Blackmagic Design

Multibridge Studio

Blackmagic Design has set the standard for an entire industry. With innovation and quality at the heart of every project, Blackmagic launched a rapid succession of amazing products for creative people. A great example is the new HDLink dual link SDI to DVI converter which makes quality broadcast monitoring incredibly affordable - removing one of the biggest barriers to working in HD.

Product overview

The Blackmagic product range includes the SD & HD Decklink cards, plus external converters like the Mini Converter, HDLink and Multibridge.

All Decklink cards can output 8 or 10bit uncompressed video over SDI with embedded audio. The different models have additional combinations of analogue and digital I/O. They also include an RS422 port and software for controlling any VTR that uses Sony-compatible RS422 protocol, which covers most professional and broadcast decks.

For Windows users, there are plug-ins to make the Decklink work with Adobe Premiere Pro v1.51/2.0/CS3/CS4 and perform deck control for batch capture and accurate print to tape. For SD use, we have found that the cards perform adequately in any 3GHz+ Intel chipset P4 machine using modern IDE drives (PATA or SATA), but for HD work the requirements are more stringent. The HD cards must be in a 64bit PCI-X or PCI-Ex slot and use a drive array capable of sustaining >150MB/sec to work at all image size & frame rate settings. Read more about SD cards - HD cards

Multibridge Eclipse is an all-in-one bidirectional converter which instantly switches between HD and SD, feature 4:2:2 and Dual Link 4:4:4 video quality, and includes the new high speed PCI Express connection - Use it as the world's highest quality converter or as the I/O hardware on an editing system. Read more

HDLink connects SDI video directly to any supported DVI-D based LCD computer monitor for incredible true HDTV resolution video monitoring. With every individual pixel in the HD-SDI video standard mapped digitally onto the pixels of a 1920x1200 resolution LCD display, you get a perfect digital-to-screen pixel for pixel HDTV display. HDLink now also includes support for large screen HDMI televisions for a cinema style monitoring experience! Pro version has 6 analogue audio outs for 5.1 monitoring.  Read More

Decklink HD PCI-X

      Decklink Studio

ZEN Decklink systems

Decklink cards are available on their own or as part of complete custom-built turnkey systems.

Typical systems start at under 2000.00 for a  Decklink Studio card in an i7 PC with 4GB RAM, 1TB video storage and 23" wide LCD monitor.

Note - all prices quoted on this site are UK pounds - ex VAT & delivery

What we're about . . .      ZEN is not a traditional Audio-Visual dealer who started selling computers, nor is it a computer shop that also sells video editing systems. You won't get any salesmen giving you the "hard-sell" when you call, just straightforward advice and information - which for some callers is the knowledge that they don't need to buy whatever it is they thought they needed! Above all you'll be dealing with someone with a wide range of experience and knowledge of both PCs and video production. We're not the biggest, nor necessarily the cheapest, but we are one of the longest established computer/video specialists in the UK.

Company history . . .      ZEN was started in the 1980s by Martin Kay, then working for ITV at Granada's Manchester studios, who built his first 6502-based computer in 1979 from an Ohio Scientific kit, bought in the USA whilst working as a Sound Recordist on a film shoot for World In Action. With the advent of the Amiga, which could be gen-locked to a video source, Martin started writing a variety of video-related software. This included subtitling & tele-prompting, ident clocks, scoring software for sports & gameshows, and specialist software to mimic other computer displays for use in TV film dramas like Cracker, Prime Suspect and A Touch of Frost. Martin left Granada in 1993 to concentrate on his computer-video activities with ZEN, following a natural path into non-linear editing systems, now the main focus of the business, although he still maintains an active interest in video production.