BLACK MAGIC thunderbolt cards are SHIT!

[Mark Toia]

DELETED... Sorry Black Magic.. I'm a DICK! I Found a hidden button deep in the system that gives me what I needed. Not in your manual, not anywhere obvious... Just buried in the system preferences. I was clicking everything and anything trying to get rid of these FIELDS! And I found a 25p Function box un ticked. !!! To everyone that emailed me because they have the same issue.... Ill send you the notes. I'm a happy camper now... PS.. BLACK MAGIC, You should have sort of online support that you
actually answer or reply too.

If there is a moderator out there.. Delete this thread please.

[Robert Berger]

One of my visits to NAB this year was to Black Magic design to chat about Thunderbolt video cards.
Ive been a AJA user for years, but Black magic have impressed me there flash marketing that I thought I'd go see what they have...
I speak to the guys there and they say everything I want to hear.. LIARS!!! So pissed off... And this vent is not about the money, this is about bullshit sales crap.

So after listening to sales spiel (not knowing that it was bullshit at the time) I come home and buy there product. A BLACK MAGIC ULTRA STUDIO 3d EXTREME. They tell me it will plays 1080p 25p projects. Great! I open the box, it looks slick, it plugs straight into the laptop via thunderbolt, great! , nice... software loads up, nice.. good good.. I then search for 1080p though FCP / BLACKMAGIC settings which Ive just loaded up.. and its' NOT FRICKEN THERE !!! Like what they hell !!!!! Do these people not know that the rest of the world (other the the US and JAPAN) are is 25 frames per second... That's 75% of the planet is 25FPS... do they not know that ARRI ALEXA AND RED EPIC SHOOTS 25P not some interlaced 501 shit ! We all left interlaced Video land years ago! I cannot stand fields ! Who the hell shoots with fields.. ! DV cameras???

AJA Cards don't give me fields, they give me true 25p So why the hell doesn't this stupid box give me it as well. It offers everything else... but 1080 25p.

So I search hi and low through the net... this must be some bug.. they cannot be this stupid... finally I find a complete opposite to what the guys at the black magic booth tell me... "We only support 50i - 25p or 25 hertz is to confusing. ?????" What the hell does that mean.

So here I am stuck with the worthless bloody thing. Only giving me a Interlaced SHIT!!! feed.

I'm paused on a shot and all I see is giant interlaced field lines... Half a shot! Looks bloody terrible.
I'm projecting onto a 20 foot screen and the jagged field lines look like saw teeth that that bad.

So I get int ouch with the dealer.... DRRRRRRR... sorry we don't make these !!!!! we just sell em.
So I get on line with Blackmagic.. No answer, no body home..

I'm so angry when people rip me off !!! Black Magic... I'm so unimpressed.

Hello AJA... Sorry for looking at the other girl.

PS.. if there is someone out there that can share some sort of fix for this thing, it would be greatly appreciated.

WOW.......how stupid!! How about the black magic cinema camera.....25P or......

[Tom.Wong]

you'll probably have to run it through a converter box to remove the pulldown. or get something like a thunderbolt pci expander and throw a aja card in there. either way it's not gonna get your ultrastudio the way you want it to. I say just keep bugging them to fix it...

[Mennovandijk]

On windows the latest drivers (9.5) finallay got a 25 1080p option (was missing there also).
But I guess you are running the latest ones.

[Johnny Friday]

Mark,
funny, i was minutes away from pulling the trigger on this SAME T-bolt station....NOW, after reading your post...I'm OUT---until there IS a 25p solution...i'm ALWAYS having to send 25p; 50i as well to the other side of the world---and you are correct--the US is not the center of the world....in fact only a tiny fraction. I'm continually getting requests to convert all my 29.97 & 23.98 material to 50i and 25p.....

I would be out of my mind if i was lied to like this as well and good to call them out on that.....very silly these days....too many beta releases that are worthless and my guess is they told you YES 25p...but what they did not tell you is that 25p is on the plate and coming soon......which just means nothing.....and pure sales rhetoric!

I'm also looking for a t-bolt station and Matrox has been my baby for a long time....but i also wanted to use Davinci.....so there card is only one i know of.....Anyway, if no 25p and coming in the future won't do it for me.....then i'm out of BM till then......AND you are correct. Try to talk to someone over there has been a nightmare for me....i can call Matrox, AJA but not BM....i tried them over past two weeks to get the lowdown on some products used in a mobile way via red and there are only a few folks there ---and i think only one or two---that can actually talk to anyone about such advanced setups....was strike 2 for me and haven't tried since.....not knocking the products etc....but sleazy sales tactics is just sloppy biz and gets around these days....

[paulherrin]

what about that 2k 25p?

[Steve Sherrick]

seems like an FCP 7 support issue
http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/124/880357

[Johnny Friday]

seems like an FCP 7 support issue
http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/124/880357

Wow....seems like this is a serious matter---BM not supporting FCP 7 ?? that's not good to hear. So is this working on CS 6 then at 25p ?

[Joost Kelderman]

probably already tried.. probably stupid suggestion this but if not..

since it's video-output, not project settings.. did you try outputting the 1080p50 [1080p25 over 1080p50 kinda] thought i saw it listed in the output options? if your projector accepts that; it might just do the trick until there is 25p? hopefully that will do something like doubling the frames something like my TV's '400HZ oversampling'

[Ben Holmes]

For what it's worth, BM are an Australian company, not American. They also have European support based in the UK, which I've always found very helpful. Both these countries are 25fps.

Hope you get this sorted.

Ben