[Luke Maslen]

Hi Michael,

RS-422 is reliable so that’s what we use. If you want to use a legacy deck with RS-232 serial control, then a $40 investment in a Keyspan adapter should solve your problem. Alternatively you can update to a deck which supports RS-422. We’re not going to re-engineer and increase the cost of DeckLink cards for all DeckLink customers by adding support for a legacy technology which is going to fade away, especially when you have an easy $40 option you can use. The Keyspan adapter has worked for 100% of UVW-1400a customers with whom I have discussed this issue.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

I’m guessing your previous work may have been with DV material. The DeckLink cards are primarily for use with uncompressed video and, if you have captured to an 8 or 10-bit timeline, then you will be right at the limits of what a single SATA drive can handle. In fact I’m a little surprised this even worked.

What you could try is using the latest DeckLink Windows 5.2.1 drivers as they include DV support in Premiere Pro. Try capturing from the deck using a Blackmagic DV project. Now see if the performance issue goes away. If so, then it is a disk-related issue and you should be able to work with uncompressed video when your disk array arrives.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Alisa,

Two disks are totally inadequate for uncompressed HD and you can see the data rates in the support note Storage and Data Rates for Uncompressed Video.

8 bit @ 1920 x 1080 @ 29.97fps = 119 MB per/sec, or 417 GB per/hr.
10 bit @ 1920 x 1080 @ 29.97fps = 158 MB per/sec, or 556 GB per/hr.

Even if your disk array just matched these speeds it would be inadequate. That is because a number of factors cause disk speeds to fluctuate. The more disks you have RAID’ed together, the smaller this variation becomes. Your 2-disk array will suffer from significant fluctuations.

In addition to the data throughput speeds mentioned above, the other big factor which is often overlooked is “seek time”. The more disks you have RAID’ed together, the smaller the seek time will be. Inadequate seek times will also cause poor performance and dropped frames. So even if your data throughput figures appear to be fine according to Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, your seek time might still be inadequate.

Your 2-disk array will be OK for standard definition uncompressed work but there is no way it can be used for uncompresesd HD work.

Your options are to either rapidly obtain a much faster disk array, such as any U320 SCSI disk array from Huge Systems, or else work in a compressed format. Fast disk arrays for uncompressed video will typically contain at least 8 disks and often more.

If you simply are not going to be able to obtain such a disk array in the time available, then consider using either the JPEG or DVCPRO HD codec. I would favour the DVCPRO HD codec as its quality is stunning at it support real time effects using Apple’s RT Extreme. This codec is so efficient you can even use it with a single FireWire drive but you would need your faster disk array for RT Effects.

The JPEG codec is even less demanding on disks but it doesn’t support RT Extreme in SD or HD resolutions and it doesn’t look quite as good as the DVCPRO HD codec at the default settings.

The only danger with using compressed codecs is if you need to do much rendering, then you may quickly see a loss of quality of the video. However if you are mainly just cutting video, then the quality will probably be perfectly adequate. DVCPRO HD is broadcast quality and might be a good immediate solution for you if you cannot quickly get your hands on a HD-capable disk array.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Jeremiah,

[jeremiah black] “usually it’s hooked up to an avid adrenaline and audio goes in via aes/ebu and video goes in SDI. Yesterday I wanted to use the decklink that’s on the mac- sending the video and audio SDI. The mac/decklink SDI route doesn’t seem to work for whatever reason.”

That might be the key to the issue. Avid uses AES audio as it doesn’t support SDI embedded audio and so the deck is probably configured to handle audio via AES. Your DeckLink card uses SDI-embedded audio and you need to configure the deck to use SDI-embedded audio.

The other setting you might like to check regards reference. The DeckLink card can be configured to output a stable black signal when capturing from the deck. The deck will lock to this signal if it is set to internal or auto reference. If it is set to external reference, then you will need to use a blackburst generator of some kind. The black output option of DeckLink cards is nice if you simply need to sync with a deck. So you could try removing other cables from the deck and simply relying upon the black output feature and ensure that the deck is set to use internal or auto reference.

