HDMI video tap

[James Griffiths]

Hello

I will soon be shooting a live action short and part of the shoot requires me to connect the RED camera to my Macbook Pro so that I can receive live images into stop motion software called Dragon Stop Motion.

The reason for this is so that I can line up my camera to previously shot footage that is loaded into Dragon as a 'Line Up Layer'

My question is this:

Is it actually possible to connect the RED to my Macbook Pro using the HDMI video tap and if so, how do i do it?

Thanks

James

[Richard Bradbury]

Simple answer is no.

I've done this type of lining up before in a stop motion studio, and what we ended up doing was the following:

Live feed: HD-SDI out of camera > downconverter to composite > into video mixer
Recorded feed: Footage in Final Cut timeline scaled to 91% size (to account for the unrecorded look around area on the live feed) > DVCam deck via FW > into video mixer

If you want to use software in a laptop to line up, then you will need a capture card that is compatible with the software (Blackmagic Intensity etc), and it will have to be housed in an external expansion box like a Magma Expressbox: http://www.magma.com/store/expressbox1.html

[Filip Vandoorne]

if you have a macbookpro with a express slot, you can use for hdmi ( and hdsdi ) input the new AJA io express or the Matrox MXO2 product range.
Keep in mind that in a macbookpro HD capture codecs can be limited.
The dvcpro hd codec would be fine and with the fastest recent macbookpro's even prores hd codecs can work.
You could also use the aja io HD, which does the prores compression on the aja adapter itself.

[Richard Bradbury]

if you have a macbookpro with a express slot, you can use for hdmi ( and hdsdi ) input the new AJA io express or the Matrox MXO2 product range...
You could also use the aja io HD, which does the prores compression on the aja adapter itself.

Yes but the capture software (in this case Dragon) has to support the device. From a quick look at the Dragon website they suggest using a Blackmagic card. Other types of capture device might work, but best to check with Dragon first.