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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 :)

The SDI issues

Proper power shielding on precision electronics gear should be SOP. Props to Matt Allard with Newsshooter for pointing out that good old P-taps (or D-taps if you prefer) are made of plastic, which has limited shielding capacity. Perhaps that lack of shielding allows short spikes the chance to find their way to the SDI BNC port. If so, all the electrons need is a cable and/or connector with less than full integrity to get to ground. Is every SDI cable on your set in perfect condition? Yeah, right.

FWIW, Matt found an interesting product that replaces a standard P-tap with one sporting a built in protection circuit. Details can be found in his write up on Newsshooter.

https://www.newsshooter.com/2019/03/20/lentequip-safetap-connector-review/

IAC, might be time to carefully inspect all my SDI cabling and replace any sketchy BNC connectors... One fun filled weekend coming up ;-)

Cheers - #19

PS: Long live 2 pin Fischer
 
Michael R said:
Our Komodo SDI failed on set today. The Komodo was powered via a Titon Micro on a Tilta Vlock plate and the SmallHD Focus Pro was powered by its own Sony LP. I have so far been unable to get the SDI output working again. Literally in the middle of a shoot. Unreal. Had to frame an interview on the postage stamp top screen. Hope it’s in focus.

Is it done for? No chance of recovery? Does this mean we have to ship this thing in and wait? We ordered in November and received at the end of March. We’ve used it on 4 sets and today it failed us after all those months of waiting.

The working theory that this can only happen if the monitor and camera are being powered from the same source is disproven by my experience today.

Pretty outraged by this if I’m being honest. Our main camera is a Weapon 8K and we’ve never had an issue in the 4 years of ownership. No weird battery and SDI dances have ever been performed.

What’s going on here?
Click to expand...

That's bad news Michael. Thanks for letting us know. Hope you get it sorted asap. Do you know what was happening as the failure occurred? Was one of the batteries being swapped? Was the camera on?
 
I got the vaxis komodo atom on my camera all the time. The way its seated with the v lock plate my sdi port is pretty much built in... I also tend to power the komodo worst way possible, dtap to that plate or even dtap and bypassing the plate straight to the connectors on the back of the vaxis...I by mistake fried a vaxis by giving it wrong polarity, but the camera did not go toast even though it was coming smoke out of the vaxis.

So yes, will see how long it last I simply cant take the safety precausions that they advice in the manual.

Who knows, there might be resons why red approved the vaxis TX and not the tilta power module.
 
Michael R said:
Our Komodo SDI failed on set today. The Komodo was powered via a Titon Micro on a Tilta Vlock plate and the SmallHD Focus Pro was powered by its own Sony LP. I have so far been unable to get the SDI output working again. Literally in the middle of a shoot. Unreal. Had to frame an interview on the postage stamp top screen. Hope it’s in focus.

Is it done for? No chance of recovery? Does this mean we have to ship this thing in and wait? We ordered in November and received at the end of March. We’ve used it on 4 sets and today it failed us after all those months of waiting.

The working theory that this can only happen if the monitor and camera are being powered from the same source is disproven by my experience today.

Pretty outraged by this if I’m being honest. Our main camera is a Weapon 8K and we’ve never had an issue in the 4 years of ownership. No weird battery and SDI dances have ever been performed.

What’s going on here?
Click to expand...

Can Red please chime in on this conversation? There's like no actual feedback on any of these issues or questions and this forum has pretty much gone dead in terms of actual discussion with the Red team. It was never like this before, there were always feedback and Red owners always got proper information on how to proceed regarding certain issues.
Now it feels like everyone is just left to figure things out themselves. We have to guess because the manual is incomplete and there's no real word on any of the issues.

Did the SDI port fail while actually recording? Like, was it when you changed batteries? Did you have a 12G SDI cable? If this indeed happened while shooting, not changing batteries or things like that, well then it's possible that it's just designed poorly. That we actually have an SDI port that is unable to safely work with normal workflows. But we don't know, we don't get answers, and we don't know how to solve anything or what the actual problems really are here. So what's the solution? Demand Red to replace the SDI boards with proper shielding or rework the internal boards to not be this sensitive to failure? Like, class action lawsuit style -demand them to fix this for every Komodo owner? Because otherwise, we're just working with the camera on pure luck that our own system won't fail or at least fail before the warranty runs out.

