Blackmagic Design has launched Intensity, an HDMI capture playback card designed to enable low-cost consumer cameras with HDMI video connections to move beyond HDV compressed video to uncompressed editing and design, writes Carolyn Giardina.
“I think it’s going to be pretty big for us,” said Blackmagic CEO, Grant Petty, at its launch at IBC. “It allows consumes products to be used for higher end work, enabling a wider range of options.”
Scheduled to ship next month, Blackmagic said Intensity instantly switches between 1080, 720, NTSC and PAL video standards. Once Intensity is plugged into compatible PCI Express Windows or Mac OS X computers, users can get uncompressed video via HDMI from cameras, decks and set top boxes, enabling them to playback to any HDMI big screen television or video projector for video editing, in SD or HD, and with realtime effects.
“We hope Intensity finally allows videographers on a tight budget to afford full resolution HDTV post production that goes well beyond HDV quality limits,” noted Petty.
He said that once HDV footage is recorded uncompressed via HDMI, and graphics and effects are placed, the edited video would retail full HD resolution and colour depth.
Because Intensity’s media files are compatible with Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink and Multibridge capture cards, users can also play-out to broadcast take decks by moving content to a DeckLink or Multibridge based system.