Please let us know how you go.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

Is there some other location in which you can test the Multibridge SD? Even another room in the same facility with different harware and preferably connected to a different power supply? This will help to establish whether the problem continues with the Multibridge SD or is only occuring in a particular setup. That would help us to diagnose the problem.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Matt,

Unlike Firewire where you can capture video, audio and timecode, SDI only captures video and audio and timecode must be captured via another mechanism such as a RS-422 serial connection. Your Varicam camera won’t have a RS-422 output so that is not going to be possible. Obviously you could use a VariCam deck but that’s not going to help you with a live set.

You would be using one of the Blackmagic HDTV 720p easy setups and they have the device control set to Panasonic RS-422. One option which you could test with your camera, is to switch the device control to Firewire. There are a couple of different Firewire options so try both. It is possible that this will enable you to both control the captures from your camera and capture timecode.

If all you want to do is to have a timecode on the captured video, then you could use a timecode generator for that purpose. That can be particularly helpful if you have multiple cameras and you want the same timecode used with all cameras. The time code generator can distribute timecode to the capture stations via some video routers including Workgroup Videohub.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

Please refer to the support note Does HDLink support the 30-inch Apple display? for information about the HDLink and the Apple Cinema HD 30″ display. The short answer is “no” because HDLink has a single-link DVI-D output whereas the 30″ display uses dual-link DVI-D.

The DVI-D monitoring output of the forthcoming Multibridge Extreme and Multibridge Studio will support the use of single-link DVI-D and dual-link DVI-D displays. In other words, a new version of HDLink will effectively be built in to the new Multibridge models and supports the Apple Cinema HD 30″ display.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Dane,

Firstly, please update to Final Cut Pro HD 5.0.2 as it solved a number of jerky playback problems. Secondly please update to Mac OS X 10.4.2 if you have not already done so. QuickTime should be v7.0.1 or newer. QT v7.0.3 is probably OK but I haven’t had it long enough to be sure yet. DeckLink drivers should be updated to v5.1.1.

Please ensure that you use the Blackmagic easy setups and avoid the temptation to modify them other than toggling device control between Sony or Panasonic as appropriate for your deck.

Next, check that the Effect Handling is set to Final Cut Pro which you need for RT Extreme effects. Now that we’re using the Apple codecs in almost all cases, effect handling must be set to Final Cut Pro HD and NOT Blackmagic.

If you are still encountering playback problems, you could go to the RT popup menu and ensure that it is set to

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Daz,

Thank you for posting your solution to the problem.

[DAz] “Interesting that the 2 SDI outputs should be a different type of signal. What is that about?”

The SDI monitoring output is just that.

The SDI output to deck can be used to lock the deck to the card during capture without the need for external sync. If you check the DeckLink PrefPane in the System Preferences, you will see the option to Black video output to deck in capture”. If this is set to SDI, it will output black video to the deck’s input when capturing from the deck’s output. This is nice as it eliminates the need for and cost of a blackburst generator. However if you use house sync in a facility, then you it does not matter whether this option is enabled or disabled.

One caveat to note is that enabling this option will mute audio on the SDI output during capture. Given you are using external sync, you may want to disable this option so that you can monitor audio during capture from the SDI or SPDIF outputs of DeckLink.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Kushal,

[Kushal shah] “just to clarify about barrel connector
is it something like I joint or conector which has male bnc at both the ends?”

Yes, you are correct. It has a male connector at both ends. I used the term “barrel connector” as it looks like a barrel but your description is much clearer.

[Kushal shah] “please explain also what will this check ?”

If the “No video input” message remains when you have connected the DeckLink SDI output to the DeckLink SDI input, then the card is not working correctly and should be replaced.

[Kushal shah] “if black video comes and no input message goes then what should i do ?”

This would indicate that the DeckLink card is working correctly and that the problem is probably with the deck. I would suggest checking the settings on the deck, especially that it is in remote mode. Other readers of this forum might also be able to suggest other deck settings to check.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design