AE CC 2014 no BMD monitor output

[Todd Kopriva]

See this for changes in how video preview works in the new version:
https://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2014/05/video-preview-mercury-transmit-after-effects.html

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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[Tim Kurkoski]

You should update your Blackmagic drivers to the most current, which are 10.1.1 for Mac OS.
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support

Which Blackmagic device do you have?

[Chris Borjis]

Ya, I have it setup properly (per the blog) and it doesn’t output.
also tried toggling with /
no difference.

IT DOES WORK WITH PREMIERE CC 2014, just not AE

I’m running the latest Black Magic driver 9.7.7

I also have an exact identical mac pro in another
room same version of os x and CUDA with AE CC 2014,
only it has a Kona 3G card instead of black magic and that one does output just fine.

So something is going on with the BMD aspect of AE’s output.

[Chris Borjis]

[Tim Kurkoski] “Which Blackmagic device do you have?”

Mutibridge-Extreme

BMD’s site shows 9.7.7 as the latest available driver…almost a year old.

I see 10.1.1 for newer output cards.

Still though, seems odd Premiere CC 2014 outputs no problem but AE doesn’t

UPDATE:

Looks like BMD’s driver download section is broken.
driver 9.9.3 seems to be the last supported driver for Multibridge, I’ll try that out.

[Chris Borjis]

updated the driver to 9.9.3 and same issue.

works in premiere but not AE. if the mercury transmit
is now common between them, why it would not work?

[Tim Kurkoski]

Two possibilities here:

1. While the applications use the same Mercury Transmit plug-ins, Blackmagic did make some bug fixes for After Effects. Since your card doesn’t use the latest drivers, you won’t have access to the bug fixes.

2. What are the dimensions, PAR, and frame rate of your comp?

Blackmagic doesn’t support displaying comps that do not match a frame format that exactly matches one of it’s supported video modes. ex. 720p59.94 is supported, but 720p29.97 is not. This is not a problem for the other types of devices we tested; other devices will scale the output to a supported video mode.

Try comps using different standard frame sizes and frame rates (SD in NTSC and PAL, 720p50/59.94, 1080p29.97, etc.). When you switch between comps, click out of AE to another application and back. This causes Mercury Transmit to refresh itself (assuming you have the Disable video when in background option enabled), and one of the bugs I remember Blackmagic working on had to do it not refreshing when switching between comps.

[Chris Borjis]

I was testing with NTSC D1 720×486 29.97
and 192x1080i 29.97

[Tim Kurkoski]

What happens if you try other comp sizes and frame rates? ex., 720×480/0.91/29.97 or 1280×720/59.94?

Can you post a screen shot of the Preferences > Video Preview pane? I want to see how that looks for your Blackmagic card.

[Chris Borjis]

same thing, no video output with a 480 29.97 or 720P 59.94
and going away from cc 2014 to another application then back again
doesn’t do anything on the external monitor.

video preview preference:

[Neil Elbagly]

I see the same problem with Mac OS 10.8.5, Multibridge Pro 9.7.7 and After CC 2014.
The latest driver available from BM for our Multibridge is 9.7.7!
This problem is with AE CC 2014. Premier CC 2014 is fine with the 9.7.7 drivers.
I checked another workstation that has Decklink 2 with BM 9.9.3 it didn’t work as well.
I then updated on that workstation the BM driver to 10.1.1 and it works!