Detective work in Paris

Some months ago Daniel (our French representative) complained that every morning his SR-4 crashed when turned on, when reset or restarted it worked without problem. My test unit in the UK however did not suffer from the same problem even with identical software and setup.

A visit to Paris found a bug reading the EEPROM that caused the unit to crash if it could not interface with the EEPROM there remained the problem of why it was not reading the EEPROM.

This week Daniel swapped the chip used to read and write to the EEPROM, this cured the problem, but even when the old chip was put back the problem was gone!

The moral of this story is that if you are having strange problems on old equipment (the SR-4 4 was probably 15 years old) try removing any IC's on sockets and cleaning them!  

Advance Information on a new remote for the RM-6

Bellow is the TFT-422 the first in a new series of remotes that we are developing this year, This uses a TFT Display, with combination of  LCD keys and normal keys.

In developing a new remote for the RM-6 we have added two features to our remote controls, as follows

1) TFT display, our new interface can drive 3.5", 4.3" and 5" displays, the TFT display is the same as used on most smart phones and gives a bright clearly legible display capable of showing more information than the existing 2x40 LCD display.. One of the more obvious differences in designing a panel for LCD or TFT displays is the shape, this required changing the panel and the layout of the display. The display on the above panel is a 3.5" TFT.

2) LCD Keys, allowing macros to be changed easily, allowing individual users to define there own key sets. In using LCD Keys you have to take in consideration that they are bigger and deeper that our standard switches  and cost 15x as much. Because this is a free standing unit it would be impossible to use LCD Switches at the front as they are too deep.

We are also planning a new built in panel with all LCD keys except for the Numeric keyboard with an option of extra keys or Jog Wheel

Digitizing Audio from Film using Wordclock as a reference

When transferring audio it is important for the audio to run at the correct speed, positional lock with the moving image a separate procedure often using a punch frame or clapper at the beginning of the reel . If the speed is not correct the sound and image will drift apart, the longer the reel the further they can drift.

We were asked to devise  system to make a simple locked transfer from film to Digital Audio, the customer also wanted to control the film from the DAW. We recommended  our BS-1 Bi phase generator with Sony 9 pin control input. To simplify the system added  a wordclock reference input to the BS-1 removing the need to a video sync generator.

If the workstation does not have a Sony 9 pin output but has Midi Machine Control then our P2MMC-usb can be used to control the BS-1.

Protools Loops, LTC Dropout and Master Error (RM-6/SR)

This week I have added yet another menu to the software as follows!

Menu 022- Rdr Dropout/Master Code Jump
0= Ignore 1=10frm Dropout 2=Re-Lock

The default selection in the original software is equivalent to 1=10frm Dropout.

Protools Loops
When you loop on Protools as a master the slave machines did not follow as the standard setting will roll over timecode jumps, Select 2=Re-Lock for the slaves to follow.

LTC Dropout
For Live performance I have been asked to make the system Jam to the LTC and then ignore dropouts. Select 0=Ignore for this. Once the system has seen timecode the generator will run as master until either
1) The Reader receives Stationary timecode
2) The unit receives a stop command.

Master Error
The software now displays a master error (the difference between the generator and the master timecode) in the same way as the slaves. The master error is only displayed when not zero. If not zero and changing then the the master and controller are not locked to the same reference.

 

VDCP - Video Disk Control Protocol

With the onset of file based systems I am surprised that I have not been asked before to implement this protocol. A few years ago we added the DD35 protocol to the SR-4 for FranceTelevision to control a EVS Video Server using . We have also implemented some Odetics support. The DD35 and  Odetics protocols  are both of these are extensions to the Sony P2  protocol as is our own xmc protocol used by CBServer. VDCP uses the same RS422 format and speed but has a completely different structure.

I have modified our Sony P2 test software to include the basic VDCP command set and we can now read the file names, select clips and control the transport, the next step will be Synchronisation and Insert Record.

There are still a few commands that I am having trouble with, but the basics are there. The first software will be for the the RM-6 synchroniser, I will then add the protocol to the UR controllers.

When will we implement Ethernet protocols? The problem is that no protocol stands out as a standard. Most are in house protocols which are not published, this makes them difficult if not impossible to implement.

No More Eproms!

The RomUpd card and program are now working very well, and all future SR-4's, RM-6's and dedicated systems  will have it fitted.  This week I was adding a user request to the software and used it for debugging the program. There is nothing like using a program to work out the wrinkles. The installation is also easy as only four connections are made to the processor board with NO track cuts. Just be careful not to lose the screws!

USB-422 Low Latency Driver for Mac

The USB-422 uses the FTDI chipset, this has been very reliable and has the advantage of well supported drivers for Windows, Mac and Linux.

The only drawback of the standard FTDI driver is that it is shipped with a standard latency of 16 mSec which is long for RS422 control, especially at 29.97fps where one frame is only 33 mSec.

The data sheet shipped with the USB-422 includes details of how to reduce the latency and change the com port number for Windows applications, I have just modified this to suggest a latency setting of 1 or 2 mSec and not 4 mSec as before.

Latency adjustment for the Mac is more complicated as the driver must be modified and re-installed. To make this modification easier I have updated the USB-422 web page with a low latency driver and installation instructions.

http://www.colinbroad.com/cbsoft/usb422/usb422.html