Re Multibridge Pro & 2K files

[Monteiro]

I have thenew Multibridge Pro on my Mac Pro Tower and am unable to find any kind of setting to allow me to view my 2K files on an external HDMI monitor. I can use the Digital Cinema Desktop preview but this bypasses the Black Magic Card all together. Even when I do this the video appears strobed on my second 30" Cinema Display because I guess the ATI card can't keep up with the size of the files going through it. Any suggestions?

[Nick Shaw]

I don't believe the HDMI output on the Multibridge supports 2k. I think that is only available on the 3Gb/s HD-SDI output. If you connect that via an HDLink Pro (when they are available) to your 30" Cinema Display, you should be able to view 2k on it.

Bear in mind, I think that Blackmagic Design 2k is (I believe) only setup for film 2k (2048x1556) not Red 2k (2048x1152) therefore you will probably need to drop a Red 2k clip in a Blackmagic 2k 10 bit RGB timeline, then render it before it will play (assuming your RAID is fast enough!)

Nothing is ever simple!

[Monteiro]

Thanks for the heads up. I did some more experimentation and made some interesting discoveries. First the file I am working with is one I created with Red Cine using the setting 2K Film output from the raw R3D file. On my Mac Pro tower this happened roughly in 2 minutes for a 1 minute clip with significant color correction applied. So when I brought it into my FCP 2K time line it played in real time with my FCP canvas window set at 12.5% size. It also played on my HDMI monitor out of the Multibridge when set to 1080P or 1080I 8 bit or RGB settings. However, the picture was squashed vertically about 50% and cropped about 10% on the sides. I was able to compensate for the squashing by switching my monitor to to 4x3 aspect but this also made the picture smaller on the screen. Interestingly when I increased the canvas window to 25% it continued to work but at 50% the canvas window began dropping frames as if it were strobed at about 5 FPS and the output of the multibridge froze, only to refresh when I hit pause. I was however able to play back full res 2k to my second Cinema display in correct aspect through my second output on my graphics card using the Cinema Raw setting on the Mac there as still a little strobeing but not as much. It makes me wonder whether I needed the Multibridge at all.