OT: Multibridge Extreme

mjroddy wrote on 4/27/2006, 5:20 PM
I just wrote a note to Tech Support to the gang over at Black Magic. But I'm under a major crunch here and thought I'd reley once more one the awesome knowledge base of this most amazing forum. Below is the note I just sent. Any help would be MOST appreciated. Thank You Sincerely!

Good day.
I recently purchased a Multibridge Extreme. Setting it up seemed to go smoothly enough, but now that I have items connected to it, I'm not having as much fun.
I have the Y, R-Y & B-Y OUT of the deck (Sony UVW 1800) and INTO the Multibridge.
I go to the capture utility and nothing shows up in the Deck Window. I do have deck control, but there is nothing to preview.
I've gone to the Control Pannel and brought up the DeckLink options and set Input to Y, R-Y & B-Y. Still no luck.
I have a monitor hooked up to the first output from the Multibridge (as show in the manual) but the screen remains black.
I've tried a random Capture, but when I hit Get Clip, I get a 513 KB MOV that nothing can play.
When I hit CTRL+K, "The movie that was just captured could not be opened. The movie may be corrupt."
I am also trying to capture via Sony's Vegas 6.0d, but when I change the Device to Black Magic DeckLink, nothing is found.

Alas, trusting that this would be a snap to install and use, I've put myself under an extreme deadline. You assistance will be most appreciated.

Comments

[r]Evolution wrote on 4/27/2006, 5:36 PM
I don't use the Decklink Cards (yet) but do a search here in the forums... I believe you have to have a certain Driver revision for it to work. -I don't believe it's the latest revision either. The same thing is going on in the FCP forums too. People aren't very happy with Decklink over this issue.
Coursedesign wrote on 4/27/2006, 8:54 PM
You need the 4.8.x Decklink driver for Vegas, this is about 10 versions behind the latest.

Sony says BMD changes too much stuff in driver versions for them to keep up.

There is some truth to this, but in the end it means that high end professional users are not a priority for Vegas development.

A month ago I wrote the following here, and nothing at NAB changed this:
===============================
FCP uses Decklink 5.4.2 drivers totally successfully now, ditto for Premiere Pro 2.0.

There are isolated bugs, like putting DV footage on an uncompressed timeline, but that's hardly disqualifying for everybody.

I think Madison needs to decide on where their bread and butter is supposed to come from:

hobbyists?
wedding videographers?
broadcast folks?
long form editors?

It has been well established that not having the support of professional users affects even the hobbyist market immensely, because they like to use "the same stuff as the big boys."

Premiere Pro 2.0 is a much stronger competitor than PP 1.5 ever was, and the strong application integration is very helpful for getting an efficient high-quality professional workflow. It does 10-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit float, too. Uses the latest Decklink drivers, and the DVD app is quite a bit more advanced than at least the current Vegas DVDA.

FCP is now getting help from substantially increased sales of Apple computers because of the move to Intel processors (yes, it's already happened, even I ordered a MacBook Pro). Incredible $199 single application upgrade price to Final Cut Pro Studio (FCP 5, Soundtrack Pro, Motion, DVD Studio Pro which is a far more advanced DVD creator than Vegas DVDA).
===============

The three things I like the most about Adobe's Production Studio:
1. Strong app integration, especially time saving with After Effects.
2. The clip review is a huge time saver if you have outside people review your footage, it is simply a brilliant tool.
3. Strong high-bit support (10-bit, 16-bit, float) which can make a very substantial difference in output quality, even if your footage is 8-bit in and 8-bit out. Really.

I shoot only 10-bit D5, so I have even more to gain. I was hoping to hear something about Vegas support of 10-bit this week at NAB, but it was not to be.

I have captured for two years without problems using the Decklink capture utility, but obviously it is nicer to do this from inside the NLE (or from inside After Effects 7!).

FCP and PP have different strengths, but FCP right now is not at its most stable. Several workstations in the Apple booth and at the FCPUG meeting popped up "Final Cut Pro Quit Unexpectedly" during routine work. Some people say they can get 100% uptime by using specific versions of FCP and OS X and reformatting the system drives every 3 months from a proven image. Sure, but no thanks.

I'm leaning towards ordering an Adobe Production Studio pro upgrade for $1249 - 15% NAB discount = $1,061.65 including Premiere Pro 2.0, After Effects Pro, Audition, Bridge, and Encore which is a much more capable DVD app than DVDA (although not as capable as Apple's DVDSP, which remarkably enough is now said to be used for most current Hollywood movie releases).

This package certainly costs more than Vegas+DVDA, but offers real 10-bit support (and 16-bit and linear float), support for the latest Decklink drivers, serious work saving integration, etc.

As best I can see right now, Sony's Vegas team is focused on the hobbyist and event video market, with broadcast and high end production support perhaps coming later. Maybe.

I also went to the FCP User's Group meeting at NAB. Huge turnout, lots of sample video from the best in today's broadcast and feature film productions. $73,000 in swag(!) was blown out during the evening. That group is #1 among user groups for sure, with very strong local groups in L.A. and Chicago especially, but now really worldwide. With 500,000 FCP users today, there certainly is the interest...

apit34356 wrote on 4/27/2006, 9:29 PM
Coursedesign, your on the money about vegas issues. I suspect that the programming staff needs to really grow,( maybe like 30+ ), were groups can be assigned to specific technology issues and debugging issues. If Sony could buy Serious Magic, Zaxwerks ProAnimator and a few more, that would help in the marketing area.
mjroddy wrote on 4/28/2006, 10:13 AM
Yeah, Coursedesign...
Sounds dead on to me as well - dissapointingly.
When I latch on to a piece of software, i swear by it. But I'm slowly loosing faith in Vegas. I still swear by it, but not as convincingly as I used to.
The power users here like you, Spot and others, give me faith, but seeing the real-time power of something like an Axio or even Liquid, really gives me pause. It just seems so simple Over There.
I make a living off my editing software. It's my livlihood.
I know this can be done in Vegas. I'm doing it and so are many others here. But if other tools are faster and equally good or better (in some cases), migrating is a tough thing to not consider.
It seems (to me) that Vegas was just starting to get some great word-of-mouth and really making a splash on the pro side of the business. Now they're already falling behind. My one hope is that they're holding off on 7 because they have a major leap-frog up their sleeve. Hearing reports to the contrary is dissapointing.
Come on Sony, Kick some Industry @$$ and rise to the top again! We're all here for you!