Teranex is a brand that came to major prominence with their stellar Standard Definition to High Definition upscaling and frame rate conversion technology. While we all hope to never actually need to upres and would prefer to shoot for the final delivery format, sometimes you have to. 

For instance, if you are working on a documentary and delivering to HD, a Teranex can be a valuable tool for bringing archival SD footage up in resolution and changing cadence with professional quality. 


Blackmagic purchased Teranex several years ago and has since set about launching the widest variety possible of "Teranex Mini" boxes. While you can still buy the top of the line "do it all" box, Blackmagic recognized that in many situations, users were only using one input most of the time, and buying a box just for that setup with all the Teranex goodness baked in made sense for a lot of users.

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They are continuing that tradition with the new SDI to DisplayPort 8K Teranex Mini. 

Unlike some of the smaller Mini boxes, this one will include a full color monitor on the front, reminiscent of some of the larger Blackmagic products, to give users insight into the menu as well as the signal and how it's being changed.

This unit also contains the ability to customize on-screen video scopes, and also to calibrate a monitor by plugging a probe directly into the front of the unit via USB, which makes it an incredibly powerful unit for color critical applications through the motion picture image chain.

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What does this have to do with the new XDR monitor from Apple announced alongside the new Mac Pro?   

Aside from being released the same day, this unit also has a USB-C/T3 style DisplayPort connector that is designed for single-cable connection to the 6K XDR display to use it as an output reference monitor. Since Apple are themselves pushing it as a replacement for reference monitors, this is likely going to be one of the primary ways video professionals, who generally use SDI, get a video signal into the XDR for color critical applications.

Since this scales input video to the display resolution, this will take 4K SDI video and bump it up, or take 8K and bump into down, to the middle resolution we see in the XDR.

Tech Specs

  • Includes support for HDR via SDI and DisplayPort.
  • 2 built-in scopes live overlaid on monitor.
  • Film industry quality 33 point 3D LUTs.
  • Supports automatic monitor calibration using color probes.
  • Advanced Quad Link 12G-SDI inputs for 8K.
  • Scales input video to the native monitor resolution.
  • Includes LCD for monitoring and menu settings.
  • Utility software included for Mac and Windows.
  • Supports latest 8K DisplayPort monitors and displays.
  • Can be used on a desktop or rack mounted.

The Terenex Mini will be available in October 2019 for $1,295 USD.