Experience with the blackmagic Intensity Pro

[ShinjiGohan]

Well I just purchased the Intensity Pro hardware
Basically it has a breakout cable with component in/out/ audio in/out/ AUS, and 2 hdmi ports, one designated as in and one as out.

Heres my setup so you can compare my recording results with your systems

AMD FX 6000+
Asus M2N32 WS Pro
8GB of DDR2 6400 ram in dual channel
4 500GB HDs, 1 100GB HD, and 1 removable HD with options of 20, 80, 200, 160, 40)
eVGA Geforce GT 8600 w/ 256MB DDR3 ram
Optorite DVD writer (with HD Burn)
Sound Blaster Audugy2ZS
Windows XP Pro OS with latest servicepack
pms deluxe capture card
ATV TVWorld 650e
Blackmagic Intensity Pro

Installs had no problem. Requires a restart but really no problems, install was quick and the card is small so that much is even better.

Use:
I first tried to preview/capture off of HDMI from my PS3. However PS3 sends out the HDCP signal which the card can not accept so I basically got a black screen in every program I tried. DSCaler, VirtualDub, the blackmagic recording software etc.... Now I didn't have another HDMI cable long enough to go back from the hdmi out port on the card to my LCD monitor which is HDCP and see if it'd accept it then, so bearing that I tried the component cables instead.

But the component cables were hooked up to my PS2 so I quickly tried that out. and again, I got a black screen. I was stumped. None of the software allows you to pick your inputs like you normally would so I wasn't sure if its still looking for hdmi or what. So I checked the control panel in windows and saw intensity had its own item. Which basically allows you to set 4 things.
What inputs your looking for, how you want it outputted, if you want the card to do any hardware scaling to the incoming signal and if you want it to do any hardware scaling to the outgoing signal. So I made sure component was picked for the input and hdmi for output and I tried again but DScaler wouldn't give me a picture so I tried VirtualDub. Again no picture, so I went to the capture filter to see whats there and to my surprise it allows you to specify the signal coming in. So for the PS2 I tried several settings and finally got something on NTSC 8 bit 4.2.2.
Great, so I switched out the cables and had my PS3 using component out at 1080i, and after messing around with the settings in the capture filter I found the appropriate one for the PS3. Woot, I've got PS3 menu's. There didn't seem to be any lag on the overlay so I tried the next best thing, start up HDR.... black screen. WTF, is the game HDCP protected and the menu's not? hmm, so I again tried the settings for the capture filter and got a picture on the HD720 60p 8bit 4.2.2. So basically I have the PS3 menu/start up at 1080i, and when I go into a game it switches to 720p so I have to manually change that each time... so after getting quickly annoyed with it I went ahead and changed the PS3 display setting to 720p instead so no more switching.
Recording:
Ok, so I goto compression and see what codecs I have available to me and surprisingly only 2 came up... Must be Intensity's requirement or something. But basically I have No recompression HDYC, or Blackmagic 8bit JMPEG. so I tried the rerecompression one, and the screen started playing like a extremely laggy match on HDR, with Ryu teleporting everywhere, and tons of "insert frames" and eventually started getting some "frame drops" but frame drops wasn't too bad. So I stopped it and then tried the blackmagic codec. Even then it still lagged, but it was a consistent lag without the teleporting. Basically something someone used to HDTV lag might endure. However I had no dropped frames and no inserted frames. So the recording was perfect, audio was in sync, just the overlay was laggy.
Then I decided to try out the hdmi out while recording component and see how that faired. Of course I'm stuck at the moment in 720p, but thats still HD and better than nothing.
So I hooked up my hdmi cable to my TV from the hdmi port on the card and turned on the TV. all I got was a black screen (you get this until you open up the recording program, then it displays the image). So I tried playing around in HDR and SF4 while looking at the difference between the overlay on the capture program, and on the LCD screen. And its pretty close, infact if I had to say, it'd be my capture overlay (in non recording mode) lagging slightly behind my LCD screen. Or basically no lag on the output. So I tried to record at the same time, and to my joy the output still wasn't lagging. Meanwhile the capture program is doing everything it should be doing.
Filesize:
Looking at the file that I made for 6 minutes worth of play in HDR/SF4, that came to be about 5GBs. So capture sizes as expected aren't small, but the audio is in sync from what I can tell, and the quality looks great. Makes it cringe looking at some of the youtube/released combo videos for HDR/SF4. Besides I can always recompress them later on using some MP4 codec, so it is still a great start.

