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Changing Settings

With Blackmagic Design's Mini Converters, it’s as simple as using a pen to change settings. Settings vary between models, and include settings such as AES/EBU or analog audio, analog video connections, and more.

Cinema Style Monitoring

With the Blackmagic Design SDI to HDMI Mini Converter you can utilize a HDMI Television for budget sensitive client monitoring. Simply connect your SDI signal into the SDI to HDMI Mini Converter and then plug your HDMI cable to either a big screen HDMI television or video projector. Can you just imagine how incredible it would be having a massive 60 inch flat screen TV for your client monitoring.

Lock it Down

As with all Blackmagic Design products we like to think of everything. That's why we have included a handy cable tie point to lock the power down tight and prevent your power being disconnected.

Flexible Rack Mount

Broadcast Converter was designed with a compact rack mount design letting you mount in equipment racks for large system installation, or remove the rack brackets and install the included rubber feet for desktop use. Broadcast Converter models are extremely compact, so you can install in the front or rear side of equipment racks, saving valuable equipment space.

Mini Converters

The world's most advanced converter family for SD and HD!

Build your SDI studio with the worlds most advanced and easy to use converters! Only Mini Converters include auto SD/HD switching, redundant input, AES/EBU and analog audio on standard 1/4 inch jack connections, combined with advanced 3 Gb/s SDI technology. There's 4 great models to choose from depending on the conversion you need, plus a sync generator model!

Features

Auto Switching SD and HD

Mini Converters instantly switch between standard definition and high definition video formats and changeover is automatic when the video input changes. A huge range of video standards are supported including, NTSC, PAL, 1080i/59.94, 1080i/50, 1080psf/23.98, 1080psf/24, 720p/59.94 and 720p/50 formats, plus new formats can be added via USB.

Redundant SDI Input

Mini Converters feature a unique redundant input for mission critical tasks such as broadcast or live events. You can connect a redundant cable to the second input, so if the main input is lost due to cable damage or any other cause, Mini Converter will automatically switch over to the redundant input cable. This lets you can use Mini Converters in locations where crowds or the environm ent might cause cable damage, or lets you place Mini Converters in hard to reach loc ations such as roof mounted video projectors etc. A loop though SDI output is also provided for connecting to other devices. A loop-thru SDI connection is also great if you need more than 2 audio channels, as you can connect the loop-thru to another Mini Converter to de-embedd extra audio channels!

New 3 Gb/s SDI Technology

Only Mini Converters include the latest 3 Gb/s SDI technology and upgrades can be loaded via the built in USB connection for future video format compatibility. 3 Gb/s SDI is also fully compatible with all your standard definition and high definition SDI equipment.

HDMI Quality

Unlike analog connections, HDMI is the new digital standard appearing in the latest cameras, televisions and video projectors. HDMI is fully digital and has no video compression, so it doesn't suffer from any image degradation. Unlike DV and HDV FireWire based video standards, HDMI allows deeper bit depths and full color resolution, eliminating banding and contouring problems in high quality video. HDMI is found on the latest HD cameras such as the Sony HDR-HC3 or Panasonic HDC-SD1.

Go the Distance

SDI video connects long distances up to 300 feet or 100 meters, so you can connect everyone together in your facility. Cables are simple BNC coax cables so you can easily make cables to the perfect length for your needs.

Standard Definition and HDTV

All Blackmagic HD products support dual rate SDI so you can instantly switch between SD and HD. This is ideal for modern workflows where HD maybe a smaller part of the market for most people. Most people run standard definition for 80% or more of their work, but need high definition capability for specific spots. With SDI products such as DeckLink cards and Multibridge, you can immediately switch over to HD when a job comes along.

Professional Software Compatibility

Edit and design with DeckLink cards for the highest quality possible. Unlike dedicated pre-built systems, you have the flexibility of customizing a system to your needs and not the needs someone has decided for you. Check out powerful software such as Final Cut Pro™, Premiere Pro®, Motion™, After Effects®, Shake™ and Photoshop® for cutting edge creative tools.

