Convergent SDI to Firewire device

farss wrote on 9/27/2004, 6:01 AM
This looks interesting:

http://www.convergent-design.com/

Judging by the look of the site they don't spend up big on advertising, hopefully the pennies saved go into engineering. Anyhow the bit that caught my eye about this gismo is being able to go from SD SDI to firewire without DV25 compression and capture as 4:2:2. I don't really see what the upside of this is if the Blackmagic card will soon be certified to work with Vegas anyway and this is a somewhat more expensive interface and you still need zippy drive to keep up.
Interesting comment though (which makes a lot of sense) is that it's quicker to render this type of DV as less work is involved for the processor as less decompression is required.
Other thing I noticed is that Vegas gets a mention as working with this box, it's good to see finally that it gets mentioned in the same way as other NLEs.
Of course if anyone has any more details about this and the integration with Vegas I'm certain we'd all be interested to hear.

Bob.

Comments

apit34356 wrote on 9/27/2004, 6:20 AM
Wasn't this used by Sony for the Vegas demo of the HDV camera, The unofficial capture device used but not publicly declared?
farss wrote on 9/27/2004, 6:24 AM
This box (as far as I can see) doesn't handle HDV, in any case for HDV you only need 1394 as it's max bandwidth is 25 Mb/sec. Any system that'll capture DV25 will capture HDV.

SD Video uses FAR less compression than HDV and it's only spatial compression.

Bob
SonyEPM wrote on 9/28/2004, 8:12 AM
I just got a shipping version of Convergent's SD-Connect. Although I haven't played extensively with it I was able to plug in my deck (Sony MSW M2000- a multiformat deck that supports everything beta) and was able to batch capture and print back to tape from Vegas. SD-Connect comes with a built in Vegas preset so setup takes about 2 minutes- just plug a 1394 cable into your computer and off you go. You could use this with any computer that can handle DV- a laptop even.

For those of you who want to use Vegas with your UVW and PVW type decks (meaning SP or other analog formats), this looks like a great solution. The source video is converted to DV on the way into the computer but it looks great coming back out, totally usable for analog delivery.

If you absolutely need and would reject anything not pure SDI this isn't your tool. That said this box gives you excellent quality, stable I/O and may still be of use for general needs. I laid off a graphics heavy sequence to Digibeta, IMX and to SX from the Vegas timeline- looks really good and only the most discerning viewer could tell that DV had ever been involved.
farss wrote on 9/28/2004, 4:00 PM
Given that we've got a couple of J30s then from a digitzing aspect this box offers nothing that we don't already have or does it do a better job on the DV25 compression? I've used the J30 to capture into Vegas on a laptop and the results looking pretty good so anything that does an even better job must be impressive.
From what you're saying then it sounds like it does a good job going back the other way, I'd assume the presets involve some use of chroma smoothing.
We should have our own 2000 some day soon, need to sell our 500s first!

Bob.
Carlomazzortocchi wrote on 9/29/2004, 3:29 AM

Quote from SonyEPM:

*************
" For those of you who want to use Vegas with your UVW and PVW type decks (meaning SP or other analog formats), this looks like a great solution. The source video is converted to DV on the way into the computer but it looks great coming back out, totally usable for analog delivery. "

**************

So the "Convergent" bridge it's better than the ProMax Media Converter, that as i see, it's very similar?

In fact i have to buy a professional bridge, and i see that the Convergent cost a lot less than the Pro-Max converter, what's your suggestion ?

Is the Convergent bridge equal in the conversion quality?
The great feature of the Convergent about "uncompressed over firewire" will be usable with Vegas?
The PromediaConverter from Promax has some plus that it's not present in the Convergent Bridge?

Thanks a lot in advance!