In summary, for about $335 I have a decent capture card that can record flawlessly in 720p compressed. Perhaps if I had a RAID setup I can record uncompressed without the frame inserts and drops, and same in 1080i. Took a while to figure it out, but sticking with 720p for now is fine. I wished I could use other recording programs besides virtualdub and the one that came with the card but DSCaler is still not cooperating and ASUS DVCR hasn't worked since I installed the TV Tuner but it'll do. Perhaps I can eventually get HDMI recording should I purchase the HD Fury2 device that'll make the PS3 believe its hooked upto a HDCP device and allow me to get ingame for 1080i opposed to 720p. But for 240 dollars that isn't quite worth the money yet. 720 is still more than enough for online releases and for my computer storage of the videos. But its still a question begging to be answered, maybe one of you has a HD Fury I can borrow to test it out lol.

Any questions?

[ZenFire]

I have a few

1) Can a PS3 know what it's connected to? I haven't heard of such a thing before. I'm afraid HD Fury dont' make a difference for the display mode switches, it's probably just HDR being picky.
2) When you record with the compression settings you used what does Vdub say it's writing in KBps (with or without audio)? Trying to get an indication of the data rate at 720p.
3) Have you tried using a capture app that uses WDM drivers? Maybe it'll give you better preview images or recording results (though doubtful). Could be that the VFW/legacy drivers don't have all the same features.
4) can you upload a short clip so I can see how awesome it looks?

I don't think you'll get DScaler to work if it doesn't already, since it doesn't use drivers but direct hardware access.
When you opened the compression settings you said you didn't see a lot of codecs, try "set custom format" and pick different color encodings and see if the rest of your codecs show up. RGB color types usually have the most support.

[ShinjiGohan]

1. all via hdcp. From my understanding it sends tokens and if the device receiving the output isn't hdcp compatable it won't display an image via hdmi. or output it at a lower resolution via component. though I thought it was supposed to be 480p but I won't complain if I get 720p.

2. check attachment

3. well virtualdub does WDM, as would asus DVCR (but as stated before DVCR hasn't worked for me in a while). windows movie maker doesn't work (when I tried to select the device it disappears from the device menu).

4. sure, just gimme time. I briefly captured some of SF4 openning for 18 seconds and it came out over 200MB's lol. That was with the compression on too. Or would you rather have SF4 gameplay? If ya get back to me before work I can capture it and start uploading it and post the link after I get back from work.

and no, going to custom format didn't do any good. Nearly every one it says "hardware does not support this mode" or something like it. The one it did accept still gave me the same codecs.

[ShinjiGohan]

video of gameplay of SF4 (demo fight between akuma and sakura, originally had sound but the original was 30 secs and 600mb so I cut it in half and lost the sound somewhere inbetween lol).

http://www.streetfighterex.info/capture2.avi

though to contrast it to a game with actually good graphics I'm going to record some ninja gaiden sigma
short clip with the blackmagic codec http://www.streetfighterex.info/nge.avi
entire clip in H264 MP4 http://www.streetfighterex.info/ngc.avi

[Thongboy Bebop]

I (as always) need a new capture card for pretty much everthang (PS2, Dreamcast, 360, PS3, hell, PSP). Would you recommend this one? I'm pretty lazy, I'll just buy whatever you say.

N

[ShinjiGohan]

I haven't tested it on a DC nor PSP. So I'm not sure if it'd work with DC's VGA (maybe need a VGA to component transcoder, or just a bunch fo VGA to DVI to HDMI adapters), and I don't have a PSP, but for everything else yeah it should work. Just setting it up was a bit of a hassle but as long as you learned from my mistakes you should be golden.

So yes I'd recommend it.

Also, well obviously even though when capturing you're stuck with the two HDCY codecs, after itsd captured you can compress it with whatever you want, FFDSHOW, MP4, DIVX whatever.

[Magnetro]

Vidness and I just ordered this: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/5 ... l#includes

....


Yeah. Anyway, I'll post a ton of info and whatnot once I get it. tho I dont think people would be interested. If you want HD, get Intensity?