Built in AES/EBU or Analog Audio

Standard 1/4 inch jacks are built in for balanced analog or AES/EBU audio. Because Mini Converters use standard 1/4 inch jack connectors for all audio connections, you can use standard cables commonly avalible from any pro audio store. Unlike other converters, Mini Converters don't need custom cables, as any balanced 1/4 inch jack cable can be used. Mini Converters are also unique as the same 1/4 inch jack connections can be switched between professional balanced analog audio, or AES/EBU digital audio. This means you only need one model of Mini Converter for both analog and digital audio. You can select the type of audio from one of the mini switches on the side of the Mini Converter unit. On modes with AES/EBU digital audio in, a sample rate converter lets you connect to any AES/EBU source, either synchronized, or un-syncronised. On HDMI models, you also have full access to the HDMI audio embedded in the HDMI video connection.

High Quality

Mini Converters are built to highest quality standards with low SDI jitter so you get the longest SDI cable lengths combined with multiple internal power supplies for ultra low noise broadcast quality analog video and audio. Unlike other converters, Mini Converters don't use "low grade" video electronics just to save cost. Mini Converters feature the highest grade broadcast quality analog audio and video electronics. In fact, Mini Converters uses the same analog video design as our most expensive and award winning Multibridge Eclipse! That means you get the highest quality, all in a very affordable and incredibly compact unit.

International Power Supply

Unlike other converters, a universal power supply is included with international socket adapters for all countries. This lets you take Mini Converters with you to any location worldwide, and plug directly into the local power sockets. To stop power accidentally being disconnected, a cable tie point is included to lock down the power connection tight!

Industry Standard Format

Connect to any SDI deck for all industry tape formats, from DV, Digital Betacam™, D1, up to HDCAM SR™ and HD D-5. Using capture cards such as Blackmagic Design's DeckLink, you can capture to formats such as JPEG, DV to uncompressed 8 bit, 10 bit or RGB 10 bit.

Products

SDI to Analog

Mini Converter SDI to Analog includes everything you need to convert from SDI to analog in HD/SD component, NTSC and PAL video, plus balanced AES/EBU and analog audio. Now you can easily connect equipment such as Betacam SP, VHS, and analog video monitors to SDI based equipment.

Analog to SDI

Mini Converter Analog to SDI is perfect for converting from analog video in HD/SD component, NTSC, PAL or S-Video to SDI video with the choice to embed SDI audio from balanced AES/EBU or analog audio inputs. Now you can convert analog devices such as Betacam SP, VHS, Set top box's and HDV cameras to SDI video.

SDI to HDMI

Mini Converter SDI to HDMI converts from SDI to HDMI video with embedded HDMI audio, plus balanced AES/EBU or analog audio. Imagine using big screen televisions and video projectors for broadcast video monitoring! Now you can easily connect HDMI displays to SDI based equipment.

HDMI to SDI

Mini Converter HDMI to SDI is ideal for converting from HDMI devices to SDI video with the choice to embed SDI audio from HDMI, AES/EBU or balanced analog audio inputs. Now you can add SDI outputs to cameras with HDMI connections, or add if your computer supports HDMI compatibility via DVI to HDMI adapters, then you can use for adding SDI outputs to computers.

Sync Generator

Mini Converter Sync Generator includes 6 crystal stabilized video reference outputs for referencing all the video equipment in your studio in either high definition Tri-Sync or standard definition Black Burst television standards.

Broadcast Converter

Broadcast Converter combines most mini converters features into a 1 rack unit chassis that allow bi-direction conversion. Convert SDI to analog/HDMI while at the same time converting analog to HDMI to SDI. Broadcast Converter is a complete solution for connecting analog decks such as Betacam SP to SDI based systems in a compact rack mount design. Broadcast Converter does feature some different specifications to Mini Converter models, so please check the Tech Specs full details on the differences.

There is simply no converter family on the market today with the same ease of use, and power features as Blackmagic Design Mini Converters! Please call your Blackmagic Design reseller today for a demonstration or more information!

Serial Digital Interface

For over a decade high end post production companies have used the Serial Digital Interface (SDI) to connect all kinds of equipment together at the highest quality possible. Unlike DV based consumer video standards, SDI uses 10 bit video quantizing which allows 1024 video levels, 4 times the quality of the 8 bit DV video, totally eliminating banding and contouring problems in high quality video. DV uses only a quarter of the horizontal resolution color so graphics can look soft and suffer from color fringing making multi-layer keying complex and inferior in visual quality.

