Blackmagic drivers screw up AJA IO express on Avid 5.5.3.0

[Shane Ross]

You cannot have drivers for two IO cards on one system. It simply won’t work. Not with Avid, FCP or Premiere Pro. Gotta choose one and stick with it.

Or partition your hard drive into two…clone the OS so you have it on both partitions, and have the drivers for the BMD on one partition, and the AJA on the other.

Shane
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[Murray North]

Thanks Shane (been reading LFHD for a while, i’m getting all giggly!)
Not convinced that it’s a deal breaker to have to separate IO’s like this though, it had been working for us for the longest time, and then one day (perhaps with an update or something) it seemed to stop.
Basically we want a DaVinici and Avid v5 running on the same system.
Has anyone tried a DaVinici setup with a Mojo DX for Avid?

[Shane Ross]

[Murray North] “Has anyone tried a DaVinici setup with a Mojo DX for Avid?”

DaVinci only works with BlackMagic hardware. That’s why it’s so cheap, and why a version is available for free. The hardware is the dongle, like FCP and Macs.

[Murray North] “Not convinced that it’s a deal breaker to have to separate IO’s like this though, it had been working for us for the longest time, and then one day (perhaps with an update or something) it seemed to stop.”

It worked before? I’ve never gotten it to work. Found it easier to dual boot.

Shane
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[Murray North]

Sorry I meant has anyone got davinci working with blackmagic hardware etc. running concurrently with a Avid on a Mojo DX?

[Murray North]

Okay. I’ve come up with a resolution which i’m reasonably happy with.

The blackmagic desktop video drivers do something which stops avid from firing up the aja IO express drivers as they are supposed to.
After deleting random bits of the blackmagic drivers, i discovered that the offending part of the driver was
~/Library/Applications Support/Blackmagic Design/Blackmagic Decklink/DeckLinkAPI.bundle

If you delete or move this file and THEN boot avid, avid will recognise your IO express as it should.
You can add the file back at any time to bring back functionality to your blackmagic IO. What’s nice here is that you can remove the decklinkAPI before you boot avid, return it once avid has booted, and then boot up davinci and get the party started.

The uh, grade and cut party, I guess.

Hope this helps someone…

[Brendan Dillon]

Hi Murray

This might only be relevant to Avid v6.0 and above but I thought it might help anyone wanting to disable openIO devices in Avid.

If you go to Library/Application Support/Avid/AVX2_Plugins there will be an OpenIO_Blackmagic.acf file or an OpenIO_AJA.acf file etc. (depending on what drivers you have installed). Just remove the relevant file and Avid will no longer see the OpenIO device but any other software will.

You can also remove the Avid folder from Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design but I found just getting rid of the AVX2_Plugin was enough.

I should mention I’m running a Nitris DX and Decklink card without problems so your Mojo DX should also be fine for the cut/grade.

Long time no see mate – hope you’re enjoying the party!

[Murray North]

Thanks Brendan!
Yeah that is all 6.0 and above as you say, but handy to know for when we get there.
It’s true that in an avid 6 environment the DX works with the decklink card, but unfortunately back in 5 land, you need to have the computer running in 32bit kernel for avid to see the DX at all, which means that DaVinci 9 is a no go.
Anyhow, fun and games.