks. -
There isn't one best card on the market. It depends on your needs. Blackmagics are very popular and work well as long as you know that their drivers are going to support your needs
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Blackmagic drivers are actually very good, the support however is aimed at current and emerging technologies. On a mac you have 3 sort of active capture systems- quicktime 7, Qtkit and Avfoundation. With Qtkit and AVfoundation the blackmagic gear works perfectly. With software that use the old quicktime capture system the support is not as good. This makes sense, quicktime is being depreciated and it is more important to provide support for the current and upcoming frameworks. Using qtkit I have never had any trouble with any possible format of the blackmagic capture stuff. I am getting into Avfoundation and so far the results are the same. I do not have so much experience working on windows with the BM gear but I have not had any trouble with using gstreamer, ffmpeg or quicktime 7 on windows. These libraries will be the base capture libraries for a lot of software.
Avfoundation on OSX is really good, it misses a few features but it is really optimised for modern video cards and the apple codecs like pro-res, this goes for recording and playback. Unfortunately Avfoundation and Qtki are not cross platform so I think Isadora would have to change dramatically to take advantage of these new frameworks and it would only be for mac.It is very specific but it could be great if Isadora integrated blackmagic capture support via their SDK (this is not a strange thing really). It would mean much better support for their hardware than relying on the aging quicktime framework.In the end I think the blackmagic capture gear is some of the best we can get, it is very flexible and reliable if used correctly and they offer models extending to 4k capture in 444 RGB and all the way down to SD video with pretty much every connector you can imagine. You just have to get the model that is right for you.The mac pro is for sure the best bet, but wait until the new ones are out- that means thunderbolt capture though unless you fork out the cash for an expansion chassis. -
Just to comment on this comment:
"so I think Isadora would have to change dramatically to take advantage of these new frameworks and it would only be for mac..."I am actively investigating into how AV Foundation can become the active playback system for Isadora on the Mac, without disturbing the means of playback on the PC. I have a target date in mind for this that will be no sooner than the end of October, but it's clear this is the direction in which we must go.Best Wishes,Mark -
Hi,
OpenCV capture implementation would be interesting on the pc side.Using blackmagic cards I get better performances using openCV capture than directshow capture.BestMehdi -
@Mehdi are you using a vanilla version of opencv? When you say you get better performance is the image quality better with opencv? Does it use less resources? Or give you higher more stable frame rates with more or the same resources? The default built in windows library for capturing with open CV is the ancient VFW video for windows. If you don't use that (set with a flag) you are using directshow in opencv anyway.
