Hi,

I'm Running media composer on an HP Z4 G4 and looking to add video and pro audio output to a broadcast monitor. There are quite a few options, with most being overkill. I tend to work with proxies at 1920x1080 and finish elsewhere. Aja, Blackmagic and Avid offer solutions with some being PCIE cards with breakout cables or hardware boxes. For me I'm looking to get an SDI output with balanced audio. I don't need any input. What's the best options considering budget but also solid?

Thanks guys and gals.

I reccomend Aja Kona Lhi.

5 Year guaranty, even if purchased second hand.

My ebay purchase cost me £120.

I second Aja. Kona Lhi (hdmi and sdi) and Lhe plus (only sdi) and if you don't want the cable clutter from the breakout cable, the Aja I/O express.

One issue with these cards is the small fans going bad and them making a lot of noise.

Thanks for the suggestions. Am I right in thinking most of the legacy gear still works? Like the Nitris? 

thanks 

Not really, DX is end of life and I don't think there are DX drivers that work under Catalina/Big Sur and there have been issues with Win 10 updates as well.

Am I wong in thinking if you want to use Resolve then you will be forced to buy a Blackmagic card? I thought they had locked it to their own hardware for mointoring? Happy to be proved wrong on this

Andi

You are right, but some of us actually still use the crippled old Colour Correction tool.

David Yardley:

You are right, but some of us actually still use the crippled old Colour Correction tool.

Try Filmlight's Baselight if you can. It does everything what resolve can do... in MC!!

Life saver :) 

Philip Kapadia:

It does everything what resolve can do... in MC!!

I recently bought Baselight Editions, mainly because I acquired an Artist Color panel for Resolve, where it works well but was horrified to see how bad it worked in Symphony, even though I'd been warned! How can Filmlight do a so much better job than Avid of ethernet control, with Avid's own hardware/software?

I also remembered you raving about it Philip and I now do see it used more and more by clients - Symphony is becoming a dead man walking for finishing. It's a joy to use, directly within Avid, and the Color panel works fantastically in it, and it can do everything colour grading wise that Resolve can do, much more straight forwardly IMV too, since I prefer layers to nodes. But it does lack Resolve's huge selection of FX, online and restoration plugins, available directly on the Color page.

There's a few slight user niggles for me too: It is a bit laggy in playback, due to the ancient AVX structure. It's slightly annoying you have to remove and add the Color panel from Eucontrol too, to switch between Resolve and Avid and there is no way to use it in Avid outside of BE (no great loss there though); and hopefully V6 will enable you to use the interface across 2 monitors, since it gets a bit cramped on one.

On the whole though it's now joined my 2 software strategy, going forward; Avid, Resolve Studio and now BE

Hi Mercer, Hope you're well. 

Mercer:

Philip Kapadia:

It does everything what resolve can do... in MC!!

 where it works well but was horrified to see how bad it worked in Symphony, 

told you

Yes, Perhaps I was a little premature when I said you can do everything in resolve in baselight because reflecting back on that now that's not strictly true... 

At the time I was mostly finishing low end TV work in HD. I also had a lot of archive work like this which was all in SD. Most of this work was just 'correcting' rather than 'grading'. In those instances when working with mezzanine level, transcoded SD - HD material, Avid's playback architecture and the AVX plugin limitations were workable. 

However I now find myself working more and more on 4K projects, even 6K projects, HDR. Things like music videos, cinema work, etc. In this scenario where clients and particularly real colourists (not me) want to be working with camera original media rather than mezzanine transcodes, Avid just can't playback those files through baselight no matter the system. So resolve is the obvious choice there.

Likewise the integration with fusion, easier tracking, title tool within resolve all helps speed things along at the online stage.

I still dispute that you can do all in resolve in symphony. Can you track a secondary correction mask around a moving object? I still consider that to be part of the 'grading' stage.

Wouldn't it be nice if Avid intergrated baselight into a panel? Like they did with melodyne and ProTools ;) 

Philip Kapadia:

told you

Ha ha

Philip Kapadia:

I still dispute that you can do all in resolve in symphony. Can you track a secondary correction mask around a moving object? I still consider that to be part of the 'grading' stage.

No you're right again, my young friend. Avid tracking is abysmmal. You can just about work Symphony still for finishing but as I say it's a dead man walking. However Dave said they have plans for it. Just hope I haven't wasted a grand or so But somehow I don't think so Have you tried the Avid Colour with BE, Philip? Might be worth a look at, they are cheap on eBay and I am suitably impressed.

Mercer:

Philip Kapadia:

told you

Ha ha

Philip Kapadia:

I still dispute that you can do all in resolve in symphony. Can you track a secondary correction mask around a moving object? I still consider that to be part of the 'grading' stage.

No you're right again, my young friend. Avid tracking is abysmmal. You can just about work Symphony still for finishing but as I say it's a dead man walking. However Dave said they have plans for it. Just hope I haven't wasted a grand or so But somehow I don't think so Have you tried the Avid Colour with BE, Philip? Might be worth a look at, they are cheap on eBay and I am suitably impressed.

Sorry for my slow response... work means I can't be here as much as I used to

No, I haven't tried the Artist Colour. I don't do enough colour work to justify it. I'm more into Audio, so I have the Artist Mix.

I find with the little colour work I do, my Wacom works well enough for me