I bought a USB Intensity Shuttle off of eBay and no matter what I do the Blackmagic driver software won’t recognize that it’s connected. Oddly I can see in my Systems Manager that my computer recognizes it and aptly labels it “Intensity Shuttle.” But no matter what I do or how many different versions of the Intensity Shuttle driver software I install the software won’t recognize it. I want to burn this damn Intensity Shuttle and put it out of its misery.
This gets me to my question and PLEASE HELP ME OUT. Is there an alternative on the market to the Intensity Shuttle, either capture card or standalone? I want to record in ProRes. Can you please list the options I have? I will be eternally grateful. Thanks video friends - Cristina
Can you open “Blackmagic Desktop Video Utility?” You will need it to configure which input is active. It took me ages to locate it on my Windows computer. There is also a piece of software, Syphon X, that is only for Mac. Here is a good video that shows both being used:
Which software “won’t recognize it” and what is the message you get? Do you mean Blackmagic Media Express?
Another setting I spent a long time finding was “Project Video Format” in Blackmagic media express. It is located under Edit>Preferences. The selection in this dropdown must match the video input detected.
When the Intensity Shuttle is plugged in and the inputs are configured properly, the bottom left hand side of Media Express will show the detected video format. If it detects a video different than the Video Format you select in the drop down, it will show in red and there will be no capture.
Media Express is admittedly bad. Maybe using Syphon X will give you better results.
The USB Intensity Shuttle is very particular about the USB hardware of a computer. I don’t know the exact details, but from what I’ve gathered over the years, there are no Macs whatsoever correctly configured to work with the USB Shuttle — one had to use the Thunderbolt version if on a Mac. And, sadly, I think even those are no longer compatible with/supported on recent Mac models and/or versions of MacOS (but I could be wrong about that).
The struggle is real.
I use the Thunderbolt Intensity Shuttle with an older Mac and it works fine (with Black Syphon; I find the Blackmagic software to be garbage). Though I also mostly use a standalone recording setup these days (Blackmagic Analog to SDI > Blackmagic UpDownCross HD > Blackmagic Video Assist).
I think the current one-box standalone solution from Blackmagic is the UltraStudio HD Mini, but I have no experience with those.
Yeah, the Ultrastudio HD Mini is their current supported thunderbolt device, which still requires a computer (which seems like what you’re going for anyways). There is a 4K option too but it’s new and expensive and probably overkill.
The intensity shuttle thunderbolt may also work for you, but it’s discontinued and unsupported so you may not want to invest time in that. I’m using it successfully on 10.14 and a lot of people are still using it.
The Shuttle stopped working with an OSX update sometime in the last couple years (they’ve been a bit of a blur, so I don’t recall when exactly). You’ve either gotta capture on Windows or Linux (maybe) or upgrade your hardware.
I’m a dipshit, I am using the 4k mini, but it looks very similar to the HD mini. Names are hard.
They both only have analog video inputs, with SDI and HDMI outs. I use mine for capture so this has been sufficient for me. I’m not sure how well it’d work for in/out with a converter. I’d guess there’d be a bit of latency from the D/A conversion, but it has been fine for monitoring.
