Black magic design  is one of those companies that beavers away in the background bringing quality to the masses at an affordable price bracket, take their new large sensor camera priced at around £1,912 a fantastic price for a 2.5K cinematic camera and lots of pre orders to boot !

As you will know if you have been reading my blog that I am fed up with the likes of AJA and Matrox who give us great boxes like the io HD and the MX02 MAX but with one vital flaw…

1. AJA io HD (£2300) is not compatible with FCPX and only works with FCP-7

2. Matrox MX02 MAX (£900) is compatible with FCP-7, FCPX and Premiere Pro CS6 but not at the same time.

So I have two expensive boxes that in AJAs case is only useful with FCP-7 and runs via fire wire 800 and Matrox MX02 MAX that only runs with one NLE at a time and as yet not Mountain Lion compatible with Premiere Pro CS6.

Today I had a talk with my good friend Norrie who has been using a Black Magic Intensity Pro for a few months now and thinks its the business !

The Intensity Pro costs £130 yet is compatible with FCPX, Premiere Pro CS6, AVIDs Media Composer 6 and Sony Vegas Pro all from the same set of drivers and the best news is yet to come…

A software package for importing your footage from analogue or digital called “Media Express” this is the answer to the lack of tape importing that FCPX fails to deliver. Now I have a one stop media shop on my Mac Pro that delivers 4:2:2 HDMI HD footage onto my monitor and no more messing about with drivers and uninstalls when I switch from FCPX to Premiere Pro and the best news is that Black Magic are so customer consious that they have Mountain Lion drivers out already.

UPDATE : Having reluctantly uninstalled the Matrox MX02 MAX and installing the Intensity Pro here are my findings.

1. It does indeed playback FCPX and Premiere Pro CS6 from the same set of drivers.

2. FCPX does not play smoothly and thats only set to 720 50p, I assume it’s a bug that 10.0.5 has introduced thought I do await for BM to get back to me.

3. Premiere Pro CS6 plays back flawlessly.

4. Media Express works a treat and is the answer to the missing ingest module that no longer comes with FCPX.

Conclusion : Black Magic Design have not only brought out a multi platform monitor but ingest tool as well for £130. Both Matrox and AJA should be ashamed of themselves, if Black Magic can monitor up to 5 programs including Photoshop it’s a damed disgrace we have to put up with poor hardware like the MX02 and ioHD that quite frankly DO NOT CUT THE MUSTARD.

Sloppy design both from AJA and Matrox make these products almost useless in todays multi faceted NLE’s, we need choices, till we see what Apple have done to the new version of FCPX due out this month I for one cannot use FCPX on any long form edit, just yet but I will be interested to hear what my friend Rick Young has to say on the matter as he is producing a documentary with 50 hours of footage on FCPX as I type !