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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

SDI issues with Scarlet-W and DSMC2 I/O expander

bart cortright

bart cortright

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hey all,

I'm midway into a feature and we've been having SDI issues with the DSMC2 I/O V-Lock Expander (attached to Scarlet-W) fed to a Marshall 7" monitor. We're 100% sure it's not the cable. It seems that the SDI connection will work about 70% of the time only if the SDI is attached to the module after the camera is booted up. We've found that if the camera is off and the SDI is attached that after bootup there's a 90% chance the Marshall will not get an SDI signal. If you unplug the SDI and re-plug it in we still get no signal and the only sollution seems to be a power cycle without the SDI attached.

Is this normal at all? Any ideas? Again we're certain it's not the cable and the monitor works fine with other cameras via SDI. After the camera is booted up a power cycle of the Marshall does not seem to fix the issue as well.

thanks!
 
Can you try another monitor? Even if it's hdmi (as it would also indicate if it's the camera or the monitor).

I've experienced an assortment of monitoring connection issues with DSMC1; all of them "fixed" with a reboot/reseating of the cable. Anecdotal sure, but all I'm saying is that I wouldn't be too worried about it, unless it's actually hindering production. Conversely, I'd also look to the Marshall first before blaming the camera, it could be as simple as handshaking issues.

Other than that, send a log to BS and see if they find any gremlins.
 
This is interesting to me. Last weekend we all of a sudden had no picture out of the SDI, and ended up having to halt production while we switched our B-camera over to the Movi.

We were running the Scarlet-W with I/O V-lock Expander, and any number of power cycles and reconfiguring never ended up working, although I do not know if we ever tried powering it up without the SDI attached. We were outputting to a Paralinx Arrow-X SDI transmitter, although when we were troubleshooting we bypassed the Paralinx and plugged straight into the client monitor to no avail.

Later, my AC went into troubleshooting mode on the Scarlet-W, and after he disconnected, then re-seated the expander module, the camera was up and running again, although he may have not had the SDI plugged in at the time that he rebooted. I'll follow up with him to see what he remembers.
 
bart cortright said:
hey all,

I'm midway into a feature and we've been having SDI issues with the DSMC2 I/O V-Lock Expander (attached to Scarlet-W) fed to a Marshall 7" monitor. We're 100% sure it's not the cable. It seems that the SDI connection will work about 70% of the time only if the SDI is attached to the module after the camera is booted up. We've found that if the camera is off and the SDI is attached that after bootup there's a 90% chance the Marshall will not get an SDI signal. If you unplug the SDI and re-plug it in we still get no signal and the only sollution seems to be a power cycle without the SDI attached.

Is this normal at all? Any ideas? Again we're certain it's not the cable and the monitor works fine with other cameras via SDI. After the camera is booted up a power cycle of the Marshall does not seem to fix the issue as well.

thanks!
Click to expand...

Bart I have had the exact same issue on my Scarlet-W with the exact same scenario and setup. (Except I was using a SmallHD 702 SDI monitor)

My experience was the same. I had to reboot the camera with the SDI detached for it to work again. For me it has been a very phantom issue. Sometimes it happens a bunch in a row... sometimes not at all. It's always a problem when it happens though :/

If mine does it again, I will be saving a log file and sending that file with a support ticket to RED. If you still have a recent log file I would encourage you to file a support issue. Because, it's not normal for this to happen.

FYI, I've never had issue with the HDMI and when the SDI didn't work I switched to HDMI or just ripped the additional monitor off and shot on the RED touchscreen.
 
Mike P. said:
Can you try another monitor? Even if it's hdmi (as it would also indicate if it's the camera or the monitor).

I've experienced an assortment of monitoring connection issues with DSMC1; all of them "fixed" with a reboot/reseating of the cable. Anecdotal sure, but all I'm saying is that I wouldn't be too worried about it, unless it's actually hindering production. Conversely, I'd also look to the Marshall first before blaming the camera, it could be as simple as handshaking issues.

Other than that, send a log to BS and see if they find any gremlins.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, these things do hinder production when you're counting on them to work, and then the don't.... and then could force you to have to punt on a good shot.

