Despite the fact that Apple is not present at CES 2012, it is clearly having an impact. One of the areas where that impact is being felt is with the introduction of Thunderbolt enabled devices. In September 2010 Intel showed off Thunderbolt at the Intel Developer’s Forum. Apple introduced the first Thunderbolt enabled computer in February 2011, the Macbook Pro. However there has not been a lot of third-party Thunderbolt enabled devices appearing in the market. Well if CES 2012 is any indication the wait for Thunderbolt enabled devices maybe over.
One such device that is being shown at CES is the Intensity Shuttle by Blackmagic Design. The Intensity Shuttle uses Intel Thunderbolt technology and connects to a Thunderbolt enabled computer using a single wire. It is capable of up to 10 GB of transfer speed, which is 20x faster than USB 2.0 and 12x faster than FireWire 800. It is a full featured video capture and playback solution. It features all the video connections needed to connect video cameras, set-top boxes, gaming consoles and projectors to Thunderbolt enabled computers. This would include HDMI, component, composite, and S-Video. It uses the same high quality electronics that are available in Blackmagic Design’s high end broadcasting capture and play back solutions. You can capture live game play, archive family movies and create full broadcast quality 1080 HD video. If you capture video directly with the Intensity Shuttle it by passes the camera’s compression by recording directly from the camera’s image sensor. This allows low-end consumer video cameras to capture full HD resolution in broadcast quality.
“Using Intensity Shuttle with Thunderbolt™ technology combines the quality and speed that videographers demand”, said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. “It’s incredibly exciting when technologies come together and create new opportunities for the way people work with video. The barriers of working with broadcast quality video have gone forever and everyone can create amazing looking work!”