Blackmagic Design has announced a major update for its DeckLink 8K Pro capture card, which allows its four 12G-SDI connections to be used for the independent capture and playback of 4 separate video streams. For customers working on high end feature films, this update for DeckLink 8K Pro also adds support for HDR metadata packing via SMPTE ST2108-1 and both HLG and PQ transfer characteristics via SMPTE ST2082-10.

Desktop Video 11.0 update is available as a free download from the Blackmagic Design website.

This new update makes DecLink 8K Pro like a whole new product. The new multi channel support makes DeckLink 8K Pro as powerful as 4 separate PCIe capture and playback cards. Customers can now capture or play back any combination of formats and frame rates, all the way up to Ultra HD and 4K DCI at 60 frames per second. The new multi-channel support can be enabled by developers via the free DeckLink SDK. This makes it fast for developers to support the multi channel features of DeckLink 8K Pro.

Developers will be able to use the free DeckLink software developer kit to configure their software to use the 12G-SDI connections as independent channels for capture or playback, or they can enable them to be used for 2 simultaneous fill and key outputs as well. This makes DeckLink 8K Pro perfect for compositing broadcast graphics for sport and news in realtime. It’s also ideal for digital signage playback systems in which customers need synchronized playback on massive multi screen displays. Whether it’s being used for capture, playback or a combination of both, DeckLink 8K Pro with the Desktop Video 11 update is like getting four cards in one.

For customers working on high end HDR projects, DeckLink 8K Pro with the Desktop Video 11 update adds new support for HDR metadata packing (SMPTE ST2108-1) and both HLG and PQ transfer characteristics (SMPTE ST2082-10). This uses metadata to provide a far more granular way of presenting luminance mapping which helps to ensure the content creator’s vision is carried throughout the workflow. Most importantly, it makes it possible to output HDR content over SDI, providing customers with a future proof solution for HDR content creation.

DeckLink 8K Pro with Desktop Video 11 update now supports quad link sample interleave signals in Ultra HD and 4K DCI modes, along with new 47.95 and 48 frame per second formats. This makes DeckLink 8K Pro compatible with even more quad link SDI equipment and workflows than ever before. In addition, this update adds support for perfectly synchronized capture and playback via SDI across multiple DeckLink cards when using a reference, or genlock, input signal.

“We designed DeckLink 8K Pro to be a future proof solution that customers could use for HD, 4K and 8K workflows,” said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. “The exciting thing about Desktop Video 11 is that it’s an update that’s free of charge, so customers get even more great high end features for the product they already own and they don’t have to purchase a new card. They get support for the latest formats, frame rates, resolutions and HDR workflows. Plus, it turns their existing 8K cards into the equivalent of 4 independent 4K cards! It’s a very exciting update.”