Decklink unable to control a Sony A500 digibeta deck but J3 is fine

[Bob Zelin]

Just a guess – there are many menus in the A500 that allow VTR control to happen from other ports beside the RS422 Remote port. Start checking those menus on the A500.

Bob Zelin

[Sean Davison]

try restarting with the deck connected and switched on -the card seems to want to see the deck at start up – I had this problem – took a while to work out!

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Mark,

Another thing to try is to check the device control in Final Cut Pro and ensure it is set to Sony RS-422. If that still doesn’t help, please quite from Final Cut Pro and launch Blackmagic Deck Control. Can it capture and play back from the DigiBeta A500? This will help determine if the problem is general or perhaps a specific Final Cut Pro preference.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Mark Lediard]

Hi Luke, everybody,

Thanks for your replies.

I have checked the FCP device control presets, they are set to Sony RS422 though I have tried the panasonic setting as well.

Blackmagic deck control app has the same problem, will control the J3 but not the A500 (says no communication). I know the A500 is good for serial control as we have an AVID media composer and a Blackmagic HD FCP system happily talking to it and every other deck in the building.

Just to test I tried deck control through my old Keyspan USB-Serial converter. Using this reverses the problem, the A500 becomes usable but the J3 is not!

Getting confused.

Thanks again for your help

Mark

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Mark,

Is your DeckLink Extreme directly connected to the Digibeta using the DeckLink Extreme breakout cable? If not, please let me know what intermediate devices and/or cables are between the RS-422 connector belonging to the DeckLink card and the RS-422 port on your deck. The fact that using the Keyspan adapater reverses the problem rules out the DeckLink card as part of the problem and suggests that some intermediate hardware is the source of your problem.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Mark Lediard]

Hi

No the decks aren’t connected directly we have a deck control patch bay. The deck control signals are routed to this by rj45 cables using custom made 9pin serial to RJ 45 connectors.

Again this system works well with our AVID Media Composer and a Blackmagic HD FCP, as well as an audiofile and several other bits of kit.

Cheers

Mark

[Bob Zelin]

Mark –
I use RJ45 patch bays with RJ45-9 pin adaptors all the time. I recently went thru a situation with 2 FCP systems, where I could not get one of the FCP systems to control a Beta 1800. The problem is with your wiring or your RJ45 adaptors. I built the system, and for 2 weeks, I said “there is nothing wrong with the wiring” because the other system worked, and I used a Panduit Pro CAT 5 tester to check all the cabling. BUT IT WAS MY FAULT, as I had a flakey RJ45-9 pin adaptor – even though it worked on the second FCP system. The only way I solved and found this problem was by DRAGGING IN THE VTRS INTO THE EDIT ROOM and connecting them directly into the back of the FCP system. I know that you don’t want to do this, and everyone (like your engineering staff) is saying that there is nothing wrong with the cabling, but THEY ARE WRONG. You will not solve this problem until someone drags the VTR’s into the edit suite and hooks them up directly to the Decklink card without the patch bay.

Bob Zelin

[Mark Lediard]

Hi Bob

I’m sure you’re right this must be the problem, I’m going to run some tests now using a very long serial cable we have here (saves me taking the VTR’s from the rack) – but I can see that eventually this is going to end up with me manually replacing about half of our RJ45 9pin converters. Hey ho.

I’ll post my results when I manage to get to the bottom of this, and thanks everyone for all of your help.

Cheers

Mark

[Nick B]

Seem to remember something about the RS422 wiring for deck control being reversed on Avid

[Mark Lediard]

Hi everyone,

Just a final post to tie this one up. It turns out that the issue was with out RJ45 to 9pin converters. Most of our system uses RJ45 to 9 pin MALE adaptors to connect our edit stations and decks to a patch bay. However some connections (like the new Decklink extreme cards I was having trouble with) needed RJ45 to FEMALE connectors. These should have been wired differently at the 9 pin end to the MALE versions, however some of ours weren’t. Once I tracked down the incorrectly wired ones and replaced them the problem was solved.

As it turns out the incorrectly wired female adaptors had been left lying around by an engineer (who shall remain nameless) who in all likelyhood new that they were wrong but didn’t do waht he should have don and thrown them away.

A cautionary tale!

Thanks again everyone for your help, and I hope this helps anyone who may have a similar problem

Cheers

Mark