Blackmagic Design
DeckLink Multibridge Extreme
Having tested and reviewed two of its higher-end HD products and used its PCI cards for many years prior, I am convinced of one thing: Blackmagic Design is one of the most innovative and reliable professional video equipment manufacturers around. The DeckLink Multibridge Extreme bi-directional converter further reinforces my opinion of the company. Its thoughtful I/O implementation, switchable workstation/standalone use, and rock-solid driver and easy-to-use utiltiy applications make this reasonably priced and highly flexibe unit a best buy.
Like Blackmagic Design’s popular
DeckLink series of internal cards, the Multibridge Extreme is a
high-quality video capture and playback solution compatible with Mac-
and PC-based computers. In addition to its ability to capture/playback
uncompressed video when used with a workstation, theMultibridge Extreme
is also capable of operating as a standalone dual-rate HD/SD-SDI
bi-directional 14-bit analog/digital converter.
The single-space rack-mount chassis contains all of the video and audio input and output connections (no break-out cables!). For analog video, eight BNC connectors provide separate and simultaneous NTSC/PAL composite and component I/O. The composite input also doubles as the sync reference input.Four BNC connectors provide two channels of SDI input and output, allowing for support of SD- and HD-SDI 4:2:2 (YUV) and 4:4:4 (RGB) video plus 8/12-channel SD/HD embedded audio capture and playback.A DVI-D dual-link connector plus two analog audio outputs on RCA connectors provides a dedicated monitoring output for connecting to a LCD display (up to 30 inches resolution) and audio monitoring system. An included DVI-D male-to-HDMI female adaptor lets you connect the video monitor output to HDMI-equipped displays.
In addition to the aformentioned RCA audio outputs, a pair of XLR-M and XLR-F connectors provide two channels of balanced analog audio I/O. A DB-25 connector is used for eight-channels of digital audio I/O (four stereo pairs of AES/EBU). The DB-25 connector can be hooked directly to similarly equipped professional multitrack audio recorders, or an optional break-out cable can be used to access the four AES stereo pairs on the more common XLR connectors. Mac Core Audio and PC ASIO drivers are provided for integration with popular pro audio workstations. The audio convertors use the 48kHz/24-bit broadcast standard.
Other connectors include adirection-reversible (via software) nine-pin RS-422 serial port for device control, and a USB 2.0 port used for configuring the hardware via the included Mac and PC graphical-based software applications.
The Multibridge supports PAL and NTSC standard-definition formats and 780p through 1080i and 1080p high-defiiniton formats. When used with a workstation, Multibridge SDI metadata support includes VITC read for 3:2 pulldown removal and VANC capture/playback.
In Use
The Multibridge Extreme box connects to a workstation computer's PCIe slot via an included two-meter PCI Express cable andPCIe adapter card. The diminutative adapter card (literally one and a half by three inches) must be installed in a four-lane capable (minimum) PCIe slot, and a very fast disk array is required to get the maximum capture/playback performance from the Multibridge.
For this review I used the Multibridge with a quad-AMD processor-equipped PC running Windows XP Professional. A four-disk SATA RAID of Western Digital 10K-RPM Raptors proved adequate for uncompressed HD work, though a fiber channel array most likely would have been merrier -- time to ante up!. By the way, Blackmagic includes an excellent Disk Speed Test utility for assesing the real-world speed of your disk system for video use (it even displays results in video frames per second).
Installation of the driver and software applications was a simple affair. Like the DeckLink HD card I reviewed last year, once installed I experienced no compatiblity issues and the Mulitbridge performed reliably and without issue thoughout the review process.
The single-space hardware box comes with detachable/reversible rack ears so it can be mounted with the connectors to the rear or front of the rack -- a thoughtful touch. I also appreciated that Blackmagic provided separate composite and component outputs, as opposed to the increasingly common (and annoying) practice by equipment manufacturers of "stealing" one of the component connectors for composite use. With separate component and composite connectors plus its wealth of additional A/V connections , I was able to leave the Multibridge hooked permanetly to my monitors, decks and patchbays. Very rarely did I have to go to the back of the rack and reconfigure inputs or outputs (the exception was the sync input, which shares the composite video input).
Using a variety of sources including Beta and DigiBeta decks, plus another HD workstation equipped with a DeckLink HD Pro inteface, I performed numerous up/down format conversions with the Multibrige in standalone operation. with a laptop connected to the USB port on the Multibridge, I was able to navigate through the various routing and format options via the graphic interface. The interface seemed fairly complicated at first, but once I dug in and got started, it turned out to be one of the most intuitive control applications I have used. In all test cases, the Multibridge performed the real-time (including simultaneous bi-directional!) conversions perfectly, though I was a bit disapointed to learn that the unit will not up convert SD to HD. It will, however cross-convert among the various HD formats.
In addition to using the Multibridge to perform standalone format and standards conversion, I captured, edited and outputed SD and HD video and graphics using a variety of PC software applications including Adobe Premiere Pro and Photoshop, Sony Vegas and Steinberg Nuendo. Like the DeckLink HD Pro card, the Multibridge integrated and operated seamlessly across the applications with which it used and throughout my existing workflow.
