Blackmagic Design announced on Friday the release of three new hardware products for digital video editing, lower prices for two existing products and an upcoming software update.
DeckLink HD Plus (US$995) is an uncompressed 10-bit video PCI card that accommodates both standard definition SDI video and full HDTV video formats, with genlock for integration with large broadcast facilities. It features one HD/SD-SDI video and audio input and output, AES/SPDIF digital audio input output, genlocked AES wordclock output and a Sony-compatible RS422 serial deck control port. It can instantly switch between SDTV SMPTE-259M SDI video and HDTV SMPTE-292M/296M SDI video for 1080i/1080p/720p video editing and design and includes Blackmagic’s codec for 64-bit rendering in such applications as Adobe After Effects.
The company also reduced the price of the original DeckLink HD card to $595.
The new Deckink HD Pro model is a single link card ($1,495) that offers 4:2:2 output instead of 4:4:4. It still features the same quality of analog monitoring that its dual link cousin, which has been reduced to $1,995, offers. In November, Blackmagic will release a free software update for both DeckLink HD Pro cards that features a new broadcast quality HD down conversion, DVCPRO HD hardware acceleration and 14-bit 5x over-sampled composite NTSC/PAL analog output.
DeckLink Multibridge ($1,995) is an all-in-one converter and breakout box with 14-bit digital to analog conversion in both HDTV and Standard Definition video and dual link HD 4:4:4 quality. It can handle all YUV video conversion in and out as well as composite NTSC/PAL, with four channels of analog XLR professional audio in and out and eight channels of AES/EBU audio in and out. It features 64MB of buffer memory and a USB 2.0 port that allows users to plug in and adjust the digital levels. When it ships in four weeks, a version that handles only Standard Definition video will also be available for $1,495.
Finally, Blackmagic’s HDLink 4:4:4 HDTV monitoring device, which features built-in audio, has been reduced to $695. HDLink connects SDI video with any supported DVI-D-based LCD display and maps that standard onto 1920 x 1200 resolution, enabling users to see what the final HDTV image will look like.