Because if we follow the proper procedure, it should not happen, period. I've been on so many sets where nothing of this gets followed and there's never been any problem, so these issues should actually be rare edge cases for those who don't follow procedures. That this seems to happen this frequently for people actually following proper procedures with correct cables etc. is just not ok. And Red keeping silent around these issues is also not ok.

At the moment, I cannot buy a proper monitor. It's not worth getting an expensive monitor if there's a risk that things fail randomly because of poor internal design. It's not ok for a camera that is priced according to how reliable it is for use. This is why we buy Red cameras, to get rid of flimsy DSLR style BM cameras that have tons of problems that make them unreliable.
If this is impossible to solve, then offer a baseplate, that has HDMI or another SDI port as a backup.

But right now, the worst thing is that we're left in the dark because Red is just silent about all of this. So we end up in an investment standstill because we can't invest in further gear when we don't know if we buy into stuff that will just be unusable whenever some random problem occurs down the line, even though we take good care of our camera. The solution isn't to "just get in touch with Red support when you have a problem", because the problem is that, by the experiences people share, we use the camera on pure luck that it won't fail. It shouldn't be like this, but we don't even know if it even is like this, and we don't know how to solve it, how to be safe from eventual issues or how to even think about our workflow.

Why can't Red just have the discussion with us so we can settle what is going on?
 
Björn Benckert said:
I got the vaxis komodo atom on my camera all the time. The way its seated with the v lock plate my sdi port is pretty much built in... I also tend to power the komodo worst way possible, dtap to that plate or even dtap and bypassing the plate straight to the connectors on the back of the vaxis...I by mistake fried a vaxis by giving it wrong polarity, but the camera did not go toast even though it was coming smoke out of the vaxis.

So yes, will see how long it last I simply cant take the safety precausions that they advice in the manual.

Who knows, there might be resons why red approved the vaxis TX and not the tilta power module.
Click to expand...

Do you use the SDI cable Vaxis suppliy or did you buy another cable brand ? You mentionned an other brand on facebook, right angle to straight, if I remember well
 
Siddhu S. said:
Out of curiosity, how did it happen?
Click to expand...

The start of the day everything was fine. We setup for an interview and the camera was being powered via AC. No problems at all. It wasn’t until we finished that interview and swapped the Komodo to the RS2 for b-roll that we were from then on unable to get a signal from the SDI. Nothing changed with the camera build itself, still the same battery and monitor setup, just moved the monitor from the top of the body to the RS2 handle. Same SDI cable, same everything. I’m unsure how it “happened” but I know the main variable that changed was going from AC power for the interview to battery for the gimbal work.
 
The way that I have understood this is that you should not have the SDI cable attached when attaching a power cable or battery. This includes when the camera or accessories are in the on or off state. From the ARRI video in post #9 it should be:

1. Connect power cables or batteries first, then attach SDI cables.
2. Disconnect the SDI cables, then disconnect power cables or batteries.

Yes, certainly a pain to always have to do it in this manner, but it seems to be the safest route.

https://www.newsshooter.com/2020/02/15/preventing-damage-to-sdi-outputs/

ARRI Technical Paper:

https://www.arri.com/resource/blob/...b216c/download-technical-information-data.pdf
 
Robert Hofmeyr said:
That's bad news Michael. Thanks for letting us know. Hope you get it sorted asap. Do you know what was happening as the failure occurred? Was one of the batteries being swapped? Was the camera on?
Click to expand...

Thanks, Rob. There were no active swaps and the camera was powered down as we were moving from an AC-powered setup on sticks to a v-mount powered setup on gimbal. We filmed the interview (monitor working fine), powered everything down, unplugged AC, unplugged SDI, mounted the Komodo to the RS2, mounted monitor to the RS2 left handle, reconnected SDI, no signal. Tried different cables, different monitors, different batteries, everything. Never got a signal out of the SDI port again.


Just submitted a support ticket to Red so I'll update you when we hear back.
 
