Supported Third Party Hardware
Hardware Backstage supports through a driver or SDK of its own, so that which make and model you buy matters.
|
Hardware |
Used for |
Capability |
|---|---|---|
|
Datapath Vision cards |
video capture |
capture only |
|
Blackmagic Design DeckLink cards |
video capture and playout |
capture and output |
|
Canon cameras |
photographing the screen for camera calibration |
still capture, controlled by Backstage |
|
Plura PCL cards |
reading timecode |
read only |
|
ASIO audio interfaces |
audio playback and capture, timecode, clock reference |
in and out |
|
Wibu CodeMeter dongle |
holding the Notch licence |
required for Notch Blocks |
Video capture and output
|
Vendor |
Family |
Capture |
Output |
Connections |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Datapath |
Vision |
Yes |
No |
SDI, HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI (single and dual link), SDVoE, VGA, component, composite, S-Video |
|
Blackmagic Design |
DeckLink |
Yes |
Yes |
SDI, Optical SDI, HDMI, ST 2110 over Ethernet and Optical Ethernet, component, composite, S-Video |
Which of those connections a card actually has is a property of that card, not of Backstage — the lists in the interface offer only what the installed card reports.
Datapath
Capture only. There is no Datapath output.
One asset per input, and an input already held by another asset is not offered to a second one. The signal readout names the detected signal type: VGA, DVI, DLDVI, YPRPB, COMPOSITE, SVIDEO, SDI or DISPLAYPORT, with resolution and refresh rate. No Signal means nothing is locked; OUTOFRANGE means the incoming signal is outside what the input can lock to.
SDVoE capture is supported. The signal readout cannot name it, though — the signal types it can print come from the capture SDK's own list, and that list has no SDVoE entry. This is a limit on the readout, not on the card: an SDVoE input captures normally.
Blackmagic Design — DeckLink
A DeckLink card can be used for capture and for output, and a model that does both can serve both at once. Capture offers only devices that can capture, output only devices that can play back.
The connector, on either side:
|
Shown as |
Connection |
|---|---|
|
Auto |
no connector pinned — the driver chooses |
|
SDI |
SDI |
|
Optical SDI |
optical SDI |
|
HDMI |
HDMI |
|
Ethernet |
ST 2110 over IP |
|
Optical Ethernet |
ST 2110 over optical IP |
|
Component |
analogue component |
|
Composite |
analogue composite |
|
S-Video |
S-Video |
Only the connectors the card has are offered, and the choice is not shown at all on a card with a single connector.
Cameras
Camera calibration photographs the screen through a Canon camera, driven over USB through Canon's EDSDK. Canon bodies only — no other manufacturer's camera is driven, and the interface does not name the brand anywhere. The camera may be attached to the machine running the server or to the machine running the interface.
See Calibrator Lite and Use Camera Calibration (CalibratorLite).
Timecode
A Plura PCL card is the one piece of timecode hardware Backstage drives itself: the cards are enumerated and picked by index, and the card supplies the timecode. Everything else Backstage reads timecode from is generic — linear timecode on any audio input, an ASIO device, or a PTP network — and imposes no hardware requirement.
Audio
Backstage plays and records through Windows audio devices and through ASIO drivers. ASIO devices are enumerated separately, are marked as such in the device list, and expose the driver's own properties panel. An ASIO device is the preferred choice for reliable, low-latency output.
An ASIO device can also act as the reference for the global system clock. So can a DeckLink card; the two are mutually exclusive.
Licence hardware
Notch Blocks are licensed by Notch, not by Brainsalt, and the licence lives on a Wibu CodeMeter dongle. Backstage checks for the CodeMeter runtime before loading a block. Without it the asset still appears but the block does not load.
Related
Capture Input — the capture asset's own properties
Set Up DeckLink (Blackmagic Design) Capture and Output — DeckLink setup
Capture and Re-map a Video Stream — capture and re-map a live video stream
Supported Media Types — formats, and the live sources that need no hardware at all
Content — all content and media workflows