Intensity Pro 4k - going to sleep and waking

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StuartcmPorter

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Intensity Pro 4k - going to sleep and waking

PostSun Nov 19, 2017 10:19 am

Hi, I work for a charity in the UK and we are currently installing live streaming set ups in churches. I've got an issue with BM Intensity Pro 4K going to "sleep" and wondered if anyone has any advice. I've been talkign to BM support for weeks but they are stumped - it's not a simple issue. I'll explain the setup and efforts we've made to try and stop this happening - hopefully someone has experienced something similar and can give some advice.

Setup
We're using a Pan Zoom Tilt CCTV camera which is set to "always on" and outputs an AHD signal. The camera is plugged into an AHD to HDMI converter which has a loopout to a networked PVR so I can control the camera settings remotely if necessary. The HDMI output from the converter is plugged into the BM Intensity Pro 4K card. Thats itself is plugged into the PCIe slot on a very capable ASUS machine running Win7 - We picked Win7 as were were told it was more stable for the video card than later versions. The ASUS us set to never turn off the hard drives and I have been into the BIOS to set the Power On By PCIe is set to enabled. On the machine we have some bespoke scheduling software which triggers Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder to stream at a set time each week.

We set up our first system in April and it works flawlessly. The ONLY difference to that setup is that we had to insert an HDMI splitter between the AHD to HDMI converter and the Intensity Pro 4K card to remove HDCP. When we set up our next installs in August we did not need to do this for some reason - I can't work out why, the equipment is all exactly the same as we're even running the same versions of the BM software.

The Problem
When we have installed the machines in the churches they have worked straight away. Opening BM Media express we can see a lovely image and hear sound - this assists us in the setup only as we cannot leave BM Media express open because it conflicts with Adobe FMLE. And our scheduler is able to stream video to the right place reliably.

However, once we have left the setups, it appears that the Intensity Pro 4K card is going to sleep. When I log on to the machines remotely, and open BM Desktop Video Setup, the card says it can see the HDMI input with the correct resolution - in our case 1080p@60. Using the networked PVR I can see that the camera is working and has not gone to sleep. However when I open BM Media Express there is no image or audio.

The only reliable way to wake the card seems to be to unplug and replug the HDMI cable. However I have found a pattern whereby if the camera receives a strong light source it seems to shock the card to wake up - by this I mean that on two occasions we turned on the lights in the church which went from dark to light, and the card work up. But this does not happen every time so I'm only including it as background information incase anyone has seen anything similar.

Once the card has woken up it stays a wake for anywhere between 15 minute to a day and a half. However, even if BM Media Express is left open, it will still go to sleep.

Tests we've done
We have tried updating the BM software to the latest version 10.9.7 and rolling back the BM software - currently using 10.9 which is reliable at our first church.
We have swapped out pieces of kit and replaced cables.
We have run bars and audio from the BM Video card back into itself for an hour - which did not result in the card crashing
We have tested and replaced the AHD to HDMI converter and illimiated that as an issue
We tried adding an HDMI splitter into the setup but no video was detected by the BM Video card

So, thats our problem, in a nutshell. I hope I've not forgotten anything. Does anyone have any advice, or similar experiences?

Thanks in advance, Stuart

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