Capture card question

Posted by DM 
DM
Capture card question
February 25, 2010 09:17PM
I have a Black Magic Intensity capture card installed in my Mac Pro. Outputs HDMI, component and other SD formats. Works great. Can this card be used to output video from the computer when I'm not using FC or Pro Tools? What is it about capture cards that they only seem to work with certain programs? Can I assume that I can't use the card to display YouTube, Quicktime movies (outside of FC) or use the card to display as a "3rd monitor"?

FC 7
Mac Pro
2- apple 23" cinema displays
Black Magic Intensity capture card
32" HD display, connected via HDMI and Y, Pr, Pb to the Mac Pro.
Re: Capture card question
February 25, 2010 09:23PM
Don't be fooled by the fact that your computer's graphics board and I/O board both hook up to things that look approximately ? um ? "screeny." They're totally different.

Sometimes, depending on the board in question, it's possible to pull a chunk of graphics memory back off the graphics card and run it through the necessary signal processing to turn it into a television signal. This is not all that common a feature, for the obvious reason that computer screens are computer screens and televisions are televisions, and they're not meant for the same things. To find out whether your board has a feature like this, check the manual. I know that a Kona board may have the feature, depending on what version of the driver you have installed. (If I remember correctly, Aja pulled the feature from some driver releases because it wasn't working correctly. I don't think anybody actually noticed.)

Re: Capture card question
February 26, 2010 01:27AM
>What is it about capture cards that they only seem to work with certain programs?

Because they were designed with pretty much ONE PURPOSE in mind. Input/output of video signal to and from a non-linear editing system. The Kona/Decklink cards DID have the feature to play out QT movies, but when OS and FCP and driver versions progressed, that option became buggy so they removed it.


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DM
Re: Capture card question
February 26, 2010 08:50AM
O------K---.
All makes sense.
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