Blackmagic Forum

i always wondered what the intensity actually sends to it's output...

is the video/audio uncompressed or does it use the codec that it was set too capture or from the timeline?

i'm asking this because when i change the capture codec (e.g. from prores 422 hq to lt), the intensity goes black for a second and that made me wonder what actually goes out to my tv/control monitor.

if it is uncompressed, is it 8bit or 10bit?

Short answer: it's uncompressed.

Longer answer: It's uncompressed, but quality is determined by the source. For instance, if you capture in MJPEG, you will see the results of MJPEG, since it is a lossy codec. If you captured in uncompressed, that will give you the best results.

so it's not a real passthrough

If the capture mode is enabled on Media Express, then the outputs are basically E-E from the inputs. No processing, no compressing, no reclocking. What you put in is what you get out. If you press capture, what gets recorded to disk will match the compression settings set in the application. While recording the output is still E-E and is pre-process..so yes, it's a real passthrough.

Once you click the playback tab and play back, then the computer will decode the prores file and play it out as uncompressed at the same bit depth as the source file.

joshua , thanks for the clarification