Osprey 2000 DV Pro Brings Welcome Improvements
I was doubtful in January when ViewCast said that the Osprey 2000 DV Pro — an evolutionary upgrade to the company's Osprey 500 DV Pro — would be released in early April. But I was wrong. ViewCast began shipping the Osprey 2000-series boards last week. And judging by the results of my tests of beta hardware, with the exception of an apparent glitch I encountered with the bundled capture software, the vendor doesn't appear to have taken any shortcuts getting it out the door on time.
Because we have already reviewed the Osprey 500 DV Pro, I'll focus on the new features and capabilities only.
The biggest 500-series feature missing in the 2000 series is the special Windows Media Encoder (WME) support provided via native on-board Active Streaming Format (ASF) support. S/P-DIF is gone too, but I doubt it'll be missed much.
On the positive side, the Osprey 2000 DV Pro adds SDI embedded two-channel audio capture (the 500 supported SDI video only); unbalanced RCA two-channel audio out; composite video out; and S-video out. The 2000 series boards also boast hardware MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 encoding/decoding. The audio outs work during capture for monitoring, and also for MPEG decoding. The video outs only work during MPEG decoding and can't be used to monitor a capture session on an external TV/monitor.
The Osprey 2000 series includes six models. The Osprey 2000 ($1,495 list) and Osprey 2000 Pro ($3,995 list) are lower priced than the Osprey 2000 DV Pro ($4,495 list) and offer different subsets of inputs and outputs, but the same on-board processing capabilities. The Osprey 2000 D DV ($1,495 list), 2000 D Pro ($2,495 list), and 2000 D DV Pro ($2,995 list) can't encode MPEG, but can decode MPEG and have all the other on-board processing capabilities of the first three products.
Installation
I had no problems installing the Windows 2000 drivers and the Osprey software (NT 4.0 drivers are available as well). The installation CD comes up with a pleasing graphical menu for installation and/or upgrade of software, drivers, and current releases of Microsoft and Real encoders and players. The fact that it's pretty, includes current vendor software, and works, isn't a big deal in itself, but it's a good example of the attention to detail that goes into all aspects of this Osprey product line.
This attention to detail shows in the delightful documentation. Yep, I said delightful. The documentation is well organized, clear, concise, navigable, current, and written specifically for the 2000 DV Pro. It also provides brief descriptions of video and audio concepts that are fundamental to using the full capabilities of the board. Spending the money to create this level of documentation product and to get it out alongside the first shipping unit is one of those business decisions that many companies have to — or choose to — pass on.
The audio monitoring worked fine during encoding, and is a very welcome addition on top of the 500-series features. There's no gain control on the audio out, but that's reasonable, as it would be used only for monitoring. Also, audio and video monitoring worked fine during MPEG decode/playback. The video didn't look as good as it did on my computer screen, but that's to be expected and, again, it's just for monitoring.
page 1 2 next >>