Testing an HDMI monitor wont necessarily tell you if the SDI is working or not. In my case the HDMI worked fine, while the SDI was randomly not sending signal.

The temp fix: unplug SDI, reboot system, reconnect SDI. Usually works, but is annoying.


To me it seems like a little firmware bug in the power-on sequence of the module... because I've also had the USB port not send power if you already have a USB cable plugged in at the time of camera boot-up.
 
It may be your wireless transmitter, if you are powering your Teradek through the top P-tap of the S-W, I found that powering on and off the camera will require a hard reset of the P-tap on the top (pull the cable out and put it back in). I finally found out that this is what caused a lot of my wireless systems to not work suddenly during a shoot. Simply plugging the plug in and out after rebooting the camera seemed to solve it.

Probably not the same issue, but it may be good for others to know anyway
 
Also check the physical BNC connector on the camera; wiggle the cable and see if the signal is dropping. I had the female BNC on the Base Expander break and had to have RED send me a new one; fortunately they did so same day. Gotta love RED support!
 
Jason Han said:
It may be your wireless transmitter, if you are powering your Teradek through the top P-tap of the S-W, I found that powering on and off the camera will require a hard reset of the P-tap on the top (pull the cable out and put it back in). I finally found out that this is what caused a lot of my wireless systems to not work suddenly during a shoot. Simply plugging the plug in and out after rebooting the camera seemed to solve it.

Probably not the same issue, but it may be good for others to know anyway
Click to expand...

Super helpful. Does anyone power their transmitter via USB? I'm still on the Aries system and currently use USB to power the transmitter (below 1.5v draw)...wondering if anyone has run into this issue with that.
 
Thanks all - the fastest way I found to resolve the issue was to restart the marshall. Even though it doesnt say cold swap it seems that it is... Anyway, that route was way faster than rebooting the scarlet.
 
Brendan_H_Banks said:
Super helpful. Does anyone power their transmitter via USB? I'm still on the Aries system and currently use USB to power the transmitter (below 1.5v draw)...wondering if anyone has run into this issue with that.
Click to expand...

Yes, Brendan. I've run into this issue with the USB port sometimes not provide power. It's odd because it happened to me twice on a shoot where I was using the USB to power a small router to create a WiFi network for the camera and Foolcontrol to connect to.
During the shoot my cameras wifi would have problems and after rebooting the camera a couple times in a row the USB port stopped providing power through the port.

This happened to me 3 separate times on a various shoots.
The sequence for me was always the Wifi issues first locking up the necessitating a reboot.

I was debating sending the module into RED, however now I hesitate after taking some time yesterday in my office to try and reproduce the issue(s)

In a controlled environment I was in able to see any issue with the USB or SDI not working.

So, I'm thinking there must be something else causing the problem when I previously encountered these issues on set.

Hmmm

ideas? Thoughts?
 
I know this is an older thread, but has anyone been able to figure this issue out?

I'm running our Scarlet-W w/ I/O Extender and SDI out and can't seem to get the dang thing to be consistent at all. I've been troubleshooting for some time now and it will work one way once and then wont work again for an unpredictable amount of retrys.

HDMI works fine, wireless works fine.
Attempted SDI out into both a SmallHD Ac7 and a Blackmagic SmartView, got both to work two or three times, no luck on repeat troubleshoots.

Any resolutions since this was last posted?

Thanks in advance!
 
Hey guys,

Any update on this? This is happening to me on current firmware. My solution is to power down, unplug SDI, power up, plug in SDI, power on Teradek, and then it works. As someone said earlier, the problem seems to come and go randomly.
 
I didn't see this thread before I started a new one based on info from Newsshooter on "Preventing Damage to SDI Outputs"
Click to expand...

Please for the love of god don't confuse things and complicate one unrelated issue with another.
 
There is no need to reboot guys.

Monitoring menu, disable the SDI output, quit the menu completly to return to preview, then re-enter the monitor menu, re-enable the SDI output.
Sometime I have to do it twice, but it work 100% of the time with my unit.

It's a classic of computer engineering... Turn it off and on again.

I thought the last firmware had that bug fixed though.
 
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