Win 10 & Blackmagic Decklink Quad2

General
,
1

Hi, i am building a 3 Channel CasparCG System for a German Public Broadcaster.
Ch1 Key& Fill, CH2 & Ch3 Fill Only

This are the Specs of my PC

HP Z840
Intel Xeon E5-2640 v4
Win10
64GB RAM
Nvidia Quadro M4000
Decklink Quad2

The Quad2 Card has a Reference Signal and i am using Server 2.07 and Client 2.08
My Medias are on a 500GB SSD (non Raid)

The Quad 2 has 1080i50 as the Default video Standard, SMPTE LevelB and the Connector Mapping SDI1&SDI2 is selected.

Every time i play a Video on CH1, the Fill Signal flickers and the audio is choppy after a short period of time.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/V7HmgBT8c4vNUhHs5

If i switch the Card to a Blackmagic Decklink 4k Extreme the Signal is clean.

Can someone help?
Is this a known behaviour with WIn10 and the Quad2?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
   <configuration>
      <paths>
         <media-path>D:\media\</media-path>
         <log-path>log\</log-path>
         <data-path>data\</data-path>
         <template-path>D:\templates\</template-path>
         <thumbnails-path>D:\thumbnails\</thumbnails-path>
      </paths>
      <log-level>debug</log-level>
    <diagnostics>
 		<graphs>true [true|false]</graphs>
	</diagnostics>
      <channel-grid>false</channel-grid>
      <mixer>
         <blend-modes>false</blend-modes>
         <straight-alpha>true</straight-alpha>
         <chroma-key>false</chroma-key>
         <mipmapping_default_on>false</mipmapping_default_on>
      </mixer>
	<template-hosts>
		<template-host>
			<video-mode>PAL</video-mode>
			<filename>cg20.fth.1080i5000</filename>
			<width>1024</width>
			<height>576</height>
		</template-host>
		<template-host>
			<video-mode>720p5000</video-mode>
			<filename>cg20.fth.1080i5000</filename>
			<width>1280</width>
			<height>720</height>
		</template-host>	  
	  </template-hosts>
   <auto-deinterlace>true</auto-deinterlace>
   <auto-transcode>true</auto-transcode>
   <pipeline-tokens>2</pipeline-tokens>
  <channels>
    <channel>
        <video-mode>1080i5000</video-mode>
        <straight-alpha-output>false</straight-alpha-output>
        <consumers>
            <decklink>
                <device>1</device>
                <embedded-audio>true</embedded-audio>
                <channel-layout>stereo</channel-layout>
                <latency>normal</latency>
                <keyer>external</keyer>
                <key-only>false</key-only>
                <buffer-depth>3</buffer-depth>
                <custom-allocator>true</custom-allocator>
            </decklink>
        </consumers>
    </channel>
	
</channels>
  <controllers>
    <tcp>
        <port>5250</port>
        <protocol>AMCP</protocol>
    </tcp>
  </controllers>
</configuration>
2

This sounds like it could be the same issue @Armin has been having https://github.com/CasparCG/help/issues/9

3

I switched from Black-Burst (PAL) Sync, to Tri-Level 1080i50.
Blackmagic Drivers are 10.11
But i get the same flicker with tri-level 1080i50 or 1080p25 :-(:sleepy:

But if i unplugg the sync completly the flicker is gone
Very strange

The Blackburst/Tri-Level is generated via a rosendahl nanosyncHD from a Black-Burst PAL Signal

4

Please try Desktop Video drivers version 10.8.3 (from 2016 :frowning:)

5

Could also be an electrical problem. Do the computer and the sync generator share the same power source?

6

There are three other reports on similar behaviour >10.8.3 Didi.

7

I know, just to be sure, sometimes the old analog shit is kicking in.

1 Like
8

It would be useful to gather together the BMD driver versions and their bugs.
For example the 10.8.3 may be good for the Duo2 or Quad2 but I think this version has bad black level on the key for the 4K Extreme

1 Like
9

The extreme uses a faster FPGA than the 2. This will not solve the issue but mask it:
In the driver setup did you select display last frame or black?
Set it to display the last frame

10

PC & Syncgenerator share the same power source
i will downgrade to 10.8.3 and check if it is any better

11

10.8.3 works now with my quad2 and Trilevel 1080i50 sync
output is sometimes laggy when playing another file on the same or another channel.
maybee i need to put another ssd and form a raid 0 for my medias
should i use the motherboard raid controller or would you strongly advice to use a raid controller card?

12

why should i set the driver to display last frame? will it be more stable? i dont like the behaviour of seeing the last frame when there is no signal

13

Looks like you found the driver to fix the solution.

As stated not a solution. We use last frame if for any reason a frame does not reach the card in time.
you get a frozen frame. In my opinion looks better than flashing black.

A RAID controller card with memory is recommended over the cheap internal controllers usually used.
Depends on your motherboard and physical case limitations.

14

We use last frame if for any reason a frame does not reach the card in time.
you get a frozen frame.

That setting will only help if caspar crashes. while the output is locked by caspar (or i assume any other software), it will always output the last frame

15

Any recommendation on the Hardware Raid Controller? Wich one did you use and did any of you use an Hardware Raid Controller in a HP Z840

16

I have a LSI MegaRAID 8888 card and am running 8 drives as RAID 6.

https://docs.broadcom.com/docs/12352239

You will need the fanout adapters.

There are newer cards out there but this works great for me on Linux.

17

On current hardware you won’t need a raid controller for 2 to 4 drive arrays.
The processing done for checksums etc. is nothing for a modern cpu. Only the IO bandwidth can be a bottleneck when working with a lot of drives. And you may want the extra safety of a BBU (Backupbattery to make sure the last buffers can be written to the drives at powerloss).
But I guess you will targeting a 2 drive stripe (RAID 0) or a RAID 10 with 4 drives. This is not problem as software raid.
But don’t use the fake raid of the mainboard. Better do a plain software raid. On linux this is mdraid and on windows you can do it too.

18

So I have flickering output… this was using a Decklink HD Extreme 3D+

I don’t usually use any kind of sync for the ATEM, Decklink etc. it all just used to work, but this was an issue when I tried to use most recently.

I hired in the sync generator thinking it would resolve the issue, that didn’t work.

Also rolled back drivers and no joy there…

19

What version of Windows? This is a very old card. So, it can be, that it’s not supported any more.

20

Windows 10. The card outputs video fine using the BMD media express software which is a little confusing