Black Magic PCIe Card working with QLAB for Video I/O

[Erik Ramquist]

Hello,

Has anyone had experience using Black Magic PCIe cards? I'm Specifically looking into the DeckLink 4k Extreme.

I am considering a Mac mini Server 

  

2.3GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7

• 2X256GB Solid State Drive
• 16GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x8GB

mounted in a Sonnet xMac mini 2H with the  DeckLink 4k E handling video through the ThunderBolt Port.  

This is for a project feeding up to 3 HD-SDI destinations with sperate video. I also want have a cue feeding them all an HD camera in.

I would like to play three separate videos each through a different surface then play a video through all three surfaces at once.

The HDMI out on the Mac mini Server would be for the Monitor Display. 

 

I would be patching the two HD-SDI outputs from the 4k into HD-SDI inputs on a Black Magic Compact Video Hub.

Eventually the HDMI output on the 4k would feed the hub as well.

OR Should I be looking at getting a Mac mini Server or just a Mac mini for each additional destination? Each with its own workspace. Or should I be looking for something else entirely?

Thanks for any help.

[Pierre-Luc Brunet]

That looks like a very nice setup. Those Sonnet Mac Mini enclosure look really great.

Though I'm pretty sure that Qlab can only output to screen that the OS can see. Which means I'm pretty sure you cannot output video using the Decklink card. You can only use this card for video input capture. So if you really want to output HD-SDI you would have to convert from either HDMI or Thunderbolt. (http://www.aja.com/en/products/t-tap/#overview - to be tested - may only work with specific softwares) 

This also means that if you want a control screen output and 3 show outputs you probably will need to use something like a Triple Head to go with each outputs being converted to HD-SDI. Though this Mac Mini seems like a very beefy one, it's hard to say if it will handle the whole thing top notch. I'm mostly wondering about GPU and a bit of the CPU.  I wonder if anyone does thorough comparison of mac products...

Otherwise could you use a Mac Pro? That way most parts could be internal and you could get much better video output cards and stronger CPU. Use the Decklink input card and DVI outputs converted to HD-SDI for outputs.  Seem a bit simpler and safer to me. It's also simpler than having 3 mac minis and programming 3 cue lists.