Blackmagic inputs

A Blackmagic input brings in video, and the sound embedded with it, from a connector on a Blackmagic capture device, through Blackmagic’s own Desktop Video software, which has to be installed for a device to appear at all.

Add one

Press Add Input…, choose Blackmagic, and pick a Connector from what your device offers. If you have just connected a device, or plugged something into a connector, press Refresh Devices.

Format

There is nothing to set: the connector follows whatever format is plugged into it.

Sound

A Blackmagic input can carry the sound embedded in its signal: the first pair of channels, held back by the input’s sync delay together with its picture. A new Blackmagic input starts without it, with nothing ticked under Audio Source, because a card is as often used for picture alone and a mixer strip nobody asked for is clutter. To hear it, tick Its own sound on its Audio tab; other inputs’ sound can be ticked beside it.

Or give it another input’s sound instead, the same way a camera does: choose an Audio input there, such as the microphone on the presenter.

If a Show is opened without the card

A connector a Show was configured to use, but that this Mac does not have, is kept and shown as unavailable rather than silently dropped. Plug the card back in, or open the Show on the right Mac, and it reconnects.

Next

Pairing an input’s sound, Framing a source, and NDI, Blackmagic and the external display for sending Program out of a Blackmagic connector.