Ace Baker Posted December 3, 2011 Share Posted December 3, 2011 My second Canopus firewire box died, I've just bought the Blackmagic Intensity Pro card for video out. It works, but there are a few issues and questions. 1. Logic makes a mess out of 720 x 480 DV video, on the screen it is horribly pixelated, it looks like 1/4 of the resolution. The exact same video played in Final Cut looks fine. 2. There are very limited choices for video format. "Blackmagic NTSC" is one of them, NTSC is 29.97 fps, my current project is a feature and it's 24 fps. It seems Logic gets those choices from the Intensity software. Is there a way to get more format choices? 3. I've experimented with converting the video to many different formats, all of the formats available in Logic's Blackmagic list, and the one that works best is 720 p, 60 fps. It seems a great waste of processor power to pass 60 fps, when the original footage was only 24, but whatever. 4. Logic has always required DV video. Is that requirement related to Logic in general, or does it just pertain to firewire output? I've been experimenting with ProRes codec, and that seems to work as well as DV. But I'd hate to get deep into this project only to discover that everything is choking because Logic doesn't like the video codec. Thanks a million for any insight from anybody else using Intensity Pro with Logic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SculliD Posted December 4, 2011 Share Posted December 4, 2011 Hey Ace, I've been considering one of these cards. Are you able to get audio from your interface for Logic? Thanks! Kevin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace Baker Posted December 4, 2011 Author Share Posted December 4, 2011 Yes, the card is outputting audio. I don't use it that way, I bring audio into Logic. But yes, audio is happening. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
popscreen Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 Before importing the video into Logic, try using QuickTime Pro (the older version), and convert it to a PhotoJPEG movie. It's much easier on the CPU, and the quality is great for scoring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace Baker Posted December 5, 2011 Author Share Posted December 5, 2011 MPEG Streamclip is great free format converter, I use that. It used to be that Logic absolutely required DV codec, nothing else worked well at all. My question is is whether this has to do specifically with firewire video output, or Logic in general. I'm waiting to try some 1080 p 24 fps that are being made with ProRes codec. I'll let you know how those go. I guess this is new territory, and we're down to "try stuff and see what works". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fader8 Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 It used to be that Logic absolutely required DV codec, nothing else worked well at all. My question is is whether this has to do specifically with firewire video output, or Logic in general. I've never had any issues with DV files. Granted, I'm always streaming them from a dedicated RAID 0 pair, so disk bandwidth is never an issue. But to your question, it isn't so much the particular file format that Logic either likes or dislikes. It's the amount, type and complexity of data compression. Many of the newer techniques don't actually have every frame represented, so the playback codec literally has to manufacture these "in-between" frames in real time on the fly. That's incredibly cpu intensive work which robs from Logic's ability to do other things it needs to do in real time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace Baker Posted December 5, 2011 Author Share Posted December 5, 2011 H264 is like that, it only stores about 1 out of 10 frames, and interpolates the rest, it's a delivery format, not an editing format. For sure Logic firewire video output was specifically designed to handle DV codec, this is known. I'm trying my 1080p right now, will see how that goes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace Baker Posted December 5, 2011 Author Share Posted December 5, 2011 I'm on hold with Blackmagic now trying to get some answers. My 1080p 23.98 video plays, but only when I select 1080i 59.94 from the drop down list. When I choose 1080p, 23.98, I get an error message on the TV screen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattrixx Posted December 8, 2011 Share Posted December 8, 2011 I use one of these cards and it's great. Blackmagic don't officially support the card with LogicPro. However, since Logic uses the same digital cinema desktop framework that FCP uses, it does work, though only in 32bit mode. (there are no external options in Logic 64bit). I'm having an entirely different problem with video in 64bit mode at the moment. (internally on the local display). I can't get any video to display in Logic 64bit. Not even in the top left preview window. Driving me nuts on a couple of projects. but like I said, it's working a treat in Logic 32bit.. as well as ProTools10 (on OSX 10.7.2, MacPro 3,1 14GB RAM)... Note: if you are intending to use the ProRes format (which looks amazing btw), make sure your video hard drives are up to the task of delivering the data fast