Michael R said:
Thanks, Rob. There were no active swaps and the camera was powered down as we were moving from an AC-powered setup on sticks to a v-mount powered setup on gimbal. We filmed the interview (monitor working fine), powered everything down, unplugged AC, unplugged SDI, mounted the Komodo to the RS2, mounted monitor to the RS2 left handle, reconnected SDI, no signal. Tried different cables, different monitors, different batteries, everything. Never got a signal out of the SDI port again.


Just submitted a support ticket to Red so I'll update you when we hear back.
Click to expand...

Shit. So you were following protocol. This makes me nervous. I guess at least we can always use a phone via WiFi as a monitor in an emergency. Hope Red sorts you out quickly. Keep us updated.
 
This is how it works as I understand.

Power cables that have deep seated pins and a good shielding collar will likely do no damage. As the important thing is that there is ground / - connection before the + is added. Same rules apply as when you bumper cable start a car. Ground / minus first then add power.

Dtap connectors does not have any kind of shielding and they got the two connector pins touching about the same time. So is a chance the + pol is connecting before the - pol and then power can run trough the device into the camera video output on its way to ground / other battery minus pol or what ever source is on or trough equipment towards real ground.


If you look at the komodo power port it's really deep seated, it's really no chance in hel that the + pol would reach in and touch before the shield is connected. Thats how a good connector should look... now in the other hand of the power cable that red sells there is a Dtap... Which as I understand is not so good. But if you first connect that Dtap to a battery and then stick the other cable into the camera I then think that would be rather safe swapping power source on the Dtap... and keep the lemo connected to the camera, not so safe...


But now who in their right mind could worry about these things while shooting, all the shoots I go to is like war, no time rain dancing when swapping to a new brick. So yes better connectors would be a good start I guess.
 
Christoffer Glans said:
Yes, but there seems to be an increasing rate of failures compared to previous cameras and others like Arri, Sony etc. So the SDI connection on Komodo seems to be very sensitive to failure and when people follow the instructions and use 12G cables and such it should not happen this much.
Click to expand...

For 12G to work, I believe there's less "protection" in the electronics. If you use a heavy handed protection circuit then the 12G part stops working.

This has been happening on lots of cameras, Arri, Blackmagic.

The biggest issue is bad (unregulated) power, bad (lower cost) accessories, and bad powering practice combined with more sensitive now unprotected connections.

JB
 
John Brawley said:
The biggest issue is bad (unregulated) power, bad (lower cost) accessories, and bad powering practice combined with more sensitive now unprotected connections.

JB
Click to expand...
Unfortunately this is the reality check on film sets. Camera manufacturers know that for the most part...
 
John Brawley said:
For 12G to work, I believe there's less "protection" in the electronics. If you use a heavy handed protection circuit then the 12G part stops working.

This has been happening on lots of cameras, Arri, Blackmagic.

The biggest issue is bad (unregulated) power, bad (lower cost) accessories, and bad powering practice combined with more sensitive now unprotected connections.

JB
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've seen that this happens on other cameras. But I think on Komodo it is more serious because it only has SDI out (I guess wifi or the link adapter count as video outputs, but neither seems to be rock solid). Also, there seem to be a large number of people with this problem. I'd estimate I've seen about 10 people commenting on the Komodo Users facebook group about SDI issues with their cameras, and I've only been following the group closely for a few weeks. Assuming for every post I've happened to see there are 4 that I missed (or that didn't post here or on FB), that's 50 out of around 10000 cameras in the wild (estimated from my very recently shipped serial number). That's a 1 in 200 failure rate, which does not seem too bad until you take into account that the average age of all the Komodos in use is probably around 2 months.

Disclaimer: obviously these are VERY rough estimates and only Red knows the exact number of cases of this issue. I would love to hear more from them about this - what exactly causes the failure? Do we need to worry if powering a monitor from its own battery? Do we need to worry when swapping a dead BP-9 while the other BP-9 is running the camera? What about when attaching/detaching the camera power cable with batteries inserted? I work in remote locations, so I need reliable equipment. For now, I'm going to follow the recommended order of operation as best I can, but it is a real worry.
 
Björn Benckert said:
Not sure. It sound crazy if every time power is removed or added video cables have to be unplugged... But that is as I understand what all manufacturers are claiming now, but I hope I´m wrong as it sounds nuts.