Summary
Having tested and reviewed two of its higher-end HD products and used its PCI cards for many years prior, I am convinced of one thing: Blackmagic Design is one of the most innovative and reliable professional video equipment manufacturers around. The DeckLink Multibridge Extreme bi-directional converter further reinforces my opinion of the company. Its thoughtful I/O implementation, switchable workstation/standalone use, and rock-solid driver and easy-to-use utiltiy applications make this reasonably priced and highly flexibe unit a best buy.
Contact: www.blackmagic-design.com
The single-space rack-mount chassis contains all of the video and audio input and output connections (no break-out cables!). For analog video, eight BNC connectors provide separate and simultaneous NTSC/PAL composite and component I/O. The composite input also doubles as the sync reference input.Four BNC connectors provide two channels of SDI input and output, allowing for support of SD- and HD-SDI 4:2:2 (YUV) and 4:4:4 (RGB) video plus 8/12-channel SD/HD embedded audio capture and playback.A DVI-D dual-link connector plus two analog audio outputs on RCA connectors provides a dedicated monitoring output for connecting to a LCD display (up to 30 inches resolution) and audio monitoring system. An included DVI-D male-to-HDMI female adaptor lets you connect the video monitor output to HDMI-equipped displays.
In addition to the aformentioned RCA audio outputs, a pair of XLR-M and XLR-F connectors provide two channels of balanced analog audio I/O. A DB-25 connector is used for eight-channels of digital audio I/O (four stereo pairs of AES/EBU). The DB-25 connector can be hooked directly to similarly equipped professional multitrack audio recorders, or an optional break-out cable can be used to access the four AES stereo pairs on the more common XLR connectors. Mac Core Audio and PC ASIO drivers are provided for integration with popular pro audio workstations. The audio convertors use the 48kHz/24-bit broadcast standard.
Other connectors include adirection-reversible (via software) nine-pin RS-422 serial port for device control, and a USB 2.0 port used for configuring the hardware via the included Mac and PC graphical-based software applications.
The Multibridge supports PAL and NTSC standard-definition formats and 780p through 1080i and 1080p high-defiiniton formats. When used with a workstation, Multibridge SDI metadata support includes VITC read for 3:2 pulldown removal and VANC capture/playback.
In Use
The Multibridge Extreme box connects to a workstation computer's PCIe slot via an included two-meter PCI Express cable andPCIe adapter card. The diminutative adapter card (literally one and a half by three inches) must be installed in a four-lane capable (minimum) PCIe slot, and a very fast disk array is required to get the maximum capture/playback performance from the Multibridge.
For this review I used the Multibridge with a quad-AMD processor-equipped PC running Windows XP Professional. A four-disk SATA RAID of Western Digital 10K-RPM Raptors proved adequate for uncompressed HD work, though a fiber channel array most likely would have been merrier -- time to ante up!. By the way, Blackmagic includes an excellent Disk Speed Test utility for assesing the real-world speed of your disk system for video use (it even displays results in video frames per second).
Installation of the driver and software applications was a simple affair. Like the DeckLink HD card I reviewed last year, once installed I experienced no compatiblity issues and the Mulitbridge performed reliably and without issue thoughout the review process.
The single-space hardware box comes with detachable/reversible rack ears so it can be mounted with the connectors to the rear or front of the rack -- a thoughtful touch. I also appreciated that Blackmagic provided separate composite and component outputs, as opposed to the increasingly common (and annoying) practice by equipment manufacturers of "stealing" one of the component connectors for composite use. With separate component and composite connectors plus its wealth of additional A/V connections , I was able to leave the Multibridge hooked permanetly to my monitors, decks and patchbays. Very rarely did I have to go to the back of the rack and reconfigure inputs or outputs (the exception was the sync input, which shares the composite video input).
Using a variety of sources including Beta and DigiBeta decks, plus another HD workstation equipped with a DeckLink HD Pro inteface, I performed numerous up/down format conversions with the Multibrige in standalone operation. with a laptop connected to the USB port on the Multibridge, I was able to navigate through the various routing and format options via the graphic interface. The interface seemed fairly complicated at first, but once I dug in and got started, it turned out to be one of the most intuitive control applications I have used. In all test cases, the Multibridge performed the real-time (including simultaneous bi-directional!) conversions perfectly, though I was a bit disapointed to learn that the unit will not up convert SD to HD. It will, however cross-convert among the various HD formats.
In addition to using the Multibridge to perform standalone format and standards conversion, I captured, edited and outputed SD and HD video and graphics using a variety of PC software applications including Adobe Premiere Pro and Photoshop, Sony Vegas and Steinberg Nuendo. Like the DeckLink HD Pro card, the Multibridge integrated and operated seamlessly across the applications with which it used and throughout my existing workflow.
Summary
Having tested and reviewed two of its higher-end HD products and used its PCI cards for many years prior, I am convinced of one thing: Blackmagic Design is one of the most innovative and reliable professional video equipment manufacturers around. The DeckLink Multibridge Extreme bi-directional converter further reinforces my opinion of the company. Its thoughtful I/O implementation, switchable workstation/standalone use, and rock-solid driver and easy-to-use utiltiy applications make this reasonably priced and highly flexibe unit a best buy.
Contact: www.blackmagic-design.com