Ursa Mini 4.6k no signal from either SDI

So I've had my URSA mini 4.6k for a couple weeks now and everything's going great. Used it on a job this past weekend, and today while I was doing a prep the SDI signal from the camera crapped out on me. First the front SDI didn't send any signal and then the back one worked for about a minute and stopped working.

Cycled power on both camera and monitor. Swapped SDI cables on both. Swapped AC versus battery on both. Toggled all the display settings around. Can't get picture back to my monitor. Checked my monitor with another camera and picture came across just fine. Tried to hook up the camera to my mini recorder and get picture on my computer and nothing.

If it matters the monitor is a smallHD AC7

Anyone at BM got any ideas?

Thanks!

So I've had my URSA mini 4.6k for a couple weeks now and everything's going great. Used it on a job this past weekend, and today while I was doing a prep the SDI signal from the camera crapped out on me. First the front SDI didn't send any signal and then the back one worked for about a minute and stopped working.

Cycled power on both camera and monitor. Swapped SDI cables on both. Swapped AC versus battery on both. Toggled all the display settings around. Can't get picture back to my monitor. Checked my monitor with another camera and picture came across just fine. Tried to hook up the camera to my mini recorder and get picture on my computer and nothing.

If it matters the monitor is a smallHD AC7

Anyone at BM got any ideas?

Thanks!

There has been issues with SDI's blowing in the past that are to do with grounding the signal through the middle SDI pin. (touching the middle pin or shorting it on the connector.)

In most cases it was to do with distributed powered accessories being powered from the same battery as the camera.

The way to avoid this happening was to try and avoid touching the middle pin or better still, use protected power supply or two separate power supplies.

Not saying this is what happened, but if you do a search here for blown SDI on the BMCC you'll find a few threads. This can also blow SDI's on your other equipment that you're connecting to as well.

EDIT...Here's the thread...

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=22659&p=216464#p216464

JB

It's just a bummer. I've now had three BM cameras crap out on me due to burned out SDI. Different rentals. Different people. Different accessories. The only underlying factor is BM cameras. While I'm sure other manufacturers have their SDI burn out I think it's insane that I've randomly been dealt three that do that.

Shane, are you trying to connect SDI cables to the camera/monitors, etc while the equipment is powered up? If so, this is the source of your "bad luck" with BM cameras and SDI. The SDI cable connections are not "hot swapable" like some HDMI is, yiu need to power down the equipment, connect the SDI cables, and repower the equipment back up. This should help reduce your SDI failures, unless you have a monitor or accessory you are trying to use, that has wa ground leak/fault, that is causing the SDI port to short out.
Cheers

When you buy a washing machine or dishwasher, usually the first few pages in the user manual are all the warnings and techniques that must be followed for safe and successful operation of the appliance. With BMD cameras reaching a very broad user base, some of whom didn't go to film school or intern under a DP on a motion picture set, it might make sense for BMD to devote a page or two at the beginning of their manual to simple advice on proper use of all their camera connectors particularly the use of SDI, XLR, and power connections! I don't know about you, but I'm tired of reading how people have such bad luck to be on their third camera possibly due to their inadvertent usage errors and that BMD Support doesn't appear to be giving useful advice on how to prevent problems when people connect them with a camera fail.

Yes we are responsible for our own mistakes, but having these operational warning messages in the manual right at the start might save them many thousands of dollars and very frustrated customers.


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Yes we are responsible for our own mistakes, but having these operational warning messages in the manual right at the start might save them many thousands of dollars and very frustrated customers.

The one thing I don't get is: Making the SDI input safe from these kinds of issues costs less than 2$ per port. It's virtually three 50c components on the PCB... It is appalling how all the "lowcost" vendors (BMD, IKAN, ...) run into these issues when all it would take is some minimal effort.



We hotplug Arris and Reds all the time and I've yet to encounter an issue (not saying that it couldn't happen, but it seems way less frequent).

It is appalling how all the "lowcost" vendors (BMD, IKAN, ...) run into these issues when all it would take is some minimal effort.

Reports of Red's and Sony F55's with same issue in just this one thread here. If you search around, you can find instances from most cameras, no matter their cost:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.ph ... ing-shorts

The fact of the matter while I'm sure it happens with every camera manufacturer the frequency for which it happens to BM seems to be a little higher. The first RMA I had to do for it BM did not mention this hot swap as potential source of the problem, so I went blindly renting my gear not warning people of the problem.

Read the manual last night and couldn't find any sort of documentation on the matter. Never in all my years around Red's, Arri's, Sonys, you name it, have I heard an AC or DP tell me the horrors of hot swapping SDI. It just isn't practical for the quick nature of a film set to be powering down a camera every time you have to plug in an SDI. People are hot swapping SDI all the time and that's the just the way it goes. There should either be an explicit warning about it or a fix.

... Never in all my years around Red's, Arri's, Sonys, you name it, have I heard an AC or DP tell me the horrors of hot swapping SDI. It just isn't practical for the quick nature of a film set to be powering down a camera every time you have to plug in an SDI. People are hot swapping SDI all the time and that's the just the way it goes. There should either be an explicit warning about it or a fix.

Shane, completely agree. Fix it or post a warning.

I just reread my post that expressed my frustration. I wasn't thinking of you when I wrote that, but making a general observation that anyone who is new to SDI, especially on BMD cameras, needs a heads-up right at the beginning of the BMD camera manual.