Two SDI Streams to MacPro6,1

benthana

As said above i need to get two (HD-)SDI streams into a MacPro6,1. Im thinking about Blackmagic Deckling Quad and

http://sonnettech.com/product/echoexpressse2.html

Has anybody experience if this will work properly? ...or any better suggestions how to do that?

Kind regards

Benthana

Fred

Do you have a couple of thunderbolt ports free? You can just use 2 mini recorders and save several thousand bucks. The blackmagic devices have different digitising capabilities- what resolution do you need- do you ned access to extra (outside of normal timecode) vanc lines? Do you need the hardware output capability, internal keying?

There is also a DUO model that will work fine for half the price.

Also depending on what you are doing when you send a 4k signal over 3G cables it is sent as 4 quadrants of HD resolution. You can use one of the 4K capture systems that supports 4x 3GSDI capture and capture a single 4x HD image comprised of the separate feeds. You need to sync the signals but that may or may not be a big deal- also possible and keeping you out of PCIe expansion territory.

Fred

benthana

Thanks for your thoughts Fred, the Mini Recorder looks interesting and worth taking a closer look at.

We are running a few servers, mostly MacPro 5,1 equipped with Deckling Studio 2 so i have a little experience in that field.

Because i have budget for that money isn't really the problem. We are going to run this system for a few years so the more options this setup deliver, the better because nobody knows what kind of productions are coming.

My Intension of the question, because i didn't work with MacPro 6,1 until now and pci extension neither, was has anybody done it this way? Was it reliable? Was it stable(framerate)? Is the thunderbolt bandwidth enough (theoretically yes but ......)? Will Isadora 2 deliver the power to pull 2 (HD-)SDI streams out to 3 Stages simultanously? Where are the Problems with a setup like this?

..........and any other kind of field experience would be very welcome.

Thanks in advance

Benni

benthana

for the possible benefit of everybody:

Ive done it the above mentioned way and it works like charm and surprisingly nearly "out of the box". I have also tested it with my Laptop and a TripleHead and i was able to capture and output 3 HD-SDI-feeds in full framerate with a really low latency on my MBP9,2\. Cool!

primaldivine

Hi Benni
Just confirming that you mean you used multiple BM Mini Recorders and achieved low latency? Would you be able to offer any approximate statistics on the latency?
I have just started a new thread here to gather up best hardware solutions for low latency input configurations so am harvesting info from multiple threads about this.
thanks!

benthana

Sorry if my answer was misleadingly, i did it with the Blackmagic Decklink Quad and the Sonnet Echo Express.

I were measuring end to end (SDIcam-> Decklink Quad -> AMD FirePro D700-> TripleHead DP-Edition -> Kramer DVI- Network Extender-> Datapath-> Samsung Videowall) 5 to 6 Frames delay.

It sounds a lot but it feels ok.