thunderbolt to SDI box

Just figured out that my Matrox MXO2LE is no longer being supported in MacOS (drivers stopped at Yosemite)

Looking for suggestions to replace this. Only need thunderbolt (preferred) or USB3 to SDI monitoring, not capturing. Thanks.

I use a Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor.
AJA makes the T-Tap.

This won't help much but the two best days of computer ownership came when 1) I sold my Ink and money sucking Epson 4000 ink jet printer and 2) selling off my Matrox mxo mini.

FcpX does two monitor editing just fine for me, though I can't input any decks anymore, but havenot missed that either

yeah I'm pretty dismayed that this $1300 box is now a paper weight. It is pretty overkill for what I needed - I'm guessing there weren't cheaper alternatives available at the time. Need to feed a broadcast monitor that only accepts SDI, otherwise I'd just skip it.

Reading some reviews on B&H that the UltraStudio Mini doesn't work well with FCPX - is it working okay for you?

KarlSutton wrote: Reading some reviews on B&H that the UltraStudio Mini doesn't work well with FCPX - is it working okay for you?

Yeah I'm curious about this too...

I've got one coming tomorrow I'll let you know!

KarlSutton wrote: I've got one coming tomorrow I'll let you know!

How is it playing with FCPX?

People in this thread on the Blackmagic forum seem to say it works fine, while a few say it has issues with certain drivers, etc - forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=54623

I own a Blackmagic Ultrastudio Express and its been a punishing journey with FCP X.

I edit 60/40% with FCP/PPro for my work, however if I know I need to deliver content through this device - I always use Premiere pro these days as the random crashes within X when showing content to clients is simply not acceptable.

Then when FCP X 10.3 came out, I couldn't even play out of the device from my sequences with it.

I'd say - if I had my time over again - I should have got an AJA unit.

Dean...

Deano wrote: I own a Blackmagic Ultrastudio Express and its been a punishing journey with FCP X.

I edit 60/40% with FCP/PPro for my work, however if I know I need to deliver content through this device - I always use Premiere pro these days as the random crashes within X when showing content to clients is simply not acceptable.

Then when FCP X 10.3 came out, I couldn't even play out of the device from my sequences with it.

I'd say - if I had my time over again - I should have got an AJA unit.

Dean...

But you can't use it with Resolve though, right?

I switched from AJA T-Tap to BMD so I could use Resolve with it. Yes, Resolve only works with BMD hardware. I rarely use Resolve any longer, so I may go back to the AJA T-Tap.

Also, AJA used to financially support many FCP user groups before X. BMD doesn't to anything for us.

I've been testing the BMD UltraStudio Express, AJA T-Tap and BMD MiniMonitor. All work fine with Premiere Pro.

The MiniMonitor seems to pass SDI fine, but I can't get HDMI out of it. The T-Tap performs best with FCPX, but when working with progressive media you get aliasing/interlacing on pause, regardless of settings. This isn't the case with the UltraStudio Express, because it contains more processing power to reconstruct a whole frame on pause.

The biggest issue, I have with the UltraStudio Express in FCPX, is that it doesn't perform well when attached to a Thunderbolt bus that is shared. So, for example, on a Mac Pro trash can, it has to be on its own Thunderbolt bus if you want good performance in X. What I see is that in JKL scrubbing/shuttling, it freezes not only the output to the broadcast displays, but also the FCPX viewer itself. If you turn off a/v output in the menu, then it's fine. Regular playback is OK.

The bottom line is that if you want to have Resolve visible on an external monitor, you have to have a BMD device. If you only care about FCPX, then AJA is probably the better option. Or get one of each and swap them based on what you are working on.

- Oliver

I got the Black Magic Ultrastudio Mini Monitor and the image on my monitor flickers a little especially noticeable in the bright spots. I believe I have it set correctly, I wonder if based on the other input in this thread if I should get a T Tap instead?