Just installed decklink and having some problems

[David Roth weiss]

Tim,

You should always repair permissions after removing one set of drivers before installing another, otherwise it is likely that you are not getting a clean install. If I were you I’d uninstall whatever version you have on the system now, repair permissions, and then reinstall the latest drivers. I am running the latest drivers with FCP 5.1.2 and a Decklink Extreme card in slot-3 and have none of these issues.

DRW

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Tim,

I have a bunch of questions for you.

1. Do you have your broadcast monitor connected directly to the SDI monitoring output of the DeckLink card or is there some hardware in between, eg a deck, video router, or SDI-to-analog convertor?
2. What make and model of monitor are you using? You appear to be in the UK. Is your monitor a PAL-only monitor or does it also support NTSC?
3. You mentioned that the DeckLink card is in slot 3 which is one of two slots on the shared 100 MHz bus. Is there any are in slot 2 and, if so, what make and model card is it? If possible, it would be good to test the DeckLink card with slot 2 empty to ensure that the DeckLink card is not encountering interference from the card in slot 2.
4. Please review the support note Final Cut Pro 5 may fail to open with 64 or more QuickTime components installed in case this is related to your problem with Final Cut Pro crashing when launched.
5. Is your other software up to date, ie Mac OS X 10.4.8 and QuickTime 7.1.3?

My guess is that you may have some bad RAM in your Mac. Can you please carefully experiment by removing some of your RAM and see if that makes the problem go away? Bad RAM can definitely cause Final Cut Pro and other video applications to crash and it can also cause black lines and other artefacts on your monitor.

If that doesn’t help, then it could also be worth testing the DeckLink card in a different slot in case there is a bent pin in slot 3 of your G5.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi David,

While I would previously have provided the same advice myself, the need to run a permissions repair in between software installations has not been a requirement for quite a while. It certainly isn’t necessary with Panther and Tiger but was important with some early versions of Mac OS X. I’m not quite clear when it no longer became necessary but it certainly wasn’t necessary with Panther. In any case, thanks for helping out because all the responses in this forum are a big help in solving problems as no one person has all the answers. Fortunately no one person has all the problems either 😉

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Tim French]

Thanks for your responses.

Luke,

I am running a broadcast monitor (ikegami tm14-17r) and it is multistandard i believe, however I am using an sdi to component converter which I will test today when i get access to more sdi feeds! however due to the other problems I feel this might not be the problem but you never know…..

I do not have more than 64 components in my quicktime library and it is definately the blackmagic codec component that flips FCP out.

My os is 10.4.8 and am indeed running quicktime 7.1.3.

As for RAM everything else has been fine and dandy up to this point, I’ll investigate moving the card tonight.

I

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Tim,

I found your Ikegami TM14-17RPZ monitor and it does appear to support both NTSC and PAL. While the SDI-to-analog convertor might be a cause of the black lines in your video, I do not believe it would cause the crash in Final Cut Pro or Motion at launch. Would you please attempt to replicate the problem with Final Cut Pro and then, assuming that it crashes, email the crash log to support[at]blackmagic-design.com. This should tell us if there is any relation between DeckLink and the crash you are seeing.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design