Blackmagic Design, makers of hardware used by professional videographers and filmmakers, announced Friday that its manufacturing facility is Restriction on the use of Hazardous Substances (RoHS)-compliant.
RoHS is a new European Union environmental standards guideline that goes into effect tomorrow, July 1, 2006. The RoHS directive requests that electronics makers not use certain environmentally hazardous materials, including lead.
Blackmagic’s product line includes the DeckLink Pro, a High Definition (HD) digital and analog video card, the Multibridge Extreme, a video editing and conversion system that works with the Mac, and the Multibridge Pro.
Blackmagic said that it’s also prepared to meet new environmental standards that will be imposed by California in January, 2007 that use the EU’s RoHS directive as their guide, and similar new standards due to go into effect in China beginning in March, 2007.
The first RoHS-compliant product off of Blackmagic’s assembly lines is the Multibridge Pro, a $1,595 breakout box — a bidirection video capture and playback system designed to be rack-mounted, that connects to a PCI Express-based Power Mac G5.