Dear Blackmagic Support….

[Paul Jay]

Latest driver?
Is the control panel working or greyed out?
What edit application?

[Bob Zelin]

I have never had an issue WAITING ON HOLD to get Blackmagic support to pickup the phone. I guess you never had to wait for AVID to answer the phone.

Is your life that busy that you can’t sit on hold for 15 minutes to talk with someone ?

And perhaps, you can give details of your problem here, and perhaps we can help you.

bob Zelin

[Stephen Rutherford]

Actually, my life is pretty crazy right now, thanks for asking. Besides, who are you to ask or judge? I also appreciate the helpful tone of your reply. It’s that kind of reply that makes user forums great.

While I understand the need to wait on hold, Blackmagic provides the voicemail option for folks who can’t necessarily wait on hold. It seems that if they have this option, they should return the calls at some point. I have tried various means of contacting them and have had no response or confirmation as to them receiving my request. If they are not going to answer voicemails, they shouldn’t have it as an option.

I also submitted two requests via Blackmagic’s contact page found at https://www.blackmagic-design.com/support/request/?sid=3945&pid=4013&os=win&leg=0

In addition, as part of the correspondence, I have left details at length in the messages. Because you asked nicely, I will also detail them here:

I installed a Blackmagic Decklink SDI card in my new Lenovo K330 PC running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit. I installed the card and ran the install disc as requested in the user manual. Once restarted, the card prompted me for a firmware update, just as the manual suggested it would.

For unknown reasons, the firmware will not update and the computer continually “hangs up” with the card installed. Also, in getting the PC up and running (with all the typical initial updates, etc.), the computer will not shut down all the way with the card installed.

Anyone with helpful comments on this issue, please feel free to lend them. If you are going to berate me for being busy, feel free to keep that to yourself.

Stephen Rutherford
Director of CanesVision & In=Game Marketing
Carolina Hurricanes Hockey Club
stephenr@carolinahurricanes.com
https://www.facebook.com/swrutherford
https://www.twitter.com/CVHD

CAROLINA HURRICANES: 2006 STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS!

CURRENT PC CONFIGURATION
Lenovo K330 7727-4HU PC
Intel Core i7-2600 3.40GHz
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
12GB DDR3 RAM
ATI Radeon HD 6450

Adobe Production Premium CS5/CS4/CS3
3D Studio Max 2012/2011/2010/2009

[Stephen Rutherford]

Paul, sorry I overlooked your questions.

Latest driver?
Blackmagic Design Decklink 7.9.3

Is the control panel working or greyed out?
Control panel is installed and it seems that I can edit some options. I can get a screen shot to you Monday.

What edit application?
Adobe Production Premium CS4 – Primarily Premiere Pro

Any assistance is appreciated.

Stephen Rutherford
Director of CanesVision & In=Game Marketing
Carolina Hurricanes Hockey Club
stephenr@carolinahurricanes.com
https://www.facebook.com/swrutherford
https://www.twitter.com/CVHD

CAROLINA HURRICANES: 2006 STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS!

CURRENT PC CONFIGURATION
Lenovo K330 7727-4HU PC
Intel Core i7-2600 3.40GHz
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
12GB DDR3 RAM
ATI Radeon HD 6450

Adobe Production Premium CS5/CS4/CS3
3D Studio Max 2012/2011/2010/2009

[Bob Zelin]

what other cards do you have installed in your system ? Are there other external disk drive host controller cards or other graphics/capture cards that may be causing a conflict here ? I do not know your system, but you should remove all external devices, including any possible FW or USB devices and other PCI e cards other than your graphics card, to attempt to do this firmware update. If this works, then you can reinstall your other devices (one at a time to see if there are any conflicts). If it will still not allow you to do the update, please let me know.

Bob Zelin

[Joshua Helling]

I apologize for that. I have one of the guys double checking the voicemails now. We pull them every morning before the phones go on.

I’ll have that checked, it’s always possible that we missed it. But either way I apologize for that.

Sincerely,

Joshua
Director of Support
Blackmagic Design Inc.

[Stephen Rutherford]

Thank you, Joshua!

Bob: I have no other PCIe x1 cards installed and all peripherals have been taken out.

It is still failing to update the firmware and will lock the PC up if I attempt to open the Decilink Control Panel or even check the driver versions in the Device Manager.

I’m hoping that it’s something simple that I’m just overlooking, like perhaps a BIOS update or something. As a matter of fact, I’ll check that now….

Stephen Rutherford
Director of CanesVision & In=Game Marketing
Carolina Hurricanes Hockey Club
stephenr@carolinahurricanes.com
https://www.facebook.com/swrutherford
https://www.twitter.com/CVHD

CAROLINA HURRICANES: 2006 STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS!

CURRENT PC CONFIGURATION
Lenovo K330 7727-4HU PC
Intel Core i7-2600 3.40GHz
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
12GB DDR3 RAM
ATI Radeon HD 6450

Adobe Production Premium CS5/CS4/CS3
3D Studio Max 2012/2011/2010/2009

[Bob Zelin]

It’s easy for me to ask this, because I have access to equipment, but do you have ANOTHER PC that you can try the card in ? I know that this is not always possible, but this should work (the card doesn’t require a lot of lanes to work). Certainly it could be the card, but it would be great if you could get access to another PC to try this in.

Bob Zelin

[Stephen Rutherford]

Good idea… I’ll look around for one… Most of our other equip is either Mac Pro or Macbook Pro… Thanks!

Stephen Rutherford
Director of CanesVision & In=Game Marketing
Carolina Hurricanes Hockey Club
stephenr@carolinahurricanes.com
https://www.facebook.com/swrutherford
https://www.twitter.com/CVHD

CAROLINA HURRICANES: 2006 STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS!

CURRENT PC CONFIGURATION
Lenovo K330 7727-4HU PC
Intel Core i7-2600 3.40GHz
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
12GB DDR3 RAM
ATI Radeon HD 6450

Adobe Production Premium CS5/CS4/CS3
3D Studio Max 2012/2011/2010/2009

[Neil Sadwelkar]

You could pop the card into a spare MacPro since you happen to have one, just to ensure its working fine.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India