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Blackmagic 4K Intensity Pro in an external PCIe enclosure

PostPosted: Thu Oct 06, 2016 5:24 pm
by Pedja Djurdjevic
Has anybody been successful so far running Intensity Pro 4K in any ExpressCard or Thunderbolt expansion PCIe chassis? Based on some trials it appears that 4K Extreme can run up to 1080p 60fps 8bit without problems. On the other hand on the same exact chassis Intensity Pro 4K doesn't, even though it is recognized by the OS (Win7 64 SP1) as attached, but no video at any res/fps. Same card does run fine when plugged directly into desktop PCIe slot. Power supply is not a problem since 4K Extreme draws more power anyway.

Most of the enclosures list 4K Extreme as supported but not Intensity Pro 4K, any ideas why Intensity Pro 4K would behave differently than 4K Extreme for the same driver/firmware/external hardware? Is there any kind of diagnostic software (other than Media Express), log or registry setting to debug this?

Re: Blackmagic 4K Intensity Pro in an external PCIe enclosur

PostPosted: Thu Oct 06, 2016 7:27 pm
by Matt Jefferson
Please contact Blackmagic Design regional hardware support via email or use contact form on our website for general hardware questions on our Intensity or Decklink hardware compatibility and functionality.

Also, we do NOT test 3rd party chassis nor do we provide PCIE card certification for Thunderbolt expansion chassis. Blackmagic Design provides product samples and cards for testing at the top3 vendors of each technology.

The support for card interoperability and issues relating to compatibility of pciexpress cards need to be verified with the expansion chassis vendors as they manage this process. If there is a verified issue, those companies can contact our company for escalation here at Blackmagic Design. The top vendors in the industry have my contact information.

Thank you.
Matt Jefferson

Re: Blackmagic 4K Intensity Pro in an external PCIe enclosur

PostPosted: Mon Oct 10, 2016 5:31 pm
by Pedja Djurdjevic
Since BM does not itself test or list any PCIe external expansion chassis and thus not officially support them, not sure that general hardware question would be of help? Also chassis vendors themselves only list 4K Extremes, not Intensity Pro 4K, so it is also not officially supported on their end, not sure that contacting them would help either? Based on a small sample size (2 chassis) it would appear that Intensity Pro 4K does not work well externalized while 4K Extreme does, and unfortunately Intensity Shuttle doesn't offer same support for 1080p 60fps and beyond.

Without sampling more chassis or getting in between BM and top3 vendors, if there is a counterexample where Intensity Pro 4K worked well, maybe more a question towards the community if anybody had luck in using it externally and if there were any registry or other OS/SW related configuration settings involved.

Thank you.

Re: Blackmagic 4K Intensity Pro in an external PCIe enclosur

PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2016 11:13 am
by Matt Jefferson
Just to be clear. I said we do not certify them and we direct the support to the experts who are the expansion chassis vendors themselves. Have you actually contacted the expansion vendor for support? For your information, all Thunderbolt hardware based solutions have to certified by Intel for compatibility for Thunderbolt so any expansion chassis that works with one x4 pcie card should really work with another x4 pcie card.

And in this case, you are actually mistaken when you say
Also chassis vendors themselves only list 4K Extremes, not Intensity Pro 4K, so it is also not officially supported on their end, not sure that contacting them would help either?


Sonnet who is the leader in Thunderbolt expansion solutions, has certified the Intensity Pro 4K. You can find it here. http://www.sonnettech.com/support/chart ... processing

I would suggest that you confirm you have the latest driver for Thunderbolt, the latest System update or firmware if using PC, and update your Blackmagic Design driver. If you are still experiencing issues after updating your system thunderbolt and system firmware, have the expansion chassis vendor contact me on PM so I can provide support to them.

Blackmagic Design does not provide registry information nor are there settings in the Blackmagic Design utility that would change the outcome for using this board in a chassis.

Re: Blackmagic 4K Intensity Pro in an external PCIe enclosur

PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2016 6:21 pm
by Pedja Djurdjevic
I agree on both points that if it works on one x4 PCIe card (Extreme) it should work with another (Intensity) and that no registry or other driver settings should be different btw embedded and external PCIe slot. These are smaller form factor Thunderbolt chassis that match Intensity better in terms of overall size than Sonnet. Given that this manifested itself on more than just one chassis, it seems very odd that grabbers would behave differently on same chassis, same BM firmware, BM driver and TB driver, or that chassis would behave differently btw two almost same grabbers (in PCIe sense). Since the vendors could use the same argument above to point towards BM, just wanted to clear with BM first that PCIe wise two grabbers are considered one of the same?
The BM info has been forwarded to one of the vendors, no response so far, will keep you posted.

Thank you.

Re: Blackmagic 4K Intensity Pro in an external PCIe enclosur

PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2018 9:45 pm
by themattod
Any update on this?

Re: Blackmagic 4K Intensity Pro in an external PCIe enclosur

PostPosted: Tue Jun 19, 2018 6:07 am
by Andre Augustin
I used it for numerous years in a Magma