Blackmagic conjures up Lion support

Apple released its latest version of OS X yesterday, Lion (10.7), and Blackmagic Design rapidly released a software update for its desktop video products to add full support.

Its Desktop Video 8.2 software update includes support for Apple’s new Core Video and Core Audio processing pipelines for professional grade video and audio functionality across a wide variety of applications, and supports all of Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink (above), Intensity, Multibridge (below) and H.264 Pro Recorder products.

Core Media is the new way video hardware devices capture and playback to software applications and is the future of video API's on the Mac OS X platform. Blackmagic claims to be the first company to support this new standard. As it is part of the core capabilities of the OS, it is easier for developers to design modern 64-bit video software and get high performance capture and playback to hardware.

“Our close relationship with Apple has enabled Blackmagic Design to take full advantage of the many exciting new features in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, such as Core Video and Core Audio, from the very first day of its release,” said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. "Our customers are constantly looking for performance improvements to their workflows and they will not be disappointed when they upgrade to the incredible new performance of Mac OS X 10.7 and Blackmagic Design products.”

The Desktop Video 8.2 software update is available free of charge for DeckLink, Multibridge, Intensity and H.264 Pro Recorder customers from the Blackmagic Design web support page (www.blackmagic-design.com/support).

Apple also introduced new hardware yesterday, including upgraded MacBook Air and Mac Mini models (at least twice as fast as previous versions). Now, almost all of its computers come with Intel's new Thunderbolt high-speed I/O technology (the only range still to be upgraded is its Mac Pro desktops).

It also announced the world's first Thunderbolt monitor (pictured in dual screen use with Final Cut Pro X and a 15-inch MacBook Pro), the high-resolution 27-inch Apple Thunderbolt Display, which includes built-in Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 connections, and a power adaptor for Apple's notebook computers.

By David Fox