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HDMI escape route…
Time for a another good idea / bad idea: HDMI out from Decklink 3D through optical bay door (bonus: eSATA connection).
I don’t have a PCI card with enough room to drill a hole for the HDMI cable, but I REALLY wanted it. It requires a little DIY though. If this works as expected, I’m going to fabricate a faceplate with HDMI in, out, and eSATA, for appearances and strain relief…
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6 Replies
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Really nice. We could say that the theory of using optical bay door works 🙂
With custom bay door it will be really neat.—
Margus
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Does anyone use Applecare? I imagine many of these mods (aka drilling holes) will void it.
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Motion Design, Color, Editing
SWGC Incorporated -
Oh I’m sure this would void a warranty/applecare. I bought a spare door (part #922-8533, Access Door/Cover Panel Mac Pro 2.8GHz/3GHz/3.2GHz (Early 2008)) so that I wouldn’t have to drill in my original door or the actual chasis. It’s about $40, from Mac Recyclers – the 2008 and 2010s have the same door, I assume the 2009s would too.
If you unscrew the raised part from the door, it’s easy to cut the center crossbeam out and leave a gap between the hard drives and the door, where the cables run.
Then the cables can run out from the drive…
…and down past the hard drives. When you put on the cover, the gap is wide enough for the cables to run down, HDMI to the card and Esata to the SATA connector in front of the fan (2010 Mac Pros).
Then you haven’t voided any warranties (unless you use your original door) and you can run any kind of cables, regardless of the size of the connector. I bought but didn’t end up needing a “flat” HDMI cable, I’m sure an SDI would run up there as well – the RED Rocket has SDI on the back, no?
Not sure if you can make this work if you have a 5th drive in the optical bay.
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Hi Kevin,
Where does the eSATA connector go to inside the Mac ?
-chrispy
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It’s different on different models, but on the 2010 and maybe 2009, there are two SATA connections at the very front of the logic board. When it ships from the factory, the top one is used for the optical drive, the bottom one can be disconnected and used for the eSATA (unless you are using a second optical drive or something else, then it would be required for that). Other World Computing sells the Newer Technology eSATA extender, which goes from the SATA connection to female eSATA.
I think on the 2008 those connections are in addition to the optical drive connections, but you actually have to remove the fan module to get to them.
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They may not be hot-pluggable, though.
Director of the Institute of Media Research (IMF) at Braunschweig University of Arts
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