Video capture on cMP?

[mattspace]

Hi Folks,

So I'm thinking of doing some capture and conversion and was wondering what sorts of gear people are using on cMPs.

My eye is currently on the Blackmagic Intensity USB3, paired with a Sonnet Allegro Pro USB3 card, but if there's a cheaper option for turnkey capture (and passthrough) of HDMI and analogue video, I'm open to suggestions.

I'm mainly thinking of xbox game footage capture, and rescuing the couple of hundred betamax tapes I've got of tv recordings from the 1980s (going to have to salvage a working player out of the two identical but damaged decks I have here).

cheers.

 

[CapnDavey]

15 years ago I used a box called the Hollywood DV bridge it took composite video and stereo sound and converted it to firewire. I'm sure there are newer boxes that do the same thing good luck.

 

[Luca de Sensi]

Why don't you pick a Blackmagic Intensity or Intensity Pro Pcie.
It's going to be cheaper and everything's going to be in the box rather than going from an external peripheral to a pcie interface in your machine... unless you plan to use the Blackmagic Intensity USB3 with a Macbook or an Imac.

I have both an Intensity Pro and an Intensity Pro 4K in my Mac Pros and happy with them.
Only problem I have is that the 4k version has a noisy cooler.

@CapnDavey, I had my share of Miro DC30, Aurora Fuse and Hollywood DV bridge. At the end of the day, all of them were stucked with their internal video codec, be it Mjpg or Dv, so pretty limited and limiting on how they could handle a video source compared to today's offerings.

 

[mattspace]

Why don't you pick a Blackmagic Intensity or Intensity Pro Pcie.
It's going to be cheaper and everything's going to be in the box rather than going from an external peripheral to a pcie interface in your machine... unless you plan to use the Blackmagic Intensity USB3 with a Macbook or an Imac.

I have both an Intensity Pro and an Intensity Pro 4K in my Mac Pros and happy with them.
Only problem I have is that the 4k version has a noisy cooler.

Ahh, I hadn't looked at the intensity pro 4k pci enough to see it came with a breakout cable for all the analog inputs. I was thinking the usb version is not as neat, but it has a bit more versatility for changing machines. Your 4k card has fan noise? Could that be solved by changing the fan to a more quiet model?

 

[JesterJJZ]

I heard the USB cards from Blackmagic aren't great on Mac.

 

[Luca de Sensi]

Ahh, I hadn't looked at the intensity pro 4k pci enough to see it came with a breakout cable for all the analog inputs. I was thinking the usb version is not as neat, but it has a bit more versatility for changing machines. Your 4k card has fan noise? Could that be solved by changing the fan to a more quiet model?

Honestly, I'm not sure there's an easy/safe way to change the fan on the card.... I remember reading that somebody just removed it and kept the card in a well ventilated machine.... definitely not 100% sure!!!