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A
Alex Elkins
Known Participant
August 9, 2018
Question

Blackmagic card - audio drops out during playback

  • August 9, 2018
  • 4 replies
  • 3595 views

Technical info:

2012 Mac Pro, 128GB RAM, MacOS 10.12.6, Blackmagic Deckink HD Extreme 3D

1080p ProRes proxy files playing off a 5-bay RAID 0

I'm working in Premiere 2017.

Playback is perfect until I adjust anything in the timeline during playback - disabling a clip, adding a cut, trimming an edit, adjusting levels etc... anything done to an audio clip will mean the audio cuts out. Video playback will continue without any issues, but the audio will drop out as will the audio meters inside Premiere.

This happens only if my video and audio playback is set to my Blackmagic card. I'm using the latest drivers, although this issue has been happening for at least a year with various different drivers.

It happens in all projects on my machine, but not on another Mac (2013 Mac Pro, same OS but with an Blackmagic Mini Monitor)

I've cleaned out my media cache and that doesn't help. My Blackmagic card is fairly old now so might not be officially supported by Adobe or Blackmagic. Could that be the problem?

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    4 replies

    R
    rodneyb56060189
    Legend
    August 10, 2018

    I'm obviously dealing real simple stuff in comparison. Win7 pro, mini monitor card. Cheap Lilliput reference/ field monitor out of SDI. ( monitor has speakers ).

    New primary monitor (eizo) has no speakers. I wanted sound out of computer (headphones etc. ) so I changed the 'recommended' settings ( BM recommended) from BM to WDM.  There is no " none " option on mine.

    I think talking to contacts about what's up would maybe save some time.

    Jeff Bugbee
    Community Expert
    Jeff BugbeeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 10, 2018

    Can you take a screenshot of both your Audio Hardware and Playback panels in Preferences please?

    A
    Alex ElkinsAuthor
    Known Participant
    August 10, 2018

    This is what I'm using. I've tried many other combinations but this is the only one that gives me useable audio (aside from this issue of dropouts when marking changes during playback)

    Jeff Bugbee
    Community Expert
    Jeff BugbeeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 10, 2018

    Thanks Jeff, that's interesting (if a little strange). I'm not in my suite right now but I did test the same setup myself (albeit with the BMD card) and got a different result to you (i.e. sound coming out of the Mac rather than the proper speakers). I think this must be one of the little differences between the AJA and BMD cards. The reason I say it's strange is that everything in your screenshots is suggesting that your audio should be coming out of your built in speakers and not the AJA card. I wonder if perhaps the AJA card is pumping out audio regardless of what settings you have in Premiere unless you specifically turn them off in the AJA control panel, whereas the BMD card cedes more control to Premiere.

    For what it's worth AJA are by far my preferred cards but unfortunatley I do a lot of work in Resolve so am tied to BMD.

    Sorry if I was a little snappy in one of my responses, I know you're just trying to help. I got a little riled up by someone else in this thread making a few strange assumptions about me and questioning my professionalism.


    Also, take a look at page 35 from the Black Magic Decklink manual:

    https://documents.blackmagicdesign.com/DesktopVideo/20180627-168fec/Desktop_Video_Manual.pdf

    R Neil Haugen
    R Neil Haugen
    Legend
    August 10, 2018

    An older card could certainly be an issue. And note, some of the folks around 'here' have had issue with the BM decklink cards & drivers off & on. Even newer ones.

    I'm wondering ... you say you have the audio set to the Decklink card. Sometimes, having the computer OS set to use a sound or video card for audio, and leaving the PrPro Audio Hardware preferences set to "none" solves issues of sound & even at times video playback. You might see if you can do that.

    Neil

    Everyone's mileage always varies ...
    A
    Alex ElkinsAuthor
    Known Participant
    August 10, 2018

    Thanks for your suggestion.

    https://forums.adobe.com/people/R+Neil+Haugen  wrote

    having the computer OS set to use a sound or video card for audio, and leaving the PrPro Audio Hardware preferences set to "none" solves issues of sound & even at times video playback.

    There's no option to set audio playback preferences to 'none' but I'm assuming you mean setting it to Adobe Desktop Audio - I did try this before posting and while it fixes the issue of sound cutting out the audio playback itself is very glitchy and with each glitch it gets further out of sync.

    I'm tempted to just order a more up to date Decklink card and see if it helps.

    R
    rodneyb56060189
    Legend
    August 9, 2018

    hmm. I am just wondering if after you make changes and render just that area (clips) that got changed, whether that solves problem ?

    Otherwise, if I had that sort of problem, I would probably call someone on telephone and ask them if they have suggestions. Like ADK. There used to be nice people out on Long Island ( Glen cove area maybe ? ) who also build stuff for editing...

    Good luck !

    A
    Alex ElkinsAuthor
    Known Participant
    August 10, 2018

    Rendering makes no difference unfortunately. I wondered that myself and did test before posting.

    Thanks for the ADK suggestion. I'm based in the UK actually but have a few contacts I could run this past. I'm pretty sure it's an issue isolated to my own machine but wanted to post in case anyone had experienced (or even solved) this issue.

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