The Blackmagic Ultrascope

[Derrick Abeyta]

I tried a 1280×1024 monitor just to see if it would work and the application wouldn’t start. The message said that an 1920×1200 monitor was required and then the program closed out.

[Derrick Abeyta]

I am having an issue understanding and or viewing out of phase audio on the audio scope.

I have a interview clip that has audio on ch1 lav and ch2 boom. If you pan them both together mid you can hear everything get thin and echoey (classic out of phase sound) but the Ultrascope still shows a vertical in phase line. Shouldn’t it be reading differently on the scope? I can clearly hear that the audio is out of phase.

I’m not trying to fix my audio, I already know how to do this and I wouldn’t normally mix a lav and a boom together, I’m just trying to understand how the Ultrascope displays bad audio. The manual states it should show up as a horizontal line. Any thoughts??

[Chris Paul]

This is the kind of 1920×1080 monitor that I am seeing:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9047453&type=product&id=1218012053265

On a different note, I was able to borrow an Apple 23″ Cinema display. It is 1929×1200 but it jitters vertically whenever I move the mouse. I presume you don’t have this issue, Bob?

Chris Paul
POV

[Bob Zelin]

I ASSUME that this will work. In my current opinion, the best LCD computer is still the Dell 2408WFP, which is full 1920×1200, but I ASSUME that this monitor will work. Best Buy takes stuff back with no question, so try it.

BUT make sure you have an APPROVED graphics card.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

I don’t know exactly what your feeds are. The way to see true “in phase” and “out of phase” is to use audio tone. Play back two channels of tone, and you will get the single vertical line. As you play active audio, you will see an “oval” shape, but in the vertical position. If you reverse the phase of one signal (which is done in analog land by reversing the black and red wires of your audio cable), you get “out of phase” audio with one channel. A 180 degree out of phase signal (like tone) will completely cancel out, and you hear nothing.

I can’t answer what is going on with your audio. You can’t “see” problems on web forums.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

yes, Blackmagic wants you to use the SPECIFIED gear – cheap as it may be, you just can’t use old crap you have lying around.

Bob Zelin

[Bob Zelin]

Chris writes –
On a different note, I was able to borrow an Apple 23″ Cinema display. It is 1929×1200 but it jitters vertically whenever I move the mouse. I presume you don’t have this issue, Bob?

REPLY –
I don’t know what graphics card you are using, but if you are not using one of the EXACT graphics cards that Blackmagic is specifying, you will have trouble. I suffered thru this with “good expensive NVidia” graphics cards that did not work at all when I got started. If you follow Blackmagic’s instructions on what card to use, it will work, and yes, I am using an old 23″ Cinema with an ADC connector and DVI to ADC converter. Without further information, I am going to blame your graphics card. If you get a graphics card for this application (even one that Blackmagic recommends) – these just don’t work – you have to install the driver software, and reboot your PC.

Bob Zelin

[Nick Hasson]

So I got everything working perfect. No Hassles, installed the drivers and it works great. Here is the setup.

$680 Ultra Scope
$509 HP xw4600 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
$55 Geforce 9400GT Graphics Card, PCI Express, 1GB
$350 Samsung 24” LCD 1920×1200.
Vista Ultimate 64
2 GB of Ram. Buying 2gb more. But 2GB works just fine.
1594 Total

Nick Hasson
Editor/coloirist
http://www.niceedits.com
Smoke/FCP/Apple Color.

[Derrick Abeyta]

[Bob Zelin] “I don’t know exactly what your feeds are. The way to see true “in phase” and “out of phase” is to use audio tone. Play back two channels of tone, and you will get the single vertical line. As you play active audio, you will see an “oval” shape, but in the vertical position. If you reverse the phase of one signal (which is done in analog land by reversing the black and red wires of your audio cable), you get “out of phase” audio with one channel. A 180 degree out of phase signal (like tone) will completely cancel out, and you hear nothing.
“

Thanks for the help Bob,

Let me clarify. I was going through the new Ultrascsope testing the different modes of the scope. I wanted to see how an out of phase clip would look like in the Ultrascope. I knew I had a bad interview clip on HDCAM from a project from a few weeks ago. The clip was mistakenly recorded out of phase (which is not uncommon when using two mics to record an interview). So I wanted to test just a source clip on the scope.

My system isn’t out of phase and the test tone plays correctly on the scope, I capture HDCAM via HDSDI to an Avid Symphony DX and a HDSDI out of Avid to the Ultrascope. Everything works great.

I think I figured out where I went wrong in reading the bad audio clip on the scope though. When I originally played the clip I had panned both channels mid and they displayed a vertical straight line showing “in phase” on the scope (it sounded compressed tinny though). But when I panned the channels back to their original left right position the scope showed a horizontal oval which means it’s out of phase. So fortunately the scope seems to be working as advertised.

Thanks again I appreciate the tips!

[Bob Zelin]

Nick –
this is a great post. It shows everyone exactly what the bottom line cost is, for putting together a system to use the Ultrascope.

Thanks for breaking it down like this !

Bob Zelin