BMD Intensity Pro, or nVidia Quadro NVS?

megabit wrote on 8/19/2010, 10:05 AM

I'm in a need of a third monitor (currently am using ATI with a 24" LCD and 50" plasma). Of course this requires another video/graphic card - and since v.10 is coming, I'll wait to see whether it supports CUDA acceleration. If it does, the choice will be simple: the Quadro NVS which supports CUDA, and up to 4 simultaneous displays....

Otherwise, I'm considering the Intensity Pro (it's said to work well as a monitoring device with Vegas). However what I'm not sure about, is this:

Will the Intensity Pro also be available for the OS, e.g. for watching BD's full screen on my plasma?

I'll appreciate any advice.

Piotr

Comments

Tom Pauncz wrote on 8/19/2010, 11:05 AM

Piotr,

I have a BMD Decklink Studio 2 card and us it to 'external' monitor from the Vegas Pro t/l to an HDMI connected LCD HD TV. It's brilliant.

When I go to Desktop>Properties>Settings, I only see the two monitors attached to the nVidia card. Don't see anywhere to specify the TV as a PC monitor.

I am on XPPro-SP3, if that helps.

Tom

megabit wrote on 8/19/2010, 11:45 AM

Thanks Tom - that's what I suspected; these are capture/monitor cards for NLE's, and not for "general" use. Don't think it's different in Vista or 7.

Piotr

farss wrote on 8/19/2010, 2:38 PM

My Decklink card appears as another 'monitor' under XP.
A couple of the nVidia cards support 10bit over DisplayPort which is perhaps of use if you have a capable monitor.

Bob.

Steve Mann wrote on 8/19/2010, 6:36 PM

FWIW - If you wll be using AfterEffects in the future, ATI cards aren't supported. The quadro is.

RRA wrote on 8/20/2010, 10:17 AM

Hi Piotr,

My setup consists of two monitors connected to nVidia Quadro FX1800. Monitors have different resolution and size. First one is used only as Vegas desktop (with TL and docking window area), second one is used in various manner (as a desktop for non docked windows OR external monitor (also trimmer preview)). But I have aslo BMD Intensity PRO (which is not visible as third monitor in Windows 7 but is visible as device in Vegas).

To have elastic setup I have bought SmallHD 1280x720 monitor which is field monitor, connected to camera via HDMI, to achieve beeter preview in the field. When I'm in studio and don't neet to use SmallHD as a field monitor, I like very much to connect it to BMD Intensity PRO as third monitor for Vegas. 1280x720x50p is base format in my company.

I have seen your posts about 10bits and problem with Neat (please,if you get info from Neat, publish it on forum, this is interesting subject). If you consider BMD Intensity PRO as capturing deviece (it works excellent under Vegas but I prefere external application for capture (Media Express, is included in packege)), you should know that capturing in 10bit YUV is possible only in standard definition PAL preset. If you want to capture in HD mode, Intensity PRO will offer only 8bit YUV.

I recommend you nVidia Quadro with CUDA. There are small and smart application which can support CUDA. For example vReveal. It has extra fast engine to play HD uncompressed avi in max HD. You can apply filters and effect (also stabilizer and simple denoiser) and it will play in real time. I use vReveal as primary external player (Windows Media Player can't even play files without effect in real mode).

Best regards,

megabit wrote on 8/20/2010, 10:53 AM

Thanks RRA!

So it seems we're having 1:2 score in voting whether or not BMD cards are seen as additional display by the OS...

I have emailed BMD with this question; waiting eagerly for their answer. As to Neat Video, of course I'll report what they have to say about using 10bit intermediate vs.32bit floating point project settings, in order to improve the results. I also have already posted on their forum.

One more thing: when reading their forum for the first time, I came across a 3-years old thread about the Neat Video plugin for Vegas not being able to use temporal adjustment - no matter whose fault this is (Vegas only serving one frame at a time, or NV not using the upgraded File I/O SDK from SCS)... I have complained this should be stated explicitly on their on-line shop page; when I get an answer I'll also update you guys here.

