opengear complaints

[Joshua Helling]

Hey Bob,

I will try to answer these.

1) can I use this forum to complain about Blackmagic Opengear ?
A. I think so. I don’t have a problem with it, and certainly welcome the feedback.

2) the only “manual” is on the https://www.blackmagic-design.com website, and it is an overview manual, not specifics on each card.
A. Yeah, we’ve heard this a few times in support. We’d also like to see more thorough manuals but it is largely felt that these devices are simple enough and that the silk screening on the back of the boards should be all you need to set the device appropriately.

3) how do you use the mini USB connector on the edge of the cards – what is the proceedure ?
A. They are there for the same reason they are there on the regular mini converters. That is to do firmware upgrades. There is one exception. The port on the mini converters is aslo used to control the device from the computer control panel, where as the openGear devices use the Dashboard.

4) can the OpenGear cards be used in both 10 and 20 slot frames – are they the same backplane connectors ?
A. Nope, only the 20 frame chassis. This is because the openGear backplanes are different between the 10 and 20 slot chassis and are not compatible. Geeky reasons for this are as follows.
-On the boards that have normal backplanes we need more ports, in other words the only openGear mini converter that could be used in a 1 slot arrangement is the sync generator.
-There are several boards that use an “open hole” design (such as the HDMI-SDI, SDI-HDMI) in which case the connectors are actually fixed to the PCB itself (and not the backplane) and so they need a different style of blanks.

5) why do dealers like B&H sell Blackmagic Opengear chassis, but Blackmagic does not even describe this on their own website ?
A. Ah…this is tricky. Said simply. The openGear chassis are not our product. They are made by Ross, we just badge them. So in a sense we act as distributor, but we don’t typically sell them to end users, we sell them to dealers (which is not so different from our normal channel), but because it is not a Blackmagic Design made product we don’t put it on our website.

And you are correct, the 8321 is the only currently supported chassis.

I hope this helps to clarify.

Sincerely,

Joshua
Director of Support
Blackmagic Design Inc.

[Bob Zelin]

thanks for the reply – knowing that there is no 10 slot backplane cards is critical info to me !

Thanks again –
Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

I have confirmed that the Blackmagic Opengear Sync Gen card will NOT fit into the Ross 10 frame slot (the backplane will simply not fit).

It’s the 8321 from now on !

Bob Zelin