Quality

Mini Converters will keep up with you when quality really counts. Their fully SDI digital construction means they never suffers from video noise and will always connect video cleanly between equipment, without any change in quality.

Flexibility for High End Production

The SDI video standard was designed for total flexibility. All equipment connects together using simple coax BNC cables and the connection can be more than 100 meters or 300 feet apart. SDI doesn't use compression so you can record video to any kind of broadcast or high end consumer deck completely independently of the tape format. Modern equipment such as Mini Converters allow for video rate switching between standard definition 270 Mb/s, high definition 1.485 Gb/s or high definition 3 Gb/s video rates, so newer HDTV equipment can be integrated into existing systems.

Uncompressed Video Quality

SDI uses a higher data rate than DV, so it’s got the speed to handle full resolution video in standard definition or high definition completely uncompressed. That means you can preserve video quality until you need to compress the video - such as the final compression pass for streaming or broadcast.

Unlike DV, which is only 4:1:1 color sampling with only 1 red and 1 blue video sample per 4 luma samples, SDI is normally 4:2:2 with twice the color resolution. When doing feature film work, or other high end multi-layer video editing, SDI allows full 4:4:4 video where full color resolution is available. When running 4:4:4, you can also connect video using RGB color space instead of the normal YUV color space, which is perfect for feature film work.

Traditionally SDI equipment has been expensive, however Blackmagic Design has changed the industry and finally made SDI affordable for everyone. Now SDI is the production format of the choice for high end, corporate, on-location and live broadcast video worldwide.

Compatibility when it Counts

DI has the compatibility to connect every kind of video equipment together, from all tape format decks, monitoring and distribution. No matter what the tape format, there will be a model with SDI connections. This means you don’t have to worry about tape formats and non linear editing file formats standards, with SDI it all connects together seamlessly.

SDI has absolutely no latency, so unlike FireWire you get instant response on NLE timelines. SDI also allows direct monitoring, as all good video monitors have SDI input options or use analog converters such as Multibridge and HDLink for LCD monitoring. For audio perfectionists, SDI has a massive multi-channel audio capability with video capture cards such as DeckLink using up to 12 channels for HD audio capture.

That’s great for 5.1 surround sound work. And like the video, all audio is digital so there is no generation loss of any kind combined with perfect AV sync. There are thousands of SDI based products on the market ranging from million dollar telecine film scanners down to low cost analog converters for a few hundred dollars, and they're all fully compatible with each other.

Choose RGB or YUV Workflow

Due to the historical requirement for compatibility with black and white television and video compression, all video is normally YUV based. YUV is a term used to describe Y, Cr, Cb video where black and white video is transmitted separately to color red and blue video. Unlike composite NTSC/PAL video, color is not mixed, eliminating problems such as chroma crawl and luma/chroma intermixing. YUV video is useful because color detail can be reduced without affecting the visual image quality to the human eye.

Normal SDI video uses the 4:2:2 sampling where for every 4-black and white (luma or Y) pixels there are two color pixels for red and blue. YUV is fully compatible with most television requirements and is the native format for SDI video connections. .

For feature film and other high end work, many people like to work in RGB because film, telecine film scanners, computers and video monitors natively work in RGB, thereby eliminating color space conversions. However, RGB requires full color detail called 4:4:4 which uses extra bandwidth carried on a second SDI cable. Blackmagic Design's Multibridge Eclipse and Pro, as well as DeckLink HD Pro 4:4:4 capture cards support both YUV and RGB color, so unlike other products, you can choose the best color space for your workflow

Feature Film Video Quality

SDI features twice the color resolution of DV so you get incredible quality graphics and effects. All Blackmagic Design products use full 4:2:2 10 bit SDI video with video stored at full resolution using 10 bit depth. If you're doing higher quality feature film work, then 4:4:4 HD-SDI is perfect.

All of our converters support Dual Link HD 4:4:4 10 bit RGB using an extra SDI connected cable to allow full color detail. That’s ideal for incredibly high end work, and amazingly most of the world's expensive pre-built dedicated systems don’t even support this level of quality yet!

Dual Link 4:4:4 compatible decks are available from companies such as Sony™ with their HDCAM SR™ series decks, and all telecine film scanners. With Blackmagic you can choose compatibility with either 4:2:2 SDI or the highest quality possible with 4:4:4 full color resolution video.

Technical Specifications