Blackmagic Forum

My thunderbolt based i7 PC is coming friday.

Excluding connecting to my SSD's, what else am I going to able to do with the thunderbolt in regards to the CineCamera under Windows 7 ?

Is it copper Thunderbolt or Fibre?
Thunderbolt has a lot of potential but it's currently strangled by the copper implementation.
Luckily USB3 came along on the PC side and is such a fast simple solution.
We have PCIe and that can be extended externally easily. Thunderbolt just seemed like another way to sell expensive external kit.....

let's see....with a USB 3 port you can connect.... an external HD....the latest SSDs now shipping are faster then USB3...
with TB you can connect...an external HD, 2 or 3 monitors and a PCIe breakout box....all on the same port....ok, all of it at once might slow one of these down a bit, but that is why you have 2 ports....
the best thing about the BMCC is the thunderbolt port (afaik it is also the reason why shipping has been delayed a bit...)....every piece of equipment should have one....bandwidth just isn't an issue anymore....and it will only get better....

Pat,

Why do you feel Thunderbolt is strangled by its copper implementation? Thunderbolt is running at 10 Gbps on copper versus USB 3 running at 5 Gbps. Yes, fiber can go faster, but Thunderbolt 1.0 is already twice as fast as USB 3.0 with both on copper.

jfro, which PC did you buy?

I'm building my own. When with the new motherboard from Gigabyte, GIGABYTE Z77X-UP5 TH.

I will probably move my 8 x 2TB drive raid 5 Array onto this machine as well as my boot and other misc drives.

I went with the new IvyBridge i7 3770k processor with 2x8GB ram sticks (will have 2 empty slots). Will do slight OC, but not extreme. I'll have one NVidia card (for now) as well as my BM Intensity card in there. MB also has 2 firewire ports which I may need from time to time.

My original question was really about Media Express & UltraScope Software on the PC. Will these run on the PC under Win 7 and connect to the camera via thunderbolt and work the same as if I was on a MAC?

The manual says "When connected to a Mac OS X computer with Thunderbolt technology, your Blackmagic Cinema Camera can be used as a powerful solution for video capture, waveform monitoring and color correction."

Searching PC in the manual, it only references formating the SSD.

So I'm assuming for now that Ultrascope and Media Express aren't an option on the PC.

FredP wrote:Pat,

Why do you feel Thunderbolt is strangled by its copper implementation? Thunderbolt is running at 10 Gbps on copper versus USB 3 running at 5 Gbps. Yes, fiber can go faster, but Thunderbolt 1.0 is already twice as fast as USB 3.0 with both on copper.

It's even faster than that. Thunderbolt is 10 Gbps upstream and 10Gbps downstream, USB3 is 5 Gbps total. Thunderbolt is 4x faster.

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/images/thunderbolt/chart_tbspeed0829.png

Brian@202020 wrote:

FredP wrote:Pat,

Why do you feel Thunderbolt is strangled by its copper implementation? Thunderbolt is running at 10 Gbps on copper versus USB 3 running at 5 Gbps. Yes, fiber can go faster, but Thunderbolt 1.0 is already twice as fast as USB 3.0 with both on copper.

It's even faster than that. Thunderbolt is 10 Gbps upstream and 10Gbps downstream, USB3 is 5 Gbps total. Thunderbolt is 4x faster.

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/images/thunderbolt/chart_tbspeed0829.png

But we already had PCI-e which can go as high as 80Gbps. So for the fast stuf like I/O adapters etc PCI-e is fine.
I'll wait on thunderbolt until it goes Fibre and we get the full benefit of it.
There are plenty of simple solutions for fast RAID drive solutions still available.

Hi Pat: I think you stand a good chance of winning a prize for describing the most technically detailed example of a BMCC kick *ss feature reinterpreted as a "limitation"!

Well done sir!

I've dutifully added it to the list:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=660

Cheers!

I just got an email from blackmagic today saying that they are announcing Thunderbolt for PC today at IBC in Amsterdam(along with other new products).

Also as for thunderbolt over fibre vs copper, the main advantage for fibre will be cable length, I think the speeds are more or less the same.

Nevin wrote:I just got an email from blackmagic today saying that they are announcing Thunderbolt for PC today at IBC in Amsterdam(along with other new products).

Also as for thunderbolt over fibre vs copper, the main advantage for fibre will be cable length, I think the speeds are more or less the same.

What kind of products do they mean?
With the exFAT out soon for HyperDeck, I think the BMCC is right behind.

Spent the day at IBC and saw alot of new stuff.
The BM Cinema Camera looks very nice. Simple operation. No DNxHD on the floor models but promised for later which is good as ProRes is so PC Friendly.
Saw a lot of HP Z820 systems around and far fewer MacPros.
Surprised the Cinema Camera doesn't offer 50P but I guess that come later.

And yes a lot of Thunderbolt solutions and even a few PC Thunderbolt offerings (there are PC motherboards shipping with Thunderbolt now)

Nevin wrote:Also as for thunderbolt over fibre vs copper, the main advantage for fibre will be cable length, I think the speeds are more or less the same.