Again I unplug batteries and cables all the time with our without power and don't think much about it. So maybe I´m just been lucky but yes, who have time for such precautions. I´m more worried the SDI connector would be worn out from all the unplugging.
Click to expand...

I'm certainly not pretending to be right or wrong here, I'm just sharing my experience of the things. For over a year now I have my whole rig pre-built and ready to roll inside a nanuk 960 case, with monitors, focus motors, SDI cables etc. - all readily pre-connected. Tv-Logic 058W is running through SDI directly into the cam, powered by a d-tap > dc-in cable, running off a d-tap splitter. The d-tap splitter is connected to the d-tap port of the ID-X V-Mount plate on the back of my camera. Camera is running from a v-mount battery on this plate, and the same v-mount battery is feeding power of every each accessorie. I just plug the battery in and start rolling. I do this at least 6 times a day on set, and have done this with cams for years now, never had an issue myself or know someone who has fried the camera this way. Build the rig, wire everything up first, snap the battery last - boom, ready to roll. But I know people who have done the other way around - while connecting the power cable (d-tap) after the sdi cable was connected and the battery on.
 
Alex Lubensky said:
I'm certainly not pretending to be right or wrong here, I'm just sharing my experience of the things. For over a year now I have my whole rig pre-built and ready to roll inside a nanuk 960 case, with monitors, focus motors, SDI cables etc. - all readily pre-connected. Tv-Logic 058W is running through SDI directly into the cam, powered by a d-tap > dc-in cable, running off a d-tap splitter. The d-tap splitter is connected to the d-tap port of the ID-X V-Mount plate on the back of my camera. Camera is running from a v-mount battery on this plate, and the same v-mount battery is feeding power of every each accessorie. I just plug the battery in and start rolling. I do this at least 6 times a day on set, and have done this with cams for years now, never had an issue myself or know someone who has fried the camera this way. Build the rig, wire everything up first, snap the battery last - boom, ready to roll. But I know people who have done the other way around - while connecting the power cable (d-tap) after the sdi cable was connected and the battery on.
Click to expand...

I do the same. My video canöes are always in. Never had an issue. But yes, cameras seams to have problems wirh this now. Im guessing the 12G cards are more sensitive.
 
Yup, they sure are! newsshooter article on the subject:

"This is especially critical for cameras with SDI connections capable of SDI 6G or higher (even if set to work at lower bit rates like SDI 1.5G). Cameras with SDI connections capable of SDI 1.5G or SDI 3G can be protected more efficiently without decreasing the SDI signal quality."
 
I suppose it depends on the monitor used in case of Komodo. Due to lots of lighter rigs out there - I think most of the fried cams were powered via native Canon BP batts or smaller v-mounts, while the monitor had it's own battery plugged in - which is usually non-grounded (like NP-F batts are +- unprotected), thus people fried cams while changing the battery on the monitor
 
Alex Lubensky said:
I suppose it depends on the monitor used in case of Komodo. Due to lots of lighter rigs out there - I think most of the fried cams were powered via native Canon BP batts or smaller v-mounts, while the monitor had it's own battery plugged in - which is usually non-grounded (like NP-F batts are +- unprotected), thus people fried cams while changing the battery on the monitor
Click to expand...

Hi Alex. Can you explain a bit more or provide a link to more information about grounded vs non-grounded batteries? I was not aware that this was a thing. I was under the impression that the main issue was the opposite of what you are describing. I thought the ground loop was caused by using the same power source for the monitor and the camera, then momentarily connecting the positive before the ground. Are you saying it is safer to use one power source for both?
 
If you watch the Arri video regarding the subject once again - they are talking about the connectors specifically, not the power source. It states:

"Camera SDI outputs can get damaged when an accessory is connected to the SDI output and is powered through an unshielded cable. All cameras, including all ARRI cameras and other SDI devices, can be affected by this."

D-Tap as a connector only has 2 pins, + and -. Same goes for the Sony NP-F style batteries, they only have + and -. I suppose if + connects first, and the camera has it's own power, it's the same as if you plug the d-tap power of the monitor with sdi connected after connecting the power source to the camera.
 
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