Decklink - No Signal

[logan_mcnay]

I purchased a decklink 4K extreme 12G and own a Flanders DM 241 monitor connected via SDI to the decklink card. Any timelines in PrPro or AE above 2k resolution, IE, any 4k timelines have "No Signal" to my 1080p monitor. 

Blackmagic Desktop video setup is installed and working properly. 

I've talked to support from FSI & blackmagic. Both have said I have done everything correct.  Blackmagic support said "It would appear that everything is set accordingly, so most likely the issue you are having is coming from Premiere and not the card itself. I would suggest contacting Adobe to see if they are able to help you set up the proper settings for outputting the lower resolution output."

In Edit - Preferences - Playback - Video Device - Blackmagic Playback = Checked 

Under setup - For output of unsupported frame sizes - Scale Down = Checked

Enable mercury Transmit = Checked

SDI cable is good. 

The decklink 4K extreme 12G also has the ability to natively downscale UHD footage into HD through the desktop Video setup card, yet Premiere over rides this, yet the buttons "For output of unsupported frame sizes - Scale Down" appear to be just dead buttons and don't work 

The decklink card plays fine in HD timelines & in Davinci where you can have the native timeline resolution & output a downscaled HD resolution to reference monitor.

There's a lot of forum posts of this not working, Adobe help, I've bought 3 decklink cards now trying to get this to work, asking for a friend

[R Neil Haugen]

We're nearly all other users here, as this forum is primarily user-to-user assistance. And I'd love to have that decklink/FSI setup you've got!

Let's see if @Bruce Bullis or @Wes Howell  can respond and get some answers for you.

Neil

[logan_mcnay]

Thanks Neil! Buying all this stuff has been a bit of my long time personal project ha, just wished it worked in adobe applications

[R Neil Haugen]

It should, so we'll see if the staffers can get an answer.

My one question is for things like the unsupported scaling option, have you tried all the options it gives? I'm wondering if there's a competing thing going on between Premiere & the decklink/monitor setup. So going through and one at a time, changing the options. Checking for changes. Boring but sometimes finds the oddity.

Neil

[logan_mcnay]

Thanks, yeah there's only 3 options, I've fiddled with all of them 

For output of unsupported frames

No Output

Scale Down

Scale Up

Color Gamut:

Rec 709

Rec 2020 PQ

Rec 2020 HLG

In the Desktop Video Setup I've fiddled with all the tabs of resolutions & didn't see any change unfortunately 

[Bruce Bullis]

Sorry, no immediate clues, and no related known issues in our bug DB. [My team handles Transmit, for PPro, and we use some Flanders monitors without incident, with both Blackmagic and AJA devices.]

Logan, I sent you a link to some upload space. Could you provide a .prproj, with some representative media (brief is fine), and containing two sequences referencing the provided media; one <2k sequence (which will presumably work great), and one >2k (which will presumably produce no output)?

>The decklink 4K extreme 12G also has the ability to natively downscale UHD footage into HD through the desktop Video setup card, yet Premiere over rides this

PPro doesn't override anything Blackmagic's plug-ins are doing. I'm not sure I understand "desktop video setup card"...?

Note: We have a good working relationship with Blackmagic's plug-in developers (Transmit, BRAW Import), and routinely work with them around issues users encounter. We are not enemies. 

[R Neil Haugen]

Glad to hear you're getting along well with their devs. I use several bits of BM kit, from cameras through switchers through Resolve. And work with a lot of others based totally in the BM 'sphere' for both kit & software. I personally would want good cross-company relations.

And at NAB, I'm in the BM booth a fair amount looking over potential purchases of gear. In my experience, the BM sales people are not always ... as kind towards "the other company". And some of Grant's comments I even find towards the offensive side. Especially when he starts assigning motivations to other profit models. Rather pointedly so.

They feel a bit like Apple to me: they like having their own playground. But can make some awesome gear. Like that BMPCC4K I love to shoot ... my Atem unit ... 😉

Neil

[logan_mcnay]

Thanks Bruce! Just sent the files to you, I included one of each, short UHD, 4k, 2k, & HD video files & put them into a .prproj file organized with timelines titled for each one which work & don't work. 

>PPro doesn't override anything Blackmagic's plug-ins are doing. I'm not sure I understand "desktop video setup card"...?

That's interesting & good to know. Yeah the "desktop Video Setup" is a software (I mispoke not card, but software) that black magic recommends downloading after installing the decklink card into your computer.

Also one other thing is the 2k Alexa footage - it displays, but when it does, (because the aspect ratio is open gate 4:3, not 16:9) the FSI monitor stretches that footage into a 16:9 output. I wasn't sure if you might have any thoughts on that as well.

Thanks

[Warren Heaton]

What video devices are you seeing for Mercury Transmit options under Prefrences > Playback?

Blackmagic Playback enabled in the Mercury Transmit Video Device list

That's an After Effects screen shot as it's what I have handy (not in front of one of the Blackmagic workstations that I use at the moment), but the Premiere Pro Video Device list looks the same.

I've had issues in the past with a Panasonic broadcast reference monitor that would not display anything from the Blackmagic DeckLink card unless it was 1080i29.97 - everything else was ignored.

[logan_mcnay]

Interesting, I feel like these decklink cards can be so buggy, or Adobe just doesn't seem to support them sadly - this is what the preferences tab looks like

[Warren Heaton]

Technically, it's up to Blackmagic to support them.  Adobe just publishes some host application that Blackmagic supports.  Or when things do not work as expected “supports".