--
Carlo
SonyEPM wrote on 9/29/2004, 6:26 AM
Farss- if you have a J30 with i-link/1394 out, then in my opinion you don't need any other converter for ingest.
MSchell wrote on 9/29/2004, 7:40 AM
Hi Carlo and Other Forum Members-
This is Mike Schell, designer of the Convergent Design SD-Connect box, which is also the same as the ProMax ProMedia box. ProMax selles the exact same box under an OEM arrangement with us. Sorry for the initial confusion this may have caused.

I wanted to mention that one of the special features of this box is our tuning of the software based on the NLE application. We found that all the apps behave a little differently with regard to tape deck control as well as 1394 messages we receive. So, we allow you to select the specific application on the front panel of the box: Premiere, Final Cut Pro, Avid and of course Sony Vegas. We did add some very specific code recently to tune the box for the Sony Vegas application.

If you have questions about the box,please post them on the forum, visit our web site at www.convergent-design.com or send me an e-mail at Mike_Schell@convergent-design.com

Thanks-
Mike Schell
Carlomazzortocchi wrote on 9/29/2004, 7:49 AM

Ok for Farss and the J30 (a great machine, but it cost about 10 times the Convergent bridge:-) and it's also a Player, but i already have a BetaSP player), but what do you think about my question?

What's the best buy for you, The Promedia Converter or the Convergent Bridge?

Your opinion its' very important for me, and i think also for a lot of Vegas users.

(If you can't reply for an accord between Sony and ProMax, i understand, no problem:-)))

--
Carlo:-)
MSchell wrote on 9/29/2004, 1:23 PM
Hi Carlo-
There's no problem responding, as there is no special accord with Sony and ProMax, to my knowledge.

ProMax is a great company and they provide excellent support. If ProMax support cannot resolve the problem, then it will be forwarded to us.

If you buy from us (Convergent Design), which is our preferred method, then we will be your first line of support. Since we designed the box, we can respond with code changes more readily. Also, you'll have a direct connection to the factory to request new features, etc (and to voice your opinions, if the box doesn't meet your expectations).

Best Regards-
Mike Schell
Carlomazzortocchi wrote on 9/29/2004, 1:58 PM

Thanks a lot Mike (and also Farss and SonyEPM) for the informations! :-)

If the box is the same, that's a great news for my Studio!

Only a last question: the future feature "uncompressed via Firewire" will be also avaible for Vegas users (under the right striped HD set, ofcourse) or it will be avaible only for Premiere and Mac-Users ?

Thanks a lot in advance.

--
Carlo Mazzortocchi

MSchell wrote on 9/29/2004, 2:44 PM
Hi Carlo-
Well, I can't make any promises at this point. Uncompressed for Premiere aand Final Cut Pro are definites, but we're still looking at Vegas. We think Vegas is a great product and with the recent changes to our code, our SD-Connect box seems to work well with Vegas in DV mode.

Once we get thru the uncompressed over 1394 for Premiere development, we can better access porting the code to Vegas.

Best-
Mike Schell
Carlomazzortocchi wrote on 9/29/2004, 4:17 PM

Thanks Mike!

So i hope that feature will be added also for Vegas:-)
I think it will be very important for a lot of Vegas-users to have uncompressed over firewire with your amazing bridge. For me, wtihout this feature, your Box it's already a great machine, but if this next feature will be announced, your Box it's a MUSTHAVE!

Anyway thanks another time:-)

--
Carlo Mazzortocchi
farss wrote on 9/30/2004, 1:23 AM
Mike,
I think you've got your priorities backwards. PP users can already ingest 4:2:2 over SDI using the Decklink card and for a lot less than your box, I cannot see why any PP user would buy one.
Vegas as yet however cannot officially do this so you have a window of opportunity to make sales to Vegas users. Once Vegas is certified to work with Decklink I see you facing the same uphill battle.
Maybe I've missed something here, if so please enlighten us.

