Decklink Duo

[OliLights]

Hello All,
I have been touring 5 Top Spec Octo-Core MacPros around with Muse for the last 10 Months. We have seen major issues with the Pheonix cards failing on us and are still to get to the bottom of the issue. So far we have had trouble with 6 out of the 10 Cards and want to look for an alternative. I feel on the edge and can not rely on the AS cards for the moment.

The straw that broke the camels back was placed this last weekend in Seoul where we were forced to use a new DeckLink HD Extreme 3D. It worked seamlessly out of the box saved the show. Despite having to go down to one input...

Just wondering about the Decklink Duo now and pondering it's viability to serve as 2 inputs. Until Active Silicone can give me a good idea as to the issues then i am forced to use a reliable alternative, even if i loose a frame or two by using the deckling cards.

Just to give you an idea of the pain we've been through.
we we're suffering the PCI cards not being recognised by the OS but intermediately, when they we're seen by the OS, their drivers we're found and then not found.. This is really bizarre and scary in a show situation.
To top this off we suffered for the final time when after installing and jigging cards into new slots, somehow it worked up until the point we moved the BNC connections on the MAC. I gave us the impressions there is something loose on the cards or something is very venerable to movement or static, hence my need for deeper investigation from AS.

I have bought a Decklink Duo and Keen to make it work with Catalyst.
If you need me to send it to you let me know.

Thanks
Oli

[samsc]

i ordered one a month ago - it hasnt turned up yet.

contact active silicon directly about technical things-

Hello All,
I have been touring 5 Top Spec Octo-Core MacPros around with Muse for the last 10 Months. We have seen major issues with the Pheonix cards failing on us and are still to get to the bottom of the issue. So far we have had trouble with 6 out of the 10 Cards and want to look for an alternative. I feel on the edge and can not rely on the AS cards for the moment.

The straw that broke the camels back was placed this last weekend in Seoul where we were forced to use a new DeckLink HD Extreme 3D. It worked seamlessly out of the box saved the show. Despite having to go down to one input...

Just wondering about the Decklink Duo now and pondering it's viability to serve as 2 inputs. Until Active Silicone can give me a good idea as to the issues then i am forced to use a reliable alternative, even if i loose a frame or two by using the deckling cards.

Just to give you an idea of the pain we've been through.
we we're suffering the PCI cards not being recognised by the OS but intermediately, when they we're seen by the OS, their drivers we're found and then not found.. This is really bizarre and scary in a show situation.
To top this off we suffered for the final time when after installing and jigging cards into new slots, somehow it worked up until the point we moved the BNC connections on the MAC. I gave us the impressions there is something loose on the cards or something is very venerable to movement or static, hence my need for deeper investigation from AS.

I have bought a Decklink Duo and Keen to make it work with Catalyst.
If you need me to send it to you let me know.

Thanks
Oli

[ajmaudio]

Thats interesting that your having so many issues... I dont have that many machines/cards but mine have been very solid. All the tugging etc comments makes me wonder if your cards or machines are suffering from physical damage? Perhaps from poor handling during loadin/unloading or in transit in the truck? perhaps you are plugging your video lines directly into the cards every night and they have suffered some tugs/yanks... all speculation on my part obviously but it is very curious

[OliLights]

Thanks Richard,
Active Silicone are well aware of my troubles and are very keen to get to the bottom of these issues as much as you and i are.

Let me know if i can send you the Duo so you can run some tests. Pretty sure it'll work with your software. BTW loving your CFX editor! Also... happy to report Sync ID is still running strong across 5 Machines too!

Nice one.
I love your work!
Oli

[OliLights]

The Muse Servers Travel very well and are treated with extreme care, This is why it's troubles me and my team so much. We have no idea what could be causing the issues.

I will say we have had a bunch more cards fail on us when we were in Asia and the US where our servers have been running on a transformed power supply stepped up to 240V, this however should not have any effect.

We had the these faults arise in europe to, but much less frequently.

FYI... All the cards in the server rack are hard wired to the DA's, as all 4 servers get the same 4 video input signals the only cables getting connected on a day to day are those going into our DA units.

I also pondered possible issues with the new mac architecture not travelling to well, as there are two cards of great importance inside doing all the work, one being the I/O card and the other been a sub connected card with all the RAM and Processing on it, we thought there maybe an issue with the connection between these cards (in the huge multi-pin connection visible when you slide out the processing cards). We have however seen NO other issues with the MAC's they run very quickly as with NO issues other than Video Capture.

We lost 2 cards in Japan, but as mentioned in my first post, the faults seemed to come and go. It worked very infrequently and when it did, all it took to cause failure was tiny movement of one of the BNC cables going into the Mac.

It's worth noting too that in both of these instances in Asia where the AS cards were failing on us, the servers were operating in 100% humidity conditions!! Not nice for humans let alone computers....

There isn't anyone else who is moving these Cat's around the globe as we are, maybe your right in saying the not standing up to the travelling that well, i don't know, the Macs and SSD's work fine in every other respect.

Still if the Decklink Duo can be made to work without issue then i'm using it! It's less than a third of the price of the AS card too!

[samsc]

From active silicon it seems like the failure is the same on all boards which makes it much more likely you have a faulty computer that is damaging boards

Suggest you keep close track or a log of what boards are going where otherwise in all probability you will blow more of them up ...

[samsc]

Power issues would point to faulty earth or large voltages on earths remember sdi needs a ground
And if it's not common between video and lighting you blow things up.

Thing you need to investigate ground potentials and ground spikes in your sdi cables

It's more than possible this is source of problem

We use different phases for systems on most shows and video and lighting and sound equipment cannot be connected together through direct signal cables

You need isolated equipment

[ryanww]

Fiber would be a great solution to eliminate that possibility

[ajmaudio]

Power issues would point to faulty earth or large voltages on earths remember sdi needs a ground
And if it's not common between video and lighting you blow things up.

Thing you need to investigate ground potentials and ground spikes in your sdi cables

It's more than possible this is source of problem

We use different phases for systems on most shows and video and lighting and sound equipment cannot be connected together through direct signal cables

You need isolated equipment

This is very true.. if your cards arent being physically damaged from handling etc I would put money on this. You can even get smoked from bad building service.. had a show this year that had about a 6v difference in GROUND potential between 2 lighting services that where supposedly on same xformer, panel.. etc etc... got a nice buzz plugging in a soco just touching the chassis...but when just metering that service itself it was fine... there seems to be no end to bizzar bad bad things that can pop up in the world of show power.

[samsc]

Fiber would be a great solution to eliminate that possibility

... thats the video production companies call ... but seeing as they are potentially affecting someone elses equipment...