Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for an affordable I/O box for MC 2021? 

Earlier on I was looking at an AJA I/O Express, but couldn't find one here with the host PCIe adapter. would the Blackmagic Decklink Mini Monitor be a good alternative? 

I've never brought any of these before, so I don't really know what i'm doing, I just need a full screen display into a 1080p HDMI monitor. 

Any suggestions would be appreciated! 

BMD Decklink Mini Monitor. Unless you need inputs. The 4K version is 50 bucks more. If you're working in 5.1, do take into account that the non-Avid-brander BMD products do not properly correct 5.1 channel order on their HDMI outputs (not flipping Center and LFE). 

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/decklink

Job ter Burg:

BMD Decklink Mini Monitor. Unless you need inputs. The 4K version is 50 bucks more. If you're working in 5.1, do take into account that the non-Avid-brander BMD products do not properly correct 5.1 channel order on their HDMI outputs (not flipping Center and LFE). 

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/decklink

Excellent. Thank you! 

My HDMI monitor has a headphone jack out (i've read that MC can't output video to the Decklink, and output audio to a different device at the same time) so I can plug my studio monitors through there. 

I know i should be plugging this into a PVM or BVM evaluation monitor, but I have 5 screens on my system and my GPU only has 4 outputs, so this is the only reason i'm getting one of these, to free up a port on my GPU. 

_Five_ screens? And an electric weelchair? ;)

Having a hard time managing my three 27" screens (plus a 65" program monitor behind them).

Job ter Burg:

_Five_ screens? And an electric weelchair? ;)

Having a hard time managing my three 27" screens (plus a 65" program monitor behind them).

Cmon' Job - Keep up my friend xDD - Just joking. 

My left monitor for bins, centre widescreen monitor for timeline, source and program monitors, Right monitor as a full-screen preview monitor, far-right monitor for scopes (in the future) but now just for the audio tool and avid's audio mixer (with my artist mix underneath it) and my 5'th monitor is a separate system for e-mailing and stuff. 

my mentor's setup: https://community.avid.com/members/philipkapadia/files/DF-at-KTe_2D00_02-CROP.png.aspx

THAT is ridiculous OwO.... 9 monitors + a laptop & scripts. 

Philip Kapadia:

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for an affordable I/O box for MC 2021? 

If you just need a box to use to put your Avid output on an HDMI monitor, I've got a Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor which connects to my laptop via USB-C and goes into a TV via HDMI. It's been discontinued, but the newest one does the same thing and only costs £95.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/ultrastudio/techspecs/W-DLUS-13

Mine works like a Swiss watch.

camoscato:

Philip Kapadia:

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for an affordable I/O box for MC 2021? 

If you just need a box to use to put your Avid output on an HDMI monitor, I've got a Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor which connects to my laptop via USB-C and goes into a TV via HDMI. It's been discontinued, but the newest one does the same thing and only costs £95.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/ultrastudio/techspecs/W-DLUS-13

Mine works like a Swiss watch.

 

Hi, That's exactly what I need :)

I thought the Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor works through Thunderbolt, not through USB-C? My Desktop tower doesn't have thunderbolt. 

Is there a version i'm missing out on? 

Philip Kapadia:

Mine works like a Swiss watch.

If you don't need it to tell the time I would suggest an Aja Lhi:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/184965505870?hash=item2b10cda34e:g:xk0AAOSwbyBg~vKT

David Yardley:

Philip Kapadia:

Mine works like a Swiss watch.

If you don't need it to tell the time I would suggest an Aja Lhi:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/184965505870?hash=item2b10cda34e:g:xk0AAOSwbyBg~vKT

Thank you for that suggestion David, that looks good OwO

Is it a lot less reliable over a blackmagic Decklink then? 

Philip Kapadia:

I thought the Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor works through Thunderbolt, not through USB-C?

As far as I know, 'thunderbolt' is Apple's word for 'USB-C'. If you look at the Blackmagic link, down toward the bottom it says:

Requires computer with a Thunderbolt™ 3 USB-C port.

The USB-C ports on the laptop in my specs work with the Blackmagic box just fine.

camoscato:

Philip Kapadia:

I thought the Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor works through Thunderbolt, not through USB-C?

As far as I know, 'thunderbolt' is Apple's word for 'USB-C'. If you look at the Blackmagic link, down toward the bottom it says:

Requires computer with a Thunderbolt™ 3 USB-C port.

The USB-C ports on the laptop in my specs work with the Blackmagic box just fine.

 

Are you sure? I thought thunderbolt and USB - C had different pins? 

Aja products have a very reliable reputation, and you may well find that a S/H one is still under the 5 year warranty.

It will give you proper balanced audio outs as well as HDMI, (And ins for punching in,) but is limited to 2K.

(I also have an I/O express that is still going strong from when MC6 came out.)

David Yardley:

Aja products have a very reliable reputation, and you may well find that a S/H one is still under the 5 year warranty.

It will give you proper balanced audio outs as well as HDMI, (And ins for punching in,) but is limited to 2K.

(I also have an I/O express that is still going strong from when MC6 came out.)

Thank you! 

At the moment I'm leaning towards Carl's suggestion: Blackmagic UltraStudio Monitor 3G.

I don't have any PCIe ports left in my system, so if I was to get a PCIe based I/O box I would have to take out my PCIe to USB C converter (connected to a few hard drives) and replace it with the IO box. If I can connect USB - C to the thunderbolt I/O box that would be a quick and simple upgrade. I would just plug it to the existing converter in my system. 

Philip Kapadia:

Are you sure? I thought thunderbolt and USB - C had different pins? 

There's this... https://bit.ly/3kYfQMI and whoever decided to use "Universal" in USB should be shot. I imagine Thunderbolt is a licencing thing. But yeah they're not the same in one direction.

I have a Decklink 12G 4K card and I'm not that impressed with it and customer support is almost non-exsistant. I have issues digitizing from tape but that does not seem to be a concern for you. From my experience AJA are far better products and their support is awesome, but I haven't used or called them in about 10 years, so that may have changed. But my recent experience with BM was a huge pain, I had to have my reseller get involved and thats the last thing he wanted to do with such a low-margin product.

Fazz Powell:

Philip Kapadia:

Are you sure? I thought thunderbolt and USB - C had different pins? 

There's this... https://bit.ly/3kYfQMI and whoever decided to use "Universal" in USB should be shot. I imagine Thunderbolt is a licencing thing. But yeah they're not the same in one direction.

I have a Decklink 12G 4K card and I'm not that impressed with it and customer support is almost non-exsistant. I have issues digitizing from tape but that does not seem to be a concern for you. From my experience AJA are far better products and their support is awesome, but I haven't used or called them in about 10 years, so that may have changed. But my recent experience with BM was a huge pain, I had to have my reseller get involved and thats the last thing he wanted to do with such a low-margin product.

This is starting to become more confusing than titler +. The article says that you can plug a USB C device to a thunderbolt interface, but not a thunderbolt interface (Carl's I/O box) into USB C as there's a bottleneck. My USB C adapter is plugged in directly into my pcie port so it would only be the actual connector that bottlenecks.

This hasn't really inspired confidence I have to say 😂

Re digitizing and capturing, I don't need the io box for that. Just a simple full screen display from avid 2021, to a hdmi monitor :)