[ShinjiGohan]

well it is certainly the cheaper alternitive. But I was gonna get it if I could find it and now... damn you for finding it lol.

But let me know how it works out for ya. I'm building a new computer so I should get better capture results when that gets finished (dropped frames during longer captures stuff like that) along with other perks with emulation and such.

[Magnetro]

I was looking up raid-0 stuff and I came to the conclusion that I don't know which type of raid is better: Hardware or Software. The things i do know are:

Hardware raid can be tricky to setup and sometimes requires you to reformat + cards can be expensive.

Software raid can work directly from the operating system but I don't know how dependable it is & you need Windows XP Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate or the one right below in order to get it to work. Apparently HOME edition and other vistas don't have software raid at all =/

-- Anyway, i mentioned all that because in order to get high resolution video @ 60fps, raid-0 is pretty much necessary. I'm guessing the best HDD to use in an array would be this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136322 x/*4. However, if you plan on doing 720p SF4, you wont need one of those.

Um Vidness already has a blackmagic intensity pro and he gets 60fps for his 720p stuff. He can probably explain his setup and process better.

[Magnetro]

Got my card.

Captured Marvel @ 640x480p

Looks Godlike.

Captured 480p god of war 2 through component

looks godlike.

Will write review/take pics soon

[Magnetro]

I got side tracked when I couldn't figure out how to compress it into x264 w/o it changing the color space. Hard to explain, easier with link http://magnetro.com/colorspace.rar <~ the rar has 4 clips IIRC, one showing uncompressed and the other showing x264. It seems that x264 makes it into YV12 or something that makes it all bright-looking. You'll also notice that joo's dvd preview isn't like that. His codec name was ITU H.26n made by Intel, I don't know what he used to compress it. I'm thinking Premiere...but I can't find it. =/

I need help at this point. I've tried everything to compress it into x264 but the colorspace difference really bothers me.

[Magnetro]

http://magnetro.com/pegasus.html

Review-ish of the card. Let me know if you want to see something specific or questions.

[Magnetro]

k. page is done. Joo told me how to fix the color space problem. Here is page again:

http://magnetro.com/pegasus.html

[Magnetro]

OK apparently PS3 captures through HDMI aren't possible. However, the 360 works fine with HDMI. Here are screen shots.

Army of Two was used cause that's the only game my friend had to let me borrow.

Army of 2 | Xbox360 | HMDI | 960x720 @ 59.94p

Army of 2 | Xbox360 | HMDI | 1280x720 @ 59.94p

Army of 2 | Xbox360 | HMDI | 1440x1080 @ 59.94p

Army of 2 | Xbox360 | HMDI | 1920x1080 @ 59.94p

All resolutions/frame rates get captured without any dropped frames. I'm thinking it's because of the on-board hardware encoding chip the Pegasus has. I think that is part of what makes it so expensive, heh. Since it's not uncompressed, the size isn't all lol-huge. 10min of 1920x1080 is about 12gbs @ the highest quality it can go. At "fine", 20min is like 22gbs. It looks great though.

Also, I've tried capturing 1080i to the non raptor hdd (a regular SATA drive) and it captures fine w/o any dropped frames. Also, it captures 5.1 audio through HDMI and I have no idea how that sounds because I only have two speakers. : (.

Finally, I found that one link that showed the color comparisons between high quality capture cards:

http://cts.creasus.net/edf/hdcap

[Magnetro]

About the PS3 HDMI problem, I was looking into this thing: http://www.hdfury.com/ . It's supposed to let you connect your HDMI into monitors/old inputs (like blackmagic/pegasus) that aren't going to be able to read the HDMI signal that has HDCP on it.

My guess is that you'll need to get that + the proper gender/converters for all of it to work.

[ShinjiGohan]

since my last posting I have upgraded my computer. now I'm able to capture 1080i compressed without any dropped or inserted frames.

However the problem with the preview/overlay being choppy is still there, in fact it seems worse now than it did before lol.

That is however with virtualdub. maybe the software that came with it would offer better results.

edit:
tested it out with the software that came with it. it overlays perfectly, AFAICT there is no lag and no choppiness. and it captures very well even on uncompressed. however it does still drop some frames in the uncompressed at 720. but still very good.