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4 (or more) Black Magic Intensity Pro cards
Rank: Advanced Member
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Joined: 3/15/2011(UTC)
Posts: 64
Location: UK
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Hi All,
I've been looking at vMix for the last few weeks with a view to replacing my SD analogue mixing set-up.
Wow, what an amazing bit of software. You've done a great job Martin.
I've built the following PC for the task of live mixing and recording amateur acoustic music events :-
Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD7 with 6 PCI-e slots
AMD Phenom II x4 955 CPU 3.21 GHz with 4GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 4650 GPU
Windows XP Pro 32 bit SP3
I have installed 3 Black Magic Intensity Pro cards and they work fine, but the 4th one comes up with an error stating it cannot start.
I appreciate that this is a Windows issue and not a vMix problem, but reading through previous posts I guess that a couple of forum members will have the tee-shirt on this one.
I've tried shuffling the order of cards/slots etc but there appears to be no way of configuring IRQs manually, unless someone knows different.
Please help.
Brian
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Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Registered
Joined: 1/16/2010(UTC) Posts: 50  Location: usa Was thanked: 3 time(s) in 2 post(s)
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Hi Brian,
I have a complete Blackmagic system also. If you check some of my other posts you will find the specs. I have had a similar problem trying to use WinXP 32 bit. Only 3 of the cards would show up no matter what I tried. I'm not sure but I suspect that this might be a limitation of the Blackmagic drivers or its installation as their drivers are notoriously finicky. On the other hand, it might be a limitation of 32 bit Windows. I'm rocking Win7 Ultimate 64 bit with no problems. Maybe Martin can shed some light on this problem.
Tony
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Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Registered
Joined: 3/15/2011(UTC)
Posts: 64
Location: UK
Thanks: 3 times
Was thanked: 3 time(s) in 3 post(s)
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Hi Tony,
Thank you for responding so quickly.
I had read your earlier posts and hoped that you would be willing to help, thank you again.
I can only count 3 BM cards in your system, however - 2 Decklink Duo and 1 Intensity. Is that your current set-up or have you changed things?
Do the Decklink Duo's install as 2 cards?
I'm a bit nervous that you may not have overcome the "apparent" 3 BM card limit. I say "apparent" because I've seen a post from a BM support guy saying that up to 7 cards is possible, as far as the drivers are concerned.
BM also do the Ultrascope, a monitoring/vectorscope package that appears to have 6 inputs to a Windows PC - so maybe .....
They may not use Intensity cards but Intensity uses Decklink drivers, don't they?
I'm aiming for a 6 cam set-up using 2 Canon XH A1s, 2 Canon HF10s amd 2 Canon HV10s, all via component as this is common.
Any comments, help and advice will be most welcome.
Brian
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Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Registered
Joined: 1/16/2010(UTC) Posts: 50 Location: usa Was thanked: 3 time(s) in 2 post(s)
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Hi Brian, The Decklink Duos install as two separate cards, so in effect I have 5 cards total. The decklink driver installs twice for each decklink duo. It did not matter what slot I had the cards in, in winxp 32, after installing the drivers, the device manager showed 2 of the cards with exclamation points. I thought to begin with that I had the problem because I was using sp2, but I tried a new install using sp3 with the same result. Blackmagic support told me that a total of 8 cards are supported per chassis so I assume it must be a limit of their driver. Will you be using all Intensity pro cards? I have had problems with the HDMI input becxause they are very specific about the kind of input they expect. Component seems to work just fine though. You can check our our web video at www.harmonynet.net. It is a DJ webcast that happens each Wednesday at 9:00pm central time. The archives are up on the front page so you can watch one of them at anytime. The resolution is 640x360 scaled down from 1920x1080 at 30fps. Let me know what you think. If you go down the page eventually you will find some that are 4x3. This is when we were using Vidblaster to switch with. Not to brag on Martin too much, but Vidblaster could never do what I'm doing now with Vmix! Before with Vidblaster, 4 cameras in SD 640x480 used 45% of the CPU. With Vmix 4 cameras in HD 1920x1080 uses 5 to 9% ! ! ! Vidblaster trying to do HD would use 90 to 100% CPU and the video was very choppy and unusable. We are watching 1920x1080 60p on a 50" monitor in studio and it looks outstanding! Hollaback, Tony
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Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Registered
Joined: 3/15/2011(UTC)
Posts: 64
Location: UK
Thanks: 3 times
Was thanked: 3 time(s) in 3 post(s)
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Hi Tony,
Thank you for sharing your experience, as a result I've now ordered Windows 7 Ultimate - fingers crossed!
I've got room for 5 Intensity cards, although I may have to use 1 as an output if I have to record using another PC, unless I can use the HDMI out of the GPU card.
I'll input the other camera/s with an Intensity Shuttle or 2.
Only 2 of my cameras have HDMI out so I had intended to use all Component feeds at 1920x1080 50i PAL. Also I can only change the output resolution of the cameras (1920x1080 or 720x576) in component. There is no option to change the HDMI resolution, although I haven't checked the XH-A1s yet.
I checked out the videos on your website. I have to say, even on my 22" HD monitor, I was impressed with the video image quality and the continuous streaming. 640x360 eh?
It was very noticeable that the overhead shot was much sharper than the others, I guess video just needs lots of light.
I'm not qualified to comment on the content, however ;-)
I'm an old rock-n-roller with the emphasis on the "old". In fact I'm now too old to rock and roll, but instead of doing the decent thing like dying, I've taken up folk music ....
I'll try and catch your live show, once I've worked out the time difference. What resolution do you stream at?
So much to learn, so little time.
Brian
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Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Registered
Joined: 1/16/2010(UTC) Posts: 50 Location: usa Was thanked: 3 time(s) in 2 post(s)
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Hi Brian,
'Too Old To Rock and Roll, Too Young To Die' one of my favorites from Jethro Tull! I feel you and am coming from the same direction.
Did you order Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit? That is what I'm using and I'm not sure if my results are because of Win 7 or 64 bit or both.
Let me know how it works out.
Tony
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Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Registered
Joined: 3/15/2011(UTC)
Posts: 64
Location: UK
Thanks: 3 times
Was thanked: 3 time(s) in 3 post(s)
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Hi Tony & All,
Well, it's taken a little while including diagnosing a faulty PCI-e slot which meant a replacement motherboard, but I now have a Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit system with 5 Black Magic Intensity Pro cards up and running.
Many, many thanks for your help Tony.
I've recorded to disk in a compressed AVI format and all seems ok. Now for the big one - a RAID set-up to record uncompressed Hi-Def 1920x1080.
A long, long time ago I set up a RAID using 2 5.25" Big Foot drives - 6GB each and the biggest drives known to man - at that time.
Now it appears that SATA RAID is on the motherboard.
I'll let you know how I get on.
Oh, and the next big thing will be how to install at least one more BMI Pro card .........
Kind regards
Brian
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