Yup..what this guy says!

Though there already some longer Optical Thunderbolt cables coming to market 20' (Sumitomo). The only downshot is that because they are fibre they don't carry power.

Eric Santiago wrote:
What kind of products do they mean?
With the exFAT out soon for HyperDeck, I think the BMCC is right behind.

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/press/pressdetails?releaseID=32222

Intensity Shuttle and Intensity Extreme off the bat through Desktop Video 9.6.4 software available this month, they mention the cinema camera in the release but don't say anything specific about its windows compatibility yet.

this is a funny little video...edit footage realtime on a macbook air....with a little help of course...
http://www.macgasm.net/2012/01/26/demo- ... cbook-air/

pss wrote:let's see....with a USB 3 port you can connect.... an external HD....the latest SSDs now shipping are faster then USB3...
with TB you can connect...an external HD, 2 or 3 monitors and a PCIe breakout box....all on the same port....ok, all of it at once might slow one of these down a bit, but that is why you have 2 ports....
the best thing about the BMCC is the thunderbolt port (afaik it is also the reason why shipping has been delayed a bit...)....every piece of equipment should have one....bandwidth just isn't an issue anymore....and it will only get better....

The SSDs may be faster, than USB3, but that only helps when you copy from one SSD to an other SSD.
If you copy to HDD the HDD speed is the bottle neck.

Yes, you can daisy-chain TB, so you need (for your example) 3-4 expensive TB cables. Why is that any benefit over having 3-4 cheap usual cables? Monitors don't run faster on TB. A PCI breakout box for what?
Apple doesn't even support external graphic cards. So what do you put in that expensive box?

The only use I can see in the moment for TB, are some of the new external video boxes, but they don't do anything, the BM cards don't do anyway, without having more external cluster, AC adapters and cables.

Frank

Frank Glencairn wrote:

pss wrote:let's see....with a USB 3 port you can connect.... an external HD....the latest SSDs now shipping are faster then USB3...
with TB you can connect...an external HD, 2 or 3 monitors and a PCIe breakout box....all on the same port....ok, all of it at once might slow one of these down a bit, but that is why you have 2 ports....
the best thing about the BMCC is the thunderbolt port (afaik it is also the reason why shipping has been delayed a bit...)....every piece of equipment should have one....bandwidth just isn't an issue anymore....and it will only get better....

The SSDs may be faster, than USB3, but that only helps when you copy from one SSD to an other SSD.
If you copy to HDD the HDD speed is the bottle neck.

Yes, you can daisy-chain TB, so you need (for your example) 3-4 expensive TB cables. Why is that any benefit over having 3-4 cheap usual cables? Monitors don't run faster on TB. A PCI breakout box for what?
Apple doesn't even support external graphic cards. So what do you put in that expensive box?

The only use I can see in the moment for TB, are some of the new external video boxes, but they don't do anything, the BM cards don't do anyway, without having more external cluster, AC adapters and cables.

Frank

i don't have a problem with USB3 at all....i just don't have any use for it....TB can handle everything from screens to cameras to raid to Pci boxes some of it even powered....in the end this means less cables and more flexibility.....i know i won't buy another external HD again.....for me it is SSD and raids only...

you don't like the idea of your video cards in a separate box that you can take with you if you have to and edit on a macbook air? i replace my iMacs every year, barely lose money on them and TB let's me do this all with plug and play.....no downtime....

the only USB3 i have used is with the nikon d800 and tethered shooting did not seem any faster....not sure if a TB port would have improved that....

i am just happy that the long pain of SCSI, fw400, fw800, USB 1,2, esata, DVI,.....is over...TB can take care of it all, it is faster then hell and will also cut down on cable mess in the long run....

I have this going soon with a Retina but hoping on the Windows side as well.
A Sonnet Echo Express Pro with a Sonnet Tempo SSD Pro loaded with two SSD 512GB (or whatever fastest) along with a RED Rocket.
This is all in the Thunderbolt world.
I see a ton potential with TB.
Next Echo will house (yes you can have two enclosures on a single MBP or iMac since its dual channel) a DeckLink and another Tempo.
Makes an awesome field/DIT workstation

pss wrote:[
..in the end this means less cables and more flexibility...

you don't like the idea of your video cards in a separate box that you can take with you if you have to and edit on a macbook air? i replace my iMacs every year, barely lose money on them and TB let's me do this all with plug and play.....no downtime....

I don't get it. Why less cables? You still need 5 cables for 5 devices. Only difference is, TB cables are still much more expensive.

First of all, I don't have a MAC laptop, so I don't need external graphic cards - the internal Nvida Cuda card with 2 GB does it all in realtime - less clutter.

Also as I said, the Apple OS doesn't support external graphic cards and even if it would, TB is way to slow for that.

Frank

If we are talking about outputting to a 10bit plus display, the Sonnet/Magma Thunderbolt chassis supports all BMD DeckLink cards.
We plan to do this with our Resolve mobile cart.

