URSA Mini 4.6K Pro Video Feed Freezes After Cold Boot
Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2021 9:54 amWell, this may be one strange post which may not go anywhere, but what the heck.
ISSUE
There's been an issue I've seen pop up on multiple URSA's (1st gen) outside the warranty period...and well, now it has happen to the URSA our student media program utilizes (which I believe was purchased about three years ago).
When the URSA turns on with a cold boot (camera wasn't utilized for a few hours), it appears to work just as normal, but then after a few seconds, the video feed will "glitch out" and "freeze" on a random frame. After this occurs, the camera will not get anymore live picture from the sensor. A demo of this can be seen here in which I started the camera with a cold boot, and immediately pressed record to record the issue.
As you can see, the video captures the catastrophic failure, and then proceeds to show "Media Offline", but you see, this is only in the recording that it shows "media offline", on the actual camera itself, it will just keep showing the last frame it was able to grab on ALL SDI outputs as well as the attached screen. Thus, the error must be from a component that is in between the video's generation (through the sensor) and to whatever processing the camera must do before sending the signal to the outputs.
Background Of Myself & My School
I am a senior finishing up my B.S. in Embedded Systems Engineering Technology as well as my A.E. Software Engineering Technology. My School is targeted towards STEM fields with engineers and medical students making up most of the on-campus population. With the school not focusing much around the arts, I took it upon myself to share my passion with others and built a strong film program on campus (hence the camera, hence the problem haha). With that being said, we have many intelligent people from electrical engineers to embedded, software, etc. who may be able to take apart the camera and see if there are any clear issues with any of the components. Obviously if there is a problem with an FPGA or similar type of chip, then there is no way we could simply order an off the shelf part without being able to properly program the chip (unless Blackmagic's Software Updater Tool does allow for the chips we'd need replaced to be re-programmed). What makes this repair even more difficult is the fact that there are no schematics available to the general public for the camera (which is understandable if Blackmagic is trying to protect their products, but makes it difficult for people like us to fix a camera, or at least identify the issue as being one that may not be feasibly fixed).
What I've Tried
Contacting Blackmagic customer service was the first action taken once this happened, but unfortunately, this product has a limited 1-year warranty and thus is out of the warranty period. I asked if I could pay for someone to just fix it, and the rep told me that this camera is classified as a legacy product and so they wont touch it, thus- the only way to repair this camera is to do it ourselves or go through somebody else that has dealt with these types of repairs. Unfortunately, trying to find someone else has been difficult, and it's starting to look like we may have to take this on ourselves, but without schematics and spare boards, this would be an incredibly difficult challenge. So then, my final question to wrap this all up, with knowing everything that's been said in the post, does anyone have any suggestions as to what to do with the camera.
Current Camera Lifecycle Stage (What We've Already Done Apparently)
1.) Buy It
2.) Use It
3.) Break It
Next Stage Of Camera Lifecycle (What We Could Do)
4a.) Fix It (Performed By Ourselves)
4b.) Trash It (Performed By Ourselves)
4c.) Change It (Performed By Ourselves)
4c.) CHAINSAW IT (Performed By ME, IF WE GO DOWN THIS ROUTE, I'M THE ONE WHO ADVOCATED FOR THE CAMERA, I SHOULD BE THE ONE TO PUT IT DOWN!.)
4c.) Upgrade It (Like to an iPhone or something...hear they have 8K now)
ISSUE
There's been an issue I've seen pop up on multiple URSA's (1st gen) outside the warranty period...and well, now it has happen to the URSA our student media program utilizes (which I believe was purchased about three years ago).
When the URSA turns on with a cold boot (camera wasn't utilized for a few hours), it appears to work just as normal, but then after a few seconds, the video feed will "glitch out" and "freeze" on a random frame. After this occurs, the camera will not get anymore live picture from the sensor. A demo of this can be seen here in which I started the camera with a cold boot, and immediately pressed record to record the issue.
As you can see, the video captures the catastrophic failure, and then proceeds to show "Media Offline", but you see, this is only in the recording that it shows "media offline", on the actual camera itself, it will just keep showing the last frame it was able to grab on ALL SDI outputs as well as the attached screen. Thus, the error must be from a component that is in between the video's generation (through the sensor) and to whatever processing the camera must do before sending the signal to the outputs.
Background Of Myself & My School
I am a senior finishing up my B.S. in Embedded Systems Engineering Technology as well as my A.E. Software Engineering Technology. My School is targeted towards STEM fields with engineers and medical students making up most of the on-campus population. With the school not focusing much around the arts, I took it upon myself to share my passion with others and built a strong film program on campus (hence the camera, hence the problem haha). With that being said, we have many intelligent people from electrical engineers to embedded, software, etc. who may be able to take apart the camera and see if there are any clear issues with any of the components. Obviously if there is a problem with an FPGA or similar type of chip, then there is no way we could simply order an off the shelf part without being able to properly program the chip (unless Blackmagic's Software Updater Tool does allow for the chips we'd need replaced to be re-programmed). What makes this repair even more difficult is the fact that there are no schematics available to the general public for the camera (which is understandable if Blackmagic is trying to protect their products, but makes it difficult for people like us to fix a camera, or at least identify the issue as being one that may not be feasibly fixed).
What I've Tried
Contacting Blackmagic customer service was the first action taken once this happened, but unfortunately, this product has a limited 1-year warranty and thus is out of the warranty period. I asked if I could pay for someone to just fix it, and the rep told me that this camera is classified as a legacy product and so they wont touch it, thus- the only way to repair this camera is to do it ourselves or go through somebody else that has dealt with these types of repairs. Unfortunately, trying to find someone else has been difficult, and it's starting to look like we may have to take this on ourselves, but without schematics and spare boards, this would be an incredibly difficult challenge. So then, my final question to wrap this all up, with knowing everything that's been said in the post, does anyone have any suggestions as to what to do with the camera.
Current Camera Lifecycle Stage (What We've Already Done Apparently)
1.) Buy It
2.) Use It
3.) Break It
Next Stage Of Camera Lifecycle (What We Could Do)
4a.) Fix It (Performed By Ourselves)
4b.) Trash It (Performed By Ourselves)
4c.) Change It (Performed By Ourselves)
4c.) CHAINSAW IT (Performed By ME, IF WE GO DOWN THIS ROUTE, I'M THE ONE WHO ADVOCATED FOR THE CAMERA, I SHOULD BE THE ONE TO PUT IT DOWN!.)
4c.) Upgrade It (Like to an iPhone or something...hear they have 8K now)