Blackmagic Design introduced Intensity, a $249 HDMI capture playback card. The card enables HDV users to ingest uncompressed video direct from HDV cameras with HDMI video connections. Available for Windows or Mac OS X, the card can switch between 1080HD, 720HD, NTSC and PAL video standards.“We hope Intensity finally allows videographers on a tight budget to afford full resolution HDTV postproduction that goes well beyond HDV quality limits,” said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design.The company also announced DeckLink 5.7 for Windows. While DeckLink has traditionally been an uncompressed tool, the new version gives users the option of using compressed, full-resolution, Online JPEG video to reduce disk space, and bandwidth requirements.AJA Video announced a deal to supply Avid Technology with a customized OEM I/O system that enables dual-link HD-SDI connectivity in Avid DS Nitris version 8.0. Dual-link HD-SDI is necessary for uncompressed 4:4:4 RGB.The company also entered into a similar agreement with Autodesk Media and Entertainment to provide OEM I/O technologies for Autodesk’s visual effects and editing and finishing systems. AJA OEM cards will be used across the Autodesk Inferno, Autodesk Flame and Autodesk Flint visual effects systems, as well as the Autodesk Fire and Autodesk Smoke editing and finishing systems.Bluefish444 announced a new series of multi-channel SD SDI uncompressed video cards, for Windows XP, Windows 2000, Pro Linux and Mac operating systems.In all, five new SD SDI video cards are available to Bluefish444 OEM developers. They are the SD Dual Link Pro, SD Ingest Pro, SD Lite Pro, Iridium AV Pro and SD Single Link Pro. They are designed for applications such as video servers, encoding, decoding and streaming of MPEG and H.264, live and non-live CG.
Written by Scott Lehane