Why so complicated? A lot of BMs external boxes do the same, but more elegant via TB or USB3

Frank Glencairn wrote:

pss wrote:[
..in the end this means less cables and more flexibility...

you don't like the idea of your video cards in a separate box that you can take with you if you have to and edit on a macbook air? i replace my iMacs every year, barely lose money on them and TB let's me do this all with plug and play.....no downtime....

I don't get it. Why less cables? You still need 5 cables for 5 devices. Only difference is, TB cables are still much more expensive.

First of all, I don't have a MAC laptop, so I don't need external graphic cards - the internal Nvida Cuda card with 2 GB does it all in realtime - less clutter.

Also as I said, the Apple OS doesn't support external graphic cards and even if it would, TB is way to slow for that.

Frank

we haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to TB cables and stuff....and yes they are still expensive....i need fewer devices because TB can handle it all.....
not sure which laptop you have but if you are running a video card capable enough to edit BMCC raw in realtime on resolvce you probably need a generator to run it.....

i am still looking into external boxes for pci cards...either way TB is plenty fast....

i guess TB is not for everyone....to me it is a dream come true....

Pat Horridge wrote:...
Surprised the Cinema Camera doesn't offer 50P but I guess that come later.
...

Cinema is 24 progressive frames per second.
Yesterday people wanted to have a "cinema" look with video cameras by tweaking the framerate etc... http://www.lavideofilmmaker.com/dv-film-look/how-to-make-digital-video-look-like-film.html

Today, thanks to BlackmagicDesign and the Blackmagic Cinema Camera all can afford a very good digital cinema camera that offers great pictures for a true "cinematic" experience.

"Photography is truth. The cinema is truth 24 times per second." - Jean-Luc Godard

I guess that's why 29.97 is an option?

The 29.97 frame rate is a great option for those who live in Utah.


http://theautomaticfilmmaker.com/blog/2009/2/23/about-frame-rates-or-why-2997.html

Christian wrote:

Pat Horridge wrote:...
Surprised the Cinema Camera doesn't offer 50P but I guess that come later.
...

Cinema is 24 progressive frames per second.
Yesterday people wanted to have a "cinema" look with video cameras by tweaking the framerate etc... http://www.lavideofilmmaker.com/dv-film-look/how-to-make-digital-video-look-like-film.html

Today, thanks to BlackmagicDesign and the Blackmagic Cinema Camera all can afford a very good digital cinema camera that offers great pictures for a true "cinematic" experience.

"Photography is truth. The cinema is truth 24 times per second." - Jean-Luc Godard

The DCI inititive started with 24fps and 48fps as the supported frame rates but in the UK at elast this was expanded in 2010

http://www.imago.org/index.php?new=401

So for digital cinema we don't have to stick with the slowest possible frame rate that conveys moving image (just) things can move on.

I'm pretty sure 48fps isn't supported on the BM cinema camera? which would at least be a help.

The problem with 48/50fps is that we can't have our cake and eat it too.

We get an inexpensive camera because there's a sensor capable that does what we need and the supporting electronics is reasonably easy to deal with.

Reading that chip 30 times a second is probably pretty close to the limit. If you want to make it able to do 50-60 times a second then everything becomes more complicated (and expensive). And there's also the issue of data. The already massively high datarate of uncompressed CinemaDNG becomes twice as high.

At this stage the vast majority of video content is shot and presented in 24, 25 or 30fps (or their fractional equivalents) - trying to cater to edge cases now can only make the camera more expensive and more difficult to develop.

True that has to be taken ito account at that price point it offeres what it offers.
My worry is that 24fps and progressive 25fps are compromises and as things move forward those compromises will be overcome. I actually prefer 30fps if it's progressive even if the res is slightly less. (ie 720 as opposed to 1080)

Geeeze, lots of interesting opinions on Thunderbolt. But...................

Back to the original question. Any guesses or facts on when BM might release software so we PC users can use thunderbolt in studio to view, capture (Media Express), and check (Ultrascope) waveforms just like the MAC peeps.

Maybe I'm not with it, but my understanding is Media Express and Ultrascope are only MAC products. Am I wrong or mislead?

Has there been conversations or announcements on PC software versions?

Just like all the updates of late, I am sure the PC ones will come after.
Keep in mind that TB was around for a few years longer than the PC side of things.
Im confident itll be there soon enough.
Maybe even before the BMCC EF ships to the masses

Thunderbolt on PCs was demonstrated at IBC on promise stand so it is possible.

Pat Horridge wrote:...I'm pretty sure 48fps isn't supported on the BM cinema camera? which would at least be a help....

Pat Horridge wrote:...I actually prefer 30fps if it's progressive even if the res is slightly less. (ie 720 as opposed to 1080)...

For a feature film that will be presented in a theatre, 48fps would be interesting, it would give to some action scenes or even drama scenes more impact in term of realism.

But for a TV broadcast production, filming at 30fps for example, a camera like the Sony Nex FS100 or the Canon C100 would be certainly a clever choice.


About thunderbolt on PCs : http://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=525

Yes the only shame is I'm in PAL land so in realiy I'm often stuck to multiples of 25fps and 25fps at P looks no better than film (in terms of horrid motion) by the time you get to 30fps P it starts to look better.