DeckLink Setup

This page describes how to install BlackMagic DeckLink card drivers. This also applies for compatible range of products like Intensity or UltraStudio.

Download

Please visit BlackMagic web and download (preferably latest) drivers for your card.

Linux

In Linux ensure that you have the kernel header files installed for your current kernel. Check for the directory /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build/. Compilation of the driver requires a Linux 2.6 kernel with version 2.6.23 or higher.

You just install a package (DesktopVideo) for you distribution by your package manager (dpkg, yum...). You can also install MediaExpress, which is simple capture/display application for Blackmagic cards but this is not required for UG.

After downloading the archive, follow further steps (assuming Ubuntu/Debian, RPM-based distributions would be analogical):

• extract

  tar xaf Blackmagic_Desktop_Video_Linux_*.tar.gz

• install all packages

  sudo dpkg -i Blackmagic_Desktop_Video_Linux_*/deb/x86_64/*deb

• or install the driver only

  sudo dpkg -i Blackmagic_Desktop_Video_Linux_*/deb/x86_64/desktopvideo_*deb

• in either case, you may end up with unresolved dependencies, if so, run:

  suduo apt-get install -f

Firmware update

You may want to check dmesg after correctly loaded blackmagic module, you should see something like this:

 [  917.125846] blackmagic: Loading driver (version: 8.0.1rc4)
 [  917.125964] blackmagic_driver 0000:24:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
 [  917.125973] blackmagic_driver 0000:24:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
 [  917.126016] blackmagic_driver 0000:24:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
 [  919.256071] blackmagic: Successfully loaded device "blackmagic0" [pci@0000:24:00.0]

If you encounter this message:

[ 11.073168] blackmagic: hardware device is not usable, please run firmware utility to check firmware version status

You will need to upgrade card firmware:

BlackmagicFirmwareUpdater status

tells which card needs update, and then execute:

BlackmagicFirmwareUpdater update

More verbose HOWTO is here.