New capture board with pro TBC? (Blackmagic)
 

Hi there,

I just saw an announcement about a new capture board for digitizing analogue video, the black magic Intensity Pro 4K for just $199

Haven't bought it yes because it has no SDI input, but for many users here this card can be the perfect solution for a small price.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/pro...intensitypro4k

happy conservation jobs.

JosefSKIL, Amsterdam

Blackmagic cards do not work well with dirty analog video (VHS etc).

Noting that all VHS is dirty. Even signals that "look fine" are dirty. Consumer analog, VHS especially, is almost controlled chaos, rather than actual quality. It's not stable, though it can come close with all the right workflow hardware (multiple TBCs, etc).

And correct, Blackmagic hardware handles SD analog very poorly. It easily drops frames (and have sync loss) even with a TBC.

Yikes! :eek:

Ironic that a USB card that costs under $100 does far better than a supposed "pro" card. But then again, that was true in the 2000s, where companies like ATI and Hauppauge beat the likes of Canopus and Matrox, for VHS capture setups.

Their ad copy has a bit of nonsense in it too:Why would you capture DVDs via an analog capture card to begin with, and how many of them have time base errors that need to be stabilized? (hint: none since its digital)

The Intensity Pro 4K card has been out for a couple years, and has some issues with black levels in analog capture, especially via component input. It requires a stable, good solid sync, especially the previous Intensity version. (The 4K tolerates poor sync a bit better.) It does provide HDMI capture (although it respects copy protection). It captures to MJPEG or uncompressed. I ran some color bar capture tests on it a couple years ago, but do not have the results with me now.

The on-board TBC is a Analog Devices ADV7180 chip http://www.analog.com/en/products/au...oduct-overview

Hardly broadcast quality.

Those Analog Devices TBC chips remind me of Big Voodoo: junk.

Being a TBC requires more than claiming it's a TBC. Because that term is so wide and loose (aka abused over the decades), you must put requirements on what it actually does. When that happens, when "TBC" is given stringent requirements, the claims of Canopus, Analog Devices, Big Voodoo, Grex, mixers, and most DVD recorders becomes laughable.

At least the datasheet calls it " mini-TBC functionality" which implies it is not full TBC functionality.

They have a document describing the functionality (which they call "Adaptive Digital Line Length Tracking (ADLLT)"): http://www.analog.com/media/en/techn...7357AN_850.pdf.

Couldn't find any real-world examples of it though. There is a video from a vcr on their forums shows some clear line jitter, though it doesn't show the black frames that the blackmagic devices produce, so it's possible that it's configured badly in the blackmagic device.