Yes Blackmagic Design Decklink Mini Monitor 4K Works with VP 16/VP 17

geo wrote on 9/1/2019, 1:07 PM

Contrary to several posts on this forum bemoaning its incompatibility, I just installed a Blackmagic Decklink Mini Monitor 4k in my Dell Inspiron 5675 and playback on an external monitor works just fine with both VP 16 and VP 17. My system specs: Windows 10, Ryzen 7 1700X, 32gb, RX 580 GPU. So far I'm getting 60 fps playback from the timeline on my Dell UP2516 monitor without a hiccup. My original footage on the timeline is XAVC-L HD shot at 60fps. I dropped one Boris FX on it and still no lag. You do need to enable GPU rendering for seamless playback though, otherwise you loose lip sync badly. With my GPU acceleration enabled however I get seamless 60 fps playback on my external monitor in full sync. Maybe if I add more FXs playback will start to lag but so far I'm beyond impressed. For $195 the Decklink Mini Monitor 4k does the job and makes a huge difference it you're serious about color grading. Video playback directly from the Vegas timeline to your monitor looks simply amazing!

Comments

marc-s wrote on 9/1/2019, 7:38 PM

Thanks for the heads up... just tried it in Vegas 15 and it works. Must have been something that changed with the latest Blackmagic update.

zdogg wrote on 9/2/2019, 12:18 AM

This is new,

The BM Decklink Mini Monitor (which I bought a few years ago to use with Davinci Resolve) wouldn't show in the available list of video cards in Vegas --, frustrating, as Vegas advertised for years its compatibility with BM product line.

I had to buy the Black Magic Intensity Pro (works with Vegas) -- I have the older, non 4k, PCI cards.

- I had checked that for the last few versions of Vegas..., each time, no go, till now low and behold, now Vegas connects with Mini Monitor as well as the Intensity Pro ...thanks.

Anybody: will Vegas play back 10k video? The Mini Monitor has that ablity (but not the Intensity Pro).

Do these cards, either one, provide any offloading capacity, IOW take strain of CPU?

Kinvermark wrote on 9/2/2019, 12:51 PM

@zdogg I will test this for you, but can you please explain how?

AFAIK Vegas has always played back greater then 4k media (e.g. large stills) but of course they would be scaled to maximum project size 4096x4096 for rendering, and monitored at whatever the monitor would be (or less).

Now, I have a Decklink mini 4k and a UHD monitor so I can see UHD, but how would you detect 10k? A 10K monitor?

zdogg wrote on 9/2/2019, 1:13 PM

My mistake: (Late night grogginess) .... I wrote "10k" video and I meant 10 Bit. Maybe you caught that.

Well, there is a check box for 10 Bit in the Preference Window where you choose your vid card. It is greyed out with Intensity Pro (Not sure about your 4k version) and it is active with the Mini Monitor now, (not before, which is one more clue the card is now Vegas connected/supported).

So, yes, the monitor is a factor, but I don't know how to test aside from a more professional grading monitor, (which I don't have). I am willing to accept the idea that Vegas "can" (there is the 32 bit options) but how/when/if that is implemented, that is beyond my pay grade.....Someone else??

Kinvermark wrote on 9/2/2019, 1:57 PM

Sorry, did not catch that.... Yes, there is a 10 bit check box, and it seems to work... sometimes. I don't have a 10 bit monitor, but the image does show up with this box checked - on some projects. Not sure why some don't.

mikelinton wrote on 9/3/2019, 9:44 AM

@zdogg with regard to your question about offloading CPU/GPU with BlackMagic cards - yes and no. The Minimonitor is software only (hence it's low cost), whereas the Decklink series has hardware accelerated decoding and scaling capability. We have both cards in different edit suites and seldom see a ton of difference. Where it would likely be the most notably is up/downscaling footage. But we seldom do that anymore anyway. So the short answer is - the hardware is capable of accelerating certain codecs (it's all listed on BlackMagic's website if you look at the cards), but I'm not sure if Vegas is able to tap into it.

fr0sty wrote on 9/4/2019, 4:22 PM

Yeah, as far as hardware accel goes, you are still better off getting a top shelf NVidia card and just using one of its secondary outputs.