-
HyperDeck Shuttle 2 – no captioning?
Hi there,
I read with great interest the specs on the Shuttle 2. and I quote:
“SDI Metadata Support HD RP188 and closed captioning.”
However, when I got the unit in-house and put it inline in place of our HD deck and output from FCP 7, I couldn’t work out how to play back the clips with HD Captioning.
It’s weird, because the clips to come back into FCP 7 with a closed-captioning track, but there is no actual data there that I can see in Quicktime.
I really want this to work, because I think this could be an ideal delivery mechanism to our local stations.
So, I decided to call tech support today and see what’s up. The tech told me (after a lengthy delay) that it is a planned feature but not yet supported.
I’m confused as to why BMD would post specs that aren’t implemented yet but act as if they are. This is not a terribly new product, either, so there’s been time for at least a couple firmware releases.
Am I missing something?
Thanks,
–Don -
2 Replies
-
[Don Stephens] “I’m confused as to why BMD would post specs that aren’t implemented yet but act as if they are. This is not a terribly new product, either, so there’s been time for at least a couple firmware releases.”
I’m having exactly the same issue with their OpenGear Up/Down/Cross converter cards: no captioning with certain combinations of input and output formats. They told me back in December that this was a known issue that would be corrected in a firmware relase. Now, in May, there is still no fix for this — and there is still no documentation for the product.
It’s the same issue we had with their ATEM Television Studio, which was explicitly specified to work with both SD and HD formats. They shipped for many months before a firmware revision last November finally enabled standard def functionality.
BMD makes some neat stuff, but you can’t depend on their specifications as a guide to whether the product will actually perform a given task. At this point I am only purchasing their gear if it is proven to actually work for my application. Innovation and cost-effectiveness are great… but only after making sure the product actually delivers what is promised.
Sorry for the rant… but the point is, this is no anomaly.
Jeff Hartman
Engineering Project Manager
Newport Television, Northeast -
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for your response. I guess I was just naive to believe the specs – I thought BMD would be covered by the same “Truth in Advertising” rules that the FTC applies to other companies. It’s too bad, because if it actually did what they claim it already does, I could see a huge market for it as a low-cost delivery mechanism for long-form HD captioned programming.
I’d love to hear something from “the horse’s mouth”, as it were. How about it, Grant?
–Don
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up