Intensity Shuttle Thunderbolt Flickering Issue

[Kristian Lam]

Hi Samuel,

Thanks for reporting this. We’ll check this out here and find out what’s going on.

regards

Kristian Lam
Blackmagic Design

[Kristian Lam]

Actually, I would also be interested to know if this is also happening if you’re going direct without daisy chaining via the WD drive. Since the issue is happening while just previewing in Media Express, you won’t need to capture.

regards

Kristian Lam
Blackmagic Design

[Gary Adams]

Hello Samuel. Since you mentioned the U-Verse component analog connections, I though I would offer my experience. I don’t record any of those signals, but all three of my U-Verse receivers deliver poor sync signals to all three of my monitor/TV’s when using the component output. I can see this on the monitors especially when there is a bright background and/or bright titles. We would call this an APL (Average Picture Level) issue in the analog days. The digital outputs are fine which I normally use. Your receivers may be fine but I thought I would point this out as it seems to be a poor quality analog output on all of my receivers. They are now a year old but were that way from the beginning. If you connect your component signals directly to a monitor and see flashing during bright content, then I would suspect this would also cause issues during recordings.

Regards, Gary Adams

Gary Adams
DaVinci Revival Product Manager
Blackmagic Design

[Samuel Cooper]

Yes it does flicker when hooked directly to the mac without going through the WD thunderbolt drive. It will randomly do it in preview mode. To clarify the source is 1080i 59.94 not 1080P as stated earlier. I have tried changing thunderbolt, stereo, and component cables to see if they were the issue and I don’t get a different result. I read the post from Gary Adams about the u-verse box, that could be the issue but unfortunately that’s what I got this device to record from so I could archive the shows I want in HD for personal use. I would gladly use HDMI but as we know the intensity does not decode HDCP encoded HDMI signals. A side note about the u-verse box I do use HDMI to the TV but component to the intensity, also to note that while the u-verse box does output 1080i signal to both ports (HDMI & Component) at the same time I do have to have the TV on with HDMI active before media express will even see the 1080i signal from component port of the u-verse box which is sort of odd. I have used a slingbox hooked up the same way to component for some time and the tv never had to be on for it to see the u-verse 1080i component signal. Some other troubleshooting I did try was running the component cables through a Sony receiver back to the intensity to see if that cleaned up anything signal wise but it didn’t make a difference. Perhaps the intensity is too sensitive to the analog signals from this source? Is there any type of logging when trying to capture that might show any errors etc for possible software fix?

[Carl Kloster]

I’ve been emailing Blackmagic Design support (been working with Sarah who’s been very nice so far) for a similar issue with my Shuttle Thunderbolt.

I wanted to record gameplay from my Xbox 360 in 720p via HDMI with Media Express. On both of my tv’s, with both of my Xbox’s the output to the TV flickers. One of them seems to effect captured video like you showed, and one seems to just effect the output to the TV. But even that makes it really hard to play an action game when your screen cuts out for 1-3 seconds at a time.

I’ve tried combinations of all HDMI, all Component, and mixing the two types of cables and nothing seems to fix it. The product page even features “Record your Game Play!” and shows an Xbox controller, so I imagine it’s got to work somehow.

I’m hoping a solution presents itself soon.

[Rob Harding]

Did anyone find a solution to this?? I am experiencing the same flicker trying to record a component signal into an Intensity Shuttle, and then from Intensity into Thunderbolt in a MacBook Pro.

Frustrating.

[John Sellars]

Hi Carl,

I just recently got an Intensity shuttle to capture from my Xbox and am experiencing the same issue. Did you ever get this resolved?

Thanks,

-John

[Carl Kloster]

I had Black Magic replace my unit after sending it to them for testing. But still had the issue so I ended up selling it and buying an elgato game capture hd.

[John Sellars]

Man, that’s a bummer. Thanks for replying!

[John Sellars]

Hi Samual,

I was just wondering if you ever found a solution to this issue. I actually had Blackmagic replace my shuttle but the new one they sent me is doing the same thing.

Thanks,

-John