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Decklink SP audio out has become weak and distorted
I first sent this problem to Blackmagic Design through their online support system, but haven’t heard anything from anyone in the last 5 or 6 days, so here I am on the Cow forum.
I have used the same BMD Decklink SP card in the same PowerMac G5 for almost three years. I’ve been very pleased with the entire system and love the card for my use in capturing and outputting to BetaSP decks. Until last week.
Nothing about my setup has changed (no additional equipment, no driver updates, nobody else using the equipment) and in the past week I’ve had distortion in my powered speakers that are connected to the fan-out audio cables connected to the Decklink SP card. I’ve done thorough troubleshooting by testing the same speakers with other known, good audio sources, and they sound great in the tests. I’ve gone into System Preferences and routed the PowerMac’s audio to the optical output and the headphone output and listened to a Final Cut Pro project and ITunes songs. Those work perfectly. In this same week I’ve captured audio and video, and the captured audio sounds good through the optical or headphone outs, but lousy through the Decklink outs.
Anybody have any idea what could be wrong? I’d appreciate all theories/solutions.
(I am not at work so I can’t list my system details from memory. Suffice it to say that this exact system has worked flawlessly for three years and nothing has changed with it recently.)
Greg Golden
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2 Replies
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Hi Greg,
Would you please use the System Preferences to set the Sound Output to DeckLink Audio. Now launch iTunes and play some music. Does the sound appear to be distorted when monitored via the DeckLink SP? If so, given the other testing you have performed, the card will need to be RMA’d. In theory the card has a one year warranty but we’re happy to replace it if it turns out to be a fault with the card, but not if an elephant stepped or you microwaved it with some pizza.
If you do need an RMA, please contact our Milpitas office info-usa[at]blackmagic-design.com.
Regards,
Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design -
I have had this same thing happen to several i/o cards over the last few years. I have an almost identical setup with one of my systems (G5 > Decklink SP > powered monitors). In my situation I discovered that it it was oxidation on the pins of the connector going into the card – not at the PCI slot but at the cable port.
My solution is a product called Caig De-Oxit. It’s very good a removing oxidation from connectors and also protecting them from further problems. I have the spray can – but would recommend the tube – because you don’t want to saturate the entire connector with the product, just the pins. I spray a bit on the end of a Q-tip and gently apply it to the pins only, which are on the cable, and then connect the cable. This would also work on the tabs of the PCI connector as well, but you don’t want to get too much De-Oxit on them because it would cause resistance between the tabs, which would not be good.
I also have a Pro Tools system which sometimes produces silmilar distortion in the audio – it sounds a bit like digital clipping because it occurs mostly at signal peaks, but it also has some low level “”pink noise”. It may be something about the voltage levels of a balanced audio signal that cause this to happen or it could be the crazy humid weather here in the Southeastern US.
If your problem occurs equally across both channels, it’s probably on the PCI side of the card, or it may not even be an oxidation problem at all.
One more thing – This seems to occur only on the systems that are cycled on and off, I’ve never had it happen to my primary system which stays on all the time.
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