Hardware/driver issues Decklink 3/3d

[Joshua Helling]

Hrm, out of memory issues typically come in long form or more complex projects. That combined with random crashing. I’d be curious to know which (if any) FX plugins you are using in this project. If you are using plugins do these issues get better when you DO NOT use the plugins.

I’m not laying blame here but if there is a particular plugin which doesn’t play nice with us (i’ve seen this before from time to time) we want to know which so we can decide how best to fix it (or so we can contact the software manufacturer).

Your system surely seems capable and 16GB of RAM is a goodly amount. So I don’t reckon that’s an issue.

A few other questions:
**What slot are the Decklink Boards installed (We recommend 3 or 4 though I am partial to 4 with the HBA in slot 3).
**What format are you using? Are you using several different, are they all the same res/framerate?
**You didn’t specifically mention which easy setup you are using…are you using a custom one? If not which are you using? You mentioned that they were matched, but if this is a custom easy setup copied from an earlier installations there could be a mismatch in them and they could cause crashing. If so try to recreate the custom setup from one of our CURRENT default easy setups.
**How often is random?
**Which plugins (see above)?

Anyways, let me know.

Sincerely,

Joshua
Director of Support
Blackmagic Design Inc.

[Paul Jay]

Thank you for the response!

To answer your questions.

Genarts Sapphire are the only 3th party plugins used in the project.
Are these the ones you we’re thinking about?

The crashing during playback happens every 10 minutes during editing, when using playback to the Decklink output
The crashing doesn’t happen when we have external video set to OFF, but then we won’t have output.
It’s a strange thing.

When we Render ( including the Sapphire plugins) Out of memory errors happens all the time.
(With External Video ON)

When we Render with External Video OFF, it renders without problems.
It’s really a weird thing that the Decklink output causes this behaviour.

The Decklink cards are in the Top Slot.
The Sequence setting is ProRes HQ 1920×1080 @ 25 fps Upper field
The source files are different codecs, but they all have been converted to ProRes HQ 1920×1080 before import.
There is 25p and 50i material. There is no 24, or 29,97 footage.
Playback settings are on Blackmagic HD 1080i50 8 bit.

Thank you very much for your help. Really appreciated.

[Jean-philippe Mariani]

I have exactly the Same issue with latest Mac Pro westmere running 10.6.5, FCP 7.0.3 and Decklink driver 7.9.3.
Working with HD Prores 422 or 422 (HQ) In 1080p25 or i50, both machines are really instable with VIDEO output on to the decklink. First VIDEO out turns to Green display on the externat monitor thon FCP crashes regularly. The only cure so far has been to disable video output from the Decklink. What a shame editing hd without external video out !
I will add that we do use 6 other Mac pros with Decklink cards (Hd Extreme v3) on Mac Pro nehalen (2009) and this issue does not occurs. Same FCP and same driver 7.9.3 on all editing machines. Is there something going on with 10.6.5 on latest Mac pro running Decklink 3D cards?
let us know, we need to find a solution quickly.
Best regards
Jean-Philippe

[Dave Gorrie]

Interesting – we too have been having issues with our brand new system – I noticed BMD released 7.9.4 recently…we might try that to fix it. We are literally running on a brand new install, new mac pro, nothing really crazy. If we have to output to tape we literally have to restart the system every time…and we are only doing promo material.

[Jeffrey Foot]

To add to Dave’s comment, we also have a virtually identical machine that is running the same project but using AJA IOHD and there have been zero problems, so we don’t believe it’s only a project issue anymore, but maybe a combo of the Decklink, Software, Driver. We have gone the route of creating new projects, copying sequences in, etc. I do think that it has to do with the project file being bigger (178MB). We’ve always noticed issues in the past of projects that approach 200MB having problems.
If anyone has a remedy to this (other than buying a Kona card) please post your findings.

[Paul Jay]

New Decklink drivers available!!
Let us know if it fixes the problems!!

[Jean-philippe Mariani]

Unfortunately, 7.9.4 does not solve the issue. Even, replacing the DeckLink 3D with a previous DeckLink HD Extreme v3 does not solde the issue. So it is really tied with the software drivers and Mac Pro westmere…

[Paul Jay]

Hi Josua,

Are you guys at Blackmagic aware of this serious issue?
As you see in this thread, more and more people describing this issue.

More and more people have the same problem with Decklink Extreme 3/3D in the latest generation MacPro’s.
The latest drivers don’t seem to fix the problem.
I know you don’t want to hear it but replacing the systems with AJA solves the crashes and misery.

[Jean-philippe Mariani]

Another customer with a 12 cores Westmere configuration is having the same issue. And the Graphics card is Nvidia Quadro 4000 and not the ATI default 5000 series, so the issue is not tied to a Graphics card problem. For now the customer has turned off video output from the DeckLink 3D to be able to work without crashing…. With a ProRes 422 (HQ) multiclip editing, it became a nightmare with so frequent FCP crashes…
Hope they indeed find a solution at Blackmagic, but to late, they have not yet tracked the problem…

[Rick Dowling]

I recently installed a Decklink HD Extreme 3D in our Early 2008 Mac Pro (10 GB RAM, OS 10.6.6, Quad-core Xeon) in slot 4. I downloaded the 7.9.4 drivers and did the firmware update.

The HDMI output for FCP and AE is green. Footage captured through the HDMI input is also green through the HDMI out. I e-mailed BMD Tech Support on Monday and have yet to get a response. I am on the verge of returning this card.

Does anyone have any ideas that I can try?

Rick Dowling
Instructional Developer
The University of Alabama