Intensity Pro 4K adding black frames

Hi,

I’ve got an Intensity Pro 4K setup in one PC to capture the output from another PC via HDMI. The content being captured is real-time output from Unreal Engine, it is not a game, but for the purpose of this issue it can be considered to be.

Every time there is a significant change in content, a number of black frames are introduced into the capture that were not present in the original. This also happens with some camera cuts. The black frames may even appear while capturing the PC desktop when I open and close a text editor that takes up a significant portion of the screen.

This issue exists when capturing using Blackmagic Media Express or OBS. The problem is actually exaggerated with BME.

The key question is: Can I apply any settings to the Intensity Pro 4K, or the software, to allow capturing the raw video?

Thanks,

Derek

Were you able to get an answer to this? I am having the same issue.

[Tony Rivera]

Could it be that the fps are changing to something different than what the IP4K initially sees and thus the black frames are being introduced? If you take a known working source that won't have any variance of format (resolution and frame rate), does it do the same thing? We'd suggest testing with a camera to verify that.

Hi Tony,

Thanks, that could be what is happening. So when the frame rate drops, does the IP4K introduce black frames? Is there a way to get it to just hold the last good frame until it returns to the expected rate?

Thanks,

Derek

Hi,

Thanking about this some more, I'm confused about why the IP4K is affected by the frame rate drop in the game engine as follows:

Yes, the UE4 game engine is likely dropping frames at those times the IP4K is displaying back frames, but surely the Nividia card is still refreshing the HDMI signal at a constant 50Hz. After all, as far as it is concerned it is driving a monitor at a fixed refresh rate. Why/how is the IP4K detecting a game engine frame rate drop if that does not change the HDMI refresh rate?

Thanks,

Derek

[Tony Rivera]

It's a capture device and not a monitor where it takes into consideration variances of signals. As I mentioned previously, a good way to test to see if there's an issue with the product is to connect a camera of some sort that will have a consistent format output to the card and see if you have issues with black frames during the recording. You may also want to check the cabling and see if that might be an issue.