occasional stutter on video input

[Mr_P]

Ive not seen any evidence of deckink cards specifically causing content to stutter - in use or not in use. ( What tests have people performed to arrive at this conclusion?) This is a separate issue from the stutter seen when using the video input of a decklink card.

I know that decklink cards DO frame buffer. I have timecoded video footage to prove it, taken when using SDI capture on an HD Extreme (although not composite). Buffering seems to happen more when other operations are occurring in the Mac. Also more prevalent on HD-SDI capture as it requires more bandwidth.

With regard to PCIe slots - 2007 & 2008 Macs have different PCIe architecture and will work and be configured in different ways. 2007 macs running tiger can use the PCI expansion slot utility. 2008 Macs running Leopard cannot. However, on 2008 Macs, the bandwidth/lanes is 'dynamically' allocated - depending on the card installed and slot. Bandwidth is not necessarily 'fixed'

With 2008 MacPros running Leopard, the slot next to the graphics card is the fastest PCIe2 slot. However, it shares its 'communication' with the 'north bridge' controller along with the graphics card. The Upper 2 PCIe slots share the 'South Bridge' controller with the Firewire controller and optional Airport Module. Any of these devices 'could' affect performance of the decklink card causing it to frame buffer - depending on which slot it is installed.

However, a decklink Extreme HD card is only a 4Lane PCIe1 card, so does not need to be installed in slot 2 which is a PCIe2 slot.

for more info - check out:
http://developer.apple.com/documenta...mentation.html

There are 3 different issues being reported here - so don't confuse, decklink 'frame buffering' with 'content playback stuttereing' and differences between the 'composite and SDI' inputs.

Better still - use an Active silicon LFG or Phoenix card.....

Simon

[ajmaudio]

I'm not confusing the different issues being discussed here... unfortunately I cannot count on being able to use the sdi input on the card.. and honestly id rather get to the bottom of this issue as this device works just fine capturing composite video outside of this. Can anyone tell me if any of the video is being buffered outside of the decklink card itself? I'm hoping moving the card will solve this issue but since Richard has had this issue and I dont know anything about that particular machines configuration I am not all that hopeful. so as of now the new firmware hasnt resolved the issue though PERHAPS lessened it and I wont know about moving the card until saturday at the next show. Is anyone NOT having this issue with this card?

[samsc]

you need to try the sdi input ( not the composite input )- you need to get a convertor-

nothing else here is relevant until you try this- forget everything else

there are many devices which do this:

this is one ( im not recommending this - im saying this is one of many devices )

http://www.aja.com/html/products_converters_D10AD.html

I'm not confusing the different issues being discussed here... unfortunately I cannot count on being able to use the sdi input on the card.. and honestly id rather get to the bottom of this issue as this device works just fine capturing composite video outside of this. Can anyone tell me if any of the video is being buffered outside of the decklink card itself? I'm hoping moving the card will solve this issue but since Richard has had this issue and I dont know anything about that particular machines configuration I am not all that hopeful. so as of now the new firmware hasnt resolved the issue though PERHAPS lessened it and I wont know about moving the card until saturday at the next show. Is anyone NOT having this issue with this card?

[Mr_P]

ajmaudio - Did you get to the bottom of this issue?
What tests did you do - what did you find?
Simon

[ajmaudio]

well being on tour and having 3 jobs on said tour didnt leave much room for tinkering... we managed to get away with it as it was a rock show and nobody seemed to notice.. however I have a more corporate type for new years and I dont think this performance is going to be acceptable. I also noticed that someone else was having this same problem even using the sdi input on this same card. At this point I just wish I coudl trade this card for an LFG though it seems that this issue should NOT even be happening purely based on what this card is used for normally. Seems like its gotta be solvable but then I dont know. I only have the stock 2 gigs of ram in this machine but while checkin memory usage during use I find that well over half of the actual ram is still available to the machine.. that was my last thought on the issue. anyone else made any headway?

on a side note if anyone has an LFG card that I could rent in the nashville area id be interested.

[samsc]

i had a very good reason for suggesting what i said-

i saw a problem with the composite input on the card last year - it only affected the composite input- not the sdi input- there was some problem with this - i have no idea the cause-

this is not related to anything anyone else was discussing on this thread-

there are a whole bunch of other issues with video input- and computers but the composite problem with sdi input cards is the first that needs to be checked.
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ask mainlight about LFG cards- and whether you can loan one-

well being on tour and having 3 jobs on said tour didnt leave much room for tinkering... we managed to get away with it as it was a rock show and nobody seemed to notice.. however I have a more corporate type for new years and I dont think this performance is going to be acceptable. I also noticed that someone else was having this same problem even using the sdi input on this same card. At this point I just wish I coudl trade this card for an LFG though it seems that this issue should NOT even be happening purely based on what this card is used for normally. Seems like its gotta be solvable but then I dont know. I only have the stock 2 gigs of ram in this machine but while checkin memory usage during use I find that well over half of the actual ram is still available to the machine.. that was my last thought on the issue. anyone else made any headway?

on a side note if anyone has an LFG card that I could rent in the nashville area id be interested.