enough. Cheers, Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daviddellasanta Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 I just installed the Blackmagic Intensity Pro an have not been able to get it to work with Logic 9 at all. After talking to BM Tech Support I know it is no longer supported and after reading the posts hear it sounds like I am not alone and it just doesn't work well with Logic. Is there another third monitor video card that anyone would recommend? Thanks, David Logic 9.1.6 OSX 10.6.8 Intel Quad 2.66 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattrixx Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 I just installed the Blackmagic Intensity Pro an have not been able to get it to work with Logic 9 at all. After talking to BM Tech Support I know it is no longer supported and after reading the posts hear it sounds like I am not alone and it just doesn't work well with Logic. Is there another third monitor video card that anyone would recommend? Thanks, David Logic 9.1.6 OSX 10.6.8 Intel Quad 2.66 Actually, it was never supported ... It just works. Mine is fine on Lion.7.3 with Logic 9.1.6 (32bit mode).. Works Great!!! Apparently, 64bit support has been addressed with a beta driver that allows for video FCPX 10.0.3 (one of the sticking points annoying many people). So hopefully that means video will be 64bit ready in Logic sometime soon in a new release. It is important to get your formats sorted and MPEGStreamclip is a great free app that allows transcoding etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daviddellasanta Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 Hey Mattrixx, Thanks for responding. Its good to know its working for you. I'm in 32bit mode as well. What driver version are you using? I have tried the latest as well as a couple of legacy drivers on suggestion of BM tech support. And short of updating to OSX Lion 7.3 can you elaborate on "It is important to get your formats sorted." I've tried a couple different Quicktime formats. Is there a specific format and compression I should be using? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattrixx Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 Hey Mattrixx, Thanks for responding. Its good to know its working for you. I'm in 32bit mode as well. What driver version are you using? I have tried the latest as well as a couple of legacy drivers on suggestion of BM tech support. And short of updating to OSX Lion 7.3 can you elaborate on "It is important to get your formats sorted." I've tried a couple different Quicktime formats. Is there a specific format and compression I should be using? Thanks! I'm currently using 9.2beta drivers (released a couple of days ago). Another thought came to mind. Have you tried the card in a different slot? As far as formats are concerned, use MPEGStreamclip to export into a couple of other formats to try.. i.e. NTSC DV (assuming you're in the USA). Also try Apple ProRes(LT) for a high def solution for example. Make sure the frame rates are supported in the Blackmagic driver settings.. i.e. make things match, otherwise you'll see jumping frames etc Hope this is of some help..... Regards, Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daviddellasanta Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 Thanks Matt, I tried DV and Apple ProRes(LT). They both work. Apple ProRes looks better. Main problem fixed. They are both rather large conversions although. I was really hoping to be using smaller movie files. When I convert a 2 hour film, that file gets into the gigabytes. In 32 bit mode with a bunch of plugins loaded up my system is being over worked. I am getting memory and drive errors. I know I am moving off topic now, but any hints on streaming so much data with my system? Thanks, David Logic 9.1.6 OSX 10.6.8 Intel Quad 2.66, 12 GB memory Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattrixx Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 Thanks Matt, I tried DV and Apple ProRes(LT). They both work. Apple ProRes looks better. Main problem fixed. They are both rather large conversions although. I was really hoping to be using smaller movie files. When I convert a 2 hour film, that file gets into the gigabytes. In 32 bit mode with a bunch of plugins loaded up my system is being over worked. I am getting memory and drive errors. I know I am moving off topic now, but any hints on streaming so much data with my system?Thanks, David Logic 9.1.6 OSX 10.6.8 Intel Quad 2.66, 12 GB memory As far as resources go, DV is still the best option, per file size and CPU load. Make sure the vision is streaming from a different drive than your audio data. (obvious I know, but so many people don't heed the warning on that one). You can do some pretty awesome looking standard def DV when downgrading from supplied hd files. (MpegStreamclip is a help here) Regards, Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daviddellasanta Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 Thanks Matt, Ya both DV and ProRes are working. I will be testing out processor performance on a 2 hour film today. Thanks for your help! David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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