Bob.
Carlomazzortocchi wrote on 9/30/2004, 2:24 AM

***************
Farss quote:

" Vegas as yet however cannot officially do this so you have a window of opportunity to make sales to Vegas users. Once Vegas is certified to work with Decklink I see you facing the same uphill battle. "
***************

I totally agree.
It's a big oppotunity for the Convergent box to open the Uncompressed world to all the Vegas-users. Don't miss that chance:-)

--
Carlo Mazzortocchi
farss wrote on 9/30/2004, 7:29 AM
Carlo,
just to correct a common misconception. As far as I know there is NO digital tape format that is "Uncompressed". So if you're capturing from DigiBetacam the images were already compressed in the camera. It's less compression than DV and better sampling.
The more descriptive term would be Without Recompression. At the moment this box recompresses down to DV25.

Bob.
MSchell wrote on 9/30/2004, 9:44 AM
Hi Bob and Carlo-
I see your point, but we have an engineering team with a lot of Premiere experience, so developing the drivers on this application is simply going to be much faster. Since Vegas and Premiere are both PC based applications, we should be able to reuse most of the code and knowledge we gain from this work. I'll try to accelerate our efforts to port to Vegas.

Just as a side note, the SD-Connect box does offer direct connect to DV camcorders and decks and offers a true stand-alone mode of operation (does not require connection to a PC or MAC to control the box). So, I think we have a more versatile offering. With uncompressed over 1394 you won't have to install a card in your PC.

Best-
Mike

MSchell wrote on 9/30/2004, 9:46 AM
Hi Carlo-
You are correct, buit DigiBeta uses a very mild 2:1 DCT compression which is very close to lossless. It's far less compression than DV and it maintains the 4:2:2 color space.

Best-
Mike
Carlomazzortocchi wrote on 9/30/2004, 1:02 PM

Farss said:
*****************************
just to correct a common misconception. As far as I know there is NO digital tape format that is "Uncompressed"
****************************

Your note is correct. But simply i have used the "not perfect" name used in the Convergent website reffering the feature about a not recompressed stream over a classic firewire connection (as i have seen this feature in the site is named "uncompressed over 1394" and there it's well explained how it works) . I think the name for this feature it's not 100%correct but, in fact, very close to the reality.

Anyway, thank you for your note:-)

--
Carlo
Carlomazzortocchi wrote on 9/30/2004, 1:08 PM

Mike,

thank you for your explaination. So we hope your company soon will have this feature (maybe we can name this "Not recompressed over firewire":-) -see the right note from Farss) for Premiere and then for our and lovely Vegas:-)

Thank you again.

--
Carlo Mazzortocchi.
Coursedesign wrote on 9/30/2004, 1:45 PM
["As far as I know there is NO digital tape format that is "Uncompressed". "]

D-1 for example is 8-bit uncompressed, and D-5 is 10-bit uncompressed.

Both of these use 4:2:2 color sampling, but that is not compression, only selective sampling.

D-1 tape decks go for $125K though, or you can save by buying a used deck on sale right now, with 60,000 hours on it (they last a bit longer than a DSR-11... :O)
MSchell wrote on 9/30/2004, 3:42 PM
Hi Carlo, Bob and Forum Members-
OK, you have convinced us, regarding the need to support uncompressed over 1394 (or whatever we decide to call it). We have a senior engineer now assigned to working on the port to Vegas. I'll keep you posted on our progress over the next few months.


Mike
BJ_M wrote on 9/30/2004, 3:57 PM
quote "...assigned to working on the port to Vegas"

splendid ! i will buy one for sure...

anyone want a couple of laird LTM5500B's ?

Carlomazzortocchi wrote on 9/30/2004, 5:27 PM

BJ_M said:
"splendid ! i will buy one for sure..."

Me too!!

--
Carlo Mazzortocchi

Carlomazzortocchi wrote on 9/30/2004, 5:32 PM

Mike said: " We have a senior engineer now assigned to working on the port to Vegas "

An incredibile good news!:-)

Thanks a lot Mike, i will buy for sure your machine.

--
Carlo Mazzortocchi