Decklink Drivers & Cards

Does anyone have experience of using 2 x Decklink cards in 1 MacPro (2007 or 2008). The Decklink drivers only used to support 1 card in a system - not sure if this may have changed and cant find any info...

Has anyone tried installing either 2 of the same card - or 2 different ones with any success?

ie:
2 x intensity
2 x intensity pro
2 x HD Extreme
2 x HD Pro
or any combination of the above

I dont have every card to test - but I will be shortly testing:
2 x 2 x intensity pro
and
1 x intensity pro & 1 x HD Extreme

will post the results - but do let me know your experiences/sucesses, please note card/OS/driver version...

Thanks

Simon

Have done some further testing

It seems that it IS possible to use more than one Decklink Card in a MacPro with the correct drivers

have just successfully tested a Decklink HD Extreme AND an intensity Pro - both work and allow video input on each card.

It also seems that it should be possible to use 2 x intensity/pro cards in one system. The drivers DO support it.

Will be testing HD inputs on these cards next week to see how many HD inputs are possible at one time - there may be some limitations...

These Decklink cards also work with either a Phoenix or LFG capture cards in the same system at the same time - in Standard Definition (HD tests next week)

Test system:
2007 MacPro 3.0G 8core, 8G Ram, 500G SATA, X1900XT

S

Simon,

I am both excited and curious. I have 2 Pro-HD cards in two different machines.

I will try my two HD cards sometime next week in one each of the 07 and 08 machines.

The only problem I think will be the latency acquired by passing the capture through Quicktime. This is still the only problem with Decklink which is why the Phoenix cards are so appealing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SourceChild

Simon,

I will try my two HD cards sometime next week in one each of the 07 and 08 machines. I may also experiment with rewriting device drivers to suit Catalyst.

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i dont think so... rewriting device drivers.... you dont have access to device drivers...

Quote:

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I have also been learning more about the core animation APIs and how devices call on the architecture.

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???
core animation has nothing to do with HD cards or video input or quicktime.
decklink cards have no opengl support - so they wont accelerate any opengl stuff- and therefore will not work in any sensible way with 'core animation' or anything like it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mr_P

Have done some further testing

It seems that it IS possible to use more than one Decklink Card in a MacPro with the correct drivers
S

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maybe decklink changed their drivers so that you can use an intensity and a decklink hd card at the same time -

does not mean you should - or that it works well enough.
simon has not followed up with any concrete information- so this is suspect until he does.

Indeed - not followed up on this testing, and won't have a chance until november now, as the kit is on jobs...

Will report back in november

Simon

Multiple Decklink Cards ended up being more of a train wreck. Sent a few emails to Black Magic about it but not really worth pursuing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SourceChild

Multiple Decklink Cards ended up being more of a train wreck. Sent a few emails to Black Magic about it but not really worth pursuing.

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if you make a suggestion about hardware you need to follow proper thorough qa procedures.

You need to test in a wide range of machines, and a wide range of OS configurations.
And you need to provide sufficient detail so that someone else could create a replica system and either confirm or deny a problem or solution. This means providing detailed and accurate and credible information.
it means describing every step in a process or procedure.

Just because it works in your system does not mean it will work in anyone elses.
Single changes or omissions which seem obvious to you, are not obvious to anyone else.

Tests always need to be double and triple verified by other people with different configurations and different requirements.

And if you see problems - a single problem - it more than likely means it will not work well enough.

A single simple problem is often a killer- sure you might be able to make a hack - but
end users need trouble free and solutions that are as idiot proof as possible.
Hacking does not work.
Hacking is big trouble.

If you have to make any hacks to make something work - forget it.
I do not pursue solutions that involve modifying any standard hardware or software.