Blackmagic Forum

I have a weird problem with my ursa viewfinder. All its buttons are working but for some weird reason i cant turn false color off from viewfinder menu. All option in the viewfinder menu are set on and there is no option for off...I've tried all function buttons but still cant turn off false color or anything from viewfinders own menu.
Help is appreciated.

Seems like you are viewing the options but when you see an item On that you want Off, use a button to select that item and press one of the other buttons and it will toggle to Off. The waltzing with the menu buttons may not be documented but you just play with the buttons until it works.

I've tried all the buttons. Only option that goes off is lut, everything else from b&w to zepra, etc, just stays on...

When did you first notice this problem? Has it been that way since day one or is this a change in behaviour? On which cameras have you used the Blackmagic Viewfinder? Are the Viewfinder’s and camera’s firmware up-to-date?

Just noticed this 2 days ago. I have ursa mini 4k. I dont think it's broken, OFF option just disappeared.

Originally I thought this was operator error but of course I don’t think that now. Strange if all other functions are working properly. I wonder if one of the buttons is no longer responding to a press? Do all three buttons seem to work properly when used for functions other than the On/Off toggle of a feature?

By the way, I have False Colour as a button press since I use that very frequently so I don’t set On/Off vía the menu tree. Can you try that option?

Yes. All of those buttons work. I can navigate through evf menu, i can toggle lut on or off and i also can toggle meters, but not the zepras etc...

Okay that appears to rule out a physical button press failure. That seems to be a software issue.

One more suggestion: for the things that do not turn Off, are they already turned on on the camera menu? There is interaction between the Viewfinder and the camera. Possibly toggling something on the camera will get things set right again although that shouldn’t be needed.

No, all options are OFF from cameras own menu. I've tried to toggle false color off from there but it just toggles another false color in top of efv false color.

Even though your warranty has expired, I’d still let BMD Support know as this is very odd. I was not able to reproduce the problem on the URSA Mini 4.6K.

Unfortunately i have already contacted bmd support when this hapoenef, but havent answered.

The first thing they would be trying to do is see if they can reproduce the problem and then they have something to correct. That can take time given that no one else has reported this problem AFAIK.

I haven’t read the details in the manuals about the BMVF, but if there is a way to reset the device, that will likely clear your issue. It’s easy to do reset on the camera of course. Might be worth trying as the camera reset might impact the BMVF too.

The other option is erase the camera firmware by replacing it with an older version of the firmware. If that clears the issue, then reinstall the latest version of the firmware and you’ll hopefully be good to go. Bit of work on your part but might be worth the effort.

Well...older updates didn't help at all, amd neither did camera settings reset. Unfortunately evf doesn't have reset option (which would be good).

Thanks for patiently trying all those suggestions. Looks like you’ll need to send the BMVF to BMD Support for analysis. It is difficult to diagnose when you can alter some settings in the list but not other settings in the same list. Programmatically this doesn’t make sense. Electrically this doesn’t make sense.

Have you tried to mount your BMVF on a different camera? BMD will likely put it on their own camera and if they tell you there isn’t a problem when they tried it, you may just waste your time and money. If you returned both the camera and the BMVF you’d at least have given them a setup where the problem is evident.

I cant try it in different camera, but i did connect the viewfinder to back sdi, but no results. Im also thinking of buying a sdi monitor to check if the camera is the problem.

When you tried it in the Main SDI, did you set the Monitor / Main SDI / SDI Output to 1080p? That should work for you. The 3G SDI cable on the BMVF won’t reach unless you pull the BMVF out of the slot in the top handle. Worth a try I suppose.

Yes, same result as in front sdi.

At this time, I think you can talk to BMD Support again. They may suggest sending them the BMVF. I’m afraid there’s nothing more to try if you can’t connect that BMVF to another camera.

Just got new viewfinder from Blackmagic, so everything is working now They have very good service.

Excellent!