[Andrew Mills]

Hi all,

I hope this is in the right place, but essentially, I'm looking to purchase the Blackmagic Intensity Pro card to capture game footage for the various magazines that I work for. I've invested in a new rig (AMD Phenom Quad-Core @ 2.5Ghz per core with 8 Gigs of RAM on Vista 64-bit with a 500gig 7,200rpm SATA drive) and I was looking at using the card for HD capture (more than likely at 720p and Wii footage at 480p).

But before I splash the cash on one (as £225 isn't cheap), I was hoping a few nice people here could answer a couple of questions for me

* Will the card work out of the box on VISTA Ultimate 64-bit? (Or would I have a barrell of fun with the drivers?)
* For 720p capture, is a RAID set-up essential or merely desriable?
* Can I capture through component (at 720p) on the Pro using the supplied array of analogue cables? Or would I have to buy a Component to HDMI convertor box for £50? (I have an older model retail 360, that doesn't have an HDMI port).
* What's the best capture and playback software recommended for this particular card? Does it come with sufficient capture software?

And if there's any other pointers or pearls of wisdom people could share about this card before I order it, it'd be greatily appreciated!

[senu]

You could PM "meansizzler" He seems to be quite Au fait with it

[was1m]

Hi,

I have one of these cards and have been playing with it for a couple of months. I have used it to capture uncompressed HD footage from a HD reciever via component.
It works out of the box on my Server 2008 (x64) and my vista ultimate (x86).
I have 8Gb Ram and a quad core Q9450 and a 3.5Tb Raid 0 array (8 Disks). This can capture uncompressed Hd no probs.
I reckon, if you were to capture uncompressed footage you deffo would need a raid array. Not necessarily the same size as mine (overkill!!). You also have the option to compress on fly using BMD codec, which i think requires less throughput to your disks so a smaller array would do.
I reckon it is all about the ability of your disks to keep up with the data flowing to them.
In terms of cables it comes with a breakout cable that has component connections as well as HDMI. All you will need is a component cable to connect your device to the card.
With software it comes with a BMD basic program. I have played with Premiere 2.0 and sony vegas. The card comes with presets for Premiere Pro.

hope this helps.

Anybody tried to use Intensity Pro and Canon HF100 via HDMI ?