Piotr

megabit wrote on 8/20/2010, 11:20 AM

"My Decklink card appears as another 'monitor' under XP"

Bob, you are the only one who claims MBD card is visible as additional display by the OS (I suppose the Intensity Pro is no different in this respect).

Please, tell me: can you extend your Windows desktop onto this display device? Can you drag any window to appear there - or maybe, when using a capable software player, does it display movies full screen using the video overlay?

Thanks,

Piotr

RRA wrote on 8/20/2010, 12:58 PM

Hi Piotr,

... but if you would like to use chroma keying BMD Intensity PRO is worth of money. It has very reasonable price and is able to give 4:2:2 (my cameras can only 4:2:0 (IMHO it's boundary condition for chroma keying in 1280x720 and not enough to keyind in full HD)). What I like very much in Intensity PRO is optimized (better to say : maximized) way of writing to hard drive. I have solid rock setup (without any dropped frame) to capture 1280x720x50 on single (not RAID matrix) HDD (for example Samsung HD502HJ).

Best regards,

megabit wrote on 8/20/2010, 1:12 PM

Hi RRA (I'd really like to use your first name, but you don't publish it :))....

OK, so I'm in a slightly different position. I'm not looking for a capture solution, as I'm using file-based workflow (high bitrate mxf files from the nanoFlash, both Long-GOP and/or I-Frame only, 4:2:2, 8bit).

What I'm looking for is mainly the most efficient monitoring (playback) solution, that would let me have 2 system desktops, plus a full screen preview on my 50" plasma via HDMI. Of course, if it is able to accelerate playback with effects in real time, I'm all for it - but also important is the capability of using the same display to playback outside Vegas (or NLE in general) - e.g. to watch BD's from my PC BD drive using PowerDVD...

Cheers,

Piotr

farss wrote on 8/20/2010, 2:38 PM

"Please, tell me: can you extend your Windows desktop onto this display device? Can you drag any window to appear there - or maybe, when using a capable software player, does it display movies full screen using the video overlay?"

The machine with that card in it is in storage at the moment however Yes, it appears as another monitor in Windows Control Panel. I cannot comment on the Intensity Pro however assuming its drivers are for a Windows display device I cannot imagine why it would be any different.

Simplest way to get an authorative answer would be to email BMD.

Bob.

megabit wrote on 8/25/2010, 6:49 AM

As promised, here is an update on the BMD support's answer re: Intensity Pro card availability as additional OS display device (Bob - it seems you're not right this time - but how on Earth it's possible, I have no idea :)):

"Hi Piotr,"

--------------
So, it looks like it will be the nVidia Quadro NVS for me... Four simultaneous displays ready, and CUDA support.

Piotr

farss wrote on 8/25/2010, 7:27 AM

"(Bob - it seems you're not right this time - but how on Earth it's possible, I have no idea :)):"

No sorry it's not possible, please consider the other possibility, BMD have no clue about their own products :)

Of course that's for the Decklink card which could be a totally different device to Intensity Pro.

Oh and by the way, I may have strained something moving my old SuperMicro PC.

Bob.

megabit wrote on 8/25/2010, 7:32 AM

I don't think Decklink is different. I'm prone to agree that the "support" doesn't know what they're talking about....

Anyway, more waiting now for me. If v10 supports CUDA - I'll go with the nVidia, otherwise - who knows?

PS. Didn't I say you cannot be wrong? You're just not designed to be :)

Jeff9329 wrote on 8/30/2010, 2:59 PM

Piotr:

All of the current Nvidia GTX 400 series (and older) GPUs support dual monitor DVI and have HDCP capable HDMI 1.4a ports and/or DisplayPort 1.2 outputs. They are HDCP compliant too of course for playback, and use GPU Physx for HD playback decoding.

Would one of these work?

Im sure 2 of them would work for you on a SLI capable motherboard for fully 3 independant outputs, but that would be double the cost and power/heat.

I just got a GTX460 (EVGA 01G-P3-1370-TR) to replace an older GTS8800 in a 1920X1200 dual monitor setup. These new cards are certainly cheaper ($200USDish), smaller (still very big), and use less power than some older cards. But the performance far exceeds GPUs from a few years ago.

Jeff