Hi, I hope it’s ok to post this here since it is not strictly a CasparCG issue, but since there’s a lot of Decklink users here I wonder if anyone else has experienced this.
When I start up the PC (win 10), I can get no output from CasparCG. The server doesn’t throw any errors but there’s no video on decklink consumer or screen consumer. I then have to restart the server to get video, and after that everything seems to be ok. I’m using CasparLauncher by rrebuffo and server version 2.3.3. Decklink duo 2 and duo 2 mini both have this issue, 8k pro works fine.
Same thing happens with Davinci Resolve. No video after first boot, but after restarting the software everything works. BMD support has been contacted but I figured I’d try my luck here also. Thanks!
I’ve noticed same problem, on some smaller PC’s with less PCIe bandwidth. (24 lanes)
Somehow it looks like the motherboard starts up in lower PCIe v1.0 version (instead of PVIe v3.0) and when restarting the machine it will run at full speed.
I did this hack (AND it IS a hack) When swapping position of the GPU card and the Decklink card, the Decklink card will be in the first PCIe connecter, and this one will always be full PCIe speed.
I have only done that on machines that was mainly used for playout (no html etc.)
It looks like that negotiation og the Decklink card and PCIe happens before the Decklink is running, or something like that.
(I’m not an expert, so this was just my own conclusions)
Hope you solve the problem, and please report back here if you do some findings, as i’m still looking for at real solution
Doesn’t make a difference. The behavior is fairly consistent, sometimes (rarely) the PC surprises me and works the first time, but when I do several boot cycles in a row it certainly seems like the the decklink doesn’t wake up with the rest of the system.
Lol that is a hack indeed. I tried changing some bios settings like disabling fast boot, automatic PCI power management and clock gating but none of it had any effect. Will report here if I manage to figure out a solution
I visited the BMD area at IBC and the person I talked to said that something called the “on state” on duo cards is different than on 8k pro cards. So in laymans terms the 8k cards start outputting a signal immediately after system startup whereas duo cards need software to start the output.
In my case, the server is headless (no keyboard/mouse or display) so launching the casparcg twice is not a solution.
I found a workaround : using the task scheduler (in windows), I launch a ffmpeg script at login to initialize the decklink outputs, for example: ffmpeg -f lavfi -i testsrc -t 15 -s 1920x1080 -f decklink -format_code Hi50 -pix_fmt uyvy422 "DeckLink Duo (1)"
(repeated for each output).
The casparcg server is launched after that script and the decklink outputs work flawlessly.
I have this same issue with my Decklink Duo. It happens across software platforms and computers. I tried the ffmpeg trick posted here and it works almost every time (every now and again the script hangs, but it’s rare). The issue I have now is if we leave the computer running for several days idle it seems we run into the same issue where video output doesn’t work the first try. I may just have the script run every day at midnight or something, but this is definitely annoying. I would love to find a real solution. I can’t swap the video card and decklink because I only have a single PCIe x16 port and that needs to go to the video card.
This is the only place on the net I have found confirmation of my experiences. Blackmagic folks seem to think I’m a crazy person. So thanks!