What are the Sequence settings?

[logan_mcnay]

Interesting, - this is my sequence settings, only UHD on this and it doesn't work, I also tried 4k footage  that gives no signal as well

[R Neil Haugen]

Part of the issue may be that BlackMagic has for a long time seen Adobe as almost The Enemy ... and in my experience doesn't work very hard to support their items in use elsewhere.

Note, not a single control surface they use can possibly be used outside of Resolve. You cannot map them for any other software.

And even on the BlackMagic forum (which I'm on several times a day checking things) there's always posts about someone having trouble getting their Decklink/Whatever putting out X framesize or framerate on Y monitor. Sometimes there are return comments about "Oh, that particular decklink/whatever can do Y or Z, but you want X ... return it and get this other decklink/whatever".

So even with Resolve, the cards can be a bit of a pain to sort out.

Neil

[logan_mcnay]

Dang, that's too bad. And that feels like the most right answer, especially seeing all the other posts of users not getting the decklink card to work. I'm not sure - I may just have to return the decklink since it still only really works in 1080p timelines & give up

[Richard M Knight]

Do you have the same issue if the sequence framerate is 24, 25 or 29.97?

[logan_mcnay]

I just tried switching to these different frame rates & still no luck unfortunately

[R Neil Haugen]

Richard has a good question ... as those cards can be dependent on both framesize and framerate. As in, can do several framerates at 1080, but only X framerate at 2 or 4k/UHD.

Figuring out exactly what each card does can be a right challenge.

Neil

[Mitch W · Accepted solution]

Hi Logan,
The answer is actually much less complicated than you might expect. The issue is not with your Blackmagic device. And... the issue is not with Premiere Pro. The issue is likely with your Flanders DM 241 monitor. The Flanders DM 241 will support an input of 2048x1080 but only in 30, 29.97, and 23.98 flavors (no 59.94). See Flanders Scientific DM241 tech-specs If you're ouputting a 4K signal, it's definitely not going to see it. I tried a couple of quick tests to see if I could find supporting evidence to show that the issue was with the monitor. Here's what I did... Using my BMD Decklink UltraStudio 4K mini, I loaded a 4K clip into Premiere Pro and used BMD for transmit. The 4K clip did appear on my screen on the UltraStudio showing that Premiere Pro was correctly outputting the signal because the 4K clip was a supported frame size. It did not however display on my SDI monitor, which supports similar frame sizes to your DM 241. I then dropped the 4K clip into a 1080 sequence and used scale to fit. The image again displayed on my UltraStudio monitor and now also to my 1080 monitor via SDI (see picts). To completely eliminate Premiere Pro as a potential source of the problem, I tried similar tests this time using Blackmagic Media Express. I dropped a 4K clip into Media Express and it again displayed on my UltraStudio but not the 1080 SDI monitor. I then imported a 1080 clip into Media Express and it displayed on both the UltraStudio Screen and to my SDI monitor.

 

In your case, I see two possibilities. Nest your final 4K sequence into a 1080 sequence when you want to view the output on your SDI monitor, or upgrade your existing Flanders monitor to one that supports 4K frame size inputs (the new XM series look nice). As Bruce mentions, we have a good relationship with the Blackmagic plug-in developers and are not enemies (despite what you might read in the tabloids). 

Hope this helps!
Mitch 

[logan_mcnay]

Thanks Mitch! I appreciate the answer!

[Richard M Knight]

I'm no expert but how would the BM card know you only have a HD monitor attached. If you are using HDMI I expect there is a handshake between the card and the monitor to know what the highest setting can be, I'm not sure if this happens over SDI. Can you attach via HDMI to a HD monitor to see if it works?

[Richard M Knight]

I have just tried it with my setup. UHD sequence to UltraStudio 4K with Scale down selected in setup. This going to a BM HD only Video Assist via HDMI and I get a picture. If I use the same settings and connect by SDI I don't get a picture. If I connect both HD HDMI and HD SDI to different monitors I get a picture on the HDMI but not the SDI, it looks like the BM card changes the HDMI output resolution but not the SDI.

Changing the sequence to HD I get an output on all.

[logan_mcnay]

Hey Richard, thanks sorry for the delay in reply. I just tried this & it actually kind of works! Although this is the signal I'm getting, better than anything I've ever tested before. Flanders doesn't have an HDMI input, only SDI, DP, & DVI, so I purchased a DVI to HDMI cable and this is what it looks like

The first is an HD timeline, which looks correct, the second is a 4k resolution timeline. I played around with the settings in the Desktop video setup & haven't had any luck changing it to normal, but it gives me hope. 

[Richard M Knight]

That looks a bit like rgb/yuv issue.

[logan_mcnay]

Hmm, This is my settings in the desktop video setup, when I switch the color space on RGB 4:4:4 & Y, Cb, Cr 4:2:2 it blinks but nothing really changes. Under output conversion I tried every tab in the rollout & nothing changed as well

[cinegrell024240321]

Hi Mitch, thanks for the answer.

That's quite a workaround though. In Resolve (or any other software), you can set the video output to HD no matter what the timeline resolution is - and that's what Premiere users would expect to see as well, I suppose. 

I don't know if the problem is on BMD's side or on Adobe's side though, since under Preferences > Playback > Blackmagic Playback we can select "Scale Down" for unsupported frame sizes - but cannot define to which resolution.

Is the scaling supposed to happen within the software (or GPU) or on the Decklink-Board?