The What: Magewell is now shipping its new Pro Capture Dual SDI 4K Plus video and audio capture card. The new model combines flexible support for multiple 4K SDI interface standards with dual-channel capture density for versatility, performance, and efficiency. The company will highlight it alongside other members of its Pro Capture family of PCI Express video capture hardware in booth 205 at the upcoming Streaming Media East conference (May 7-8, New York) and booth 2407 at InfoComm 2019 (June 12-14, Orlando, FL).
The What Else: The Pro Capture Dual SDI 4K Plus captures 4K video at full 60 frames per second over single-link 12G-SDI, dual-link 6G-SDI, or quad-link 3G-SDI connections. Single-link, 12Gb/s SDI allows for professional 4K transport using just one cable per source, but many 4K products still offer only quad-link or dual-link connectivity. With support for all three methods, the Pro Capture Dual SDI 4K Plus card provides compatibility with both the latest and earlier 4K architectures and equipment.
The Pro Capture Dual SDI 4K Plus performs high-quality, 10-bit video processing including up/down/cross-conversion, image adjustments, and graphic overlay in the card's on-board FPGA with zero impact on the host system's CPU, maximizing CPU availability for third-party software. Magewell's universal Pro Capture drivers support Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems while offering broad compatibility with popular encoding, streaming, live production, collaboration, web conferencing, lecture capture, medical imaging, and virtual reality (VR) creation software.
Multiple 4K Pro Capture cards can be used simultaneously in the same system to further increase multi-channel capture density, while Magewell's comprehensive SDK enables third-party developers to directly leverage the full advanced feature set of the devices in custom software applications and turnkey solutions.
"The flexible connectivity of our single-channel 4K SDI cards has been a popular feature with systems integrators and OEM partners wanting to maximize their compatibility with Ultra HD source equipment, as well as production professionals using a mix of equipment types that don't always have 12G-SDI," said Amy Zhou, sales director at Magewell. "We are pleased to offer the same benefits in a dual-channel configuration, providing outstanding capture density for customers working with multiple 4K sources."
The Bottom Line: The Pro Capture Dual SDI 4K Plus captures two channels of video at resolutions up to the 4096x2160 4K digital cinema specification, including the 3840x2160 Ultra HD (UHD) TV standard. Both inputs can be used simultaneously with independent resolutions, frame rates, processing settings, and SDI connectivity standards. Each input source—including video and SDI-embedded audio—can be routed to multiple software applications in parallel, again with varying capture parameters for each program.
