Blackmagic Forum

I am having a strange problem that I cannot, for the life of me, figure out.

I have a Constellation 2ME HD that I recently updated to 9.4. After that, I've had a problem where I get random flickering across all inputs. Right now, I have signal going to 19 of the 20 inputs. However, and this is the fun part, if I remove just one of the computer inputs at random, everything appears to be ok again.

I have a total of (8) computers, 4 Mac Mini M1s, and 4 PCs are sending signal with one of the machines having a DeckLink 8K Pro card sending (4) sdi out as cut and fill graphics from Resolume Arena.

I have checked out each individual machine, output, and for the sources that require it, hdmi/sdi conversion.

Each signal looks fine on my field monitor, however, after the 9.4 update, I am left with this random haunting that I am unable to track down to any one source/signal.

Anyone else see anything like this or possibly have an idea of what I could be overlooking?

Thanks.

I've also noticed some quirks with both of my Constellation 2ME:s
After I upgraded to 9.3 I got some intermittent flickering when using "long" SDI cables, for some definition of long. Sometimes with 15m cables, and sometime with 80m cables. The cables all worked well before upgrading, and no issues with my TVS HD:s.
I upgraded to 9.4, but it didn't make a difference. I haven't had time to downgrade and see if that resolves the issue.

I found a workaround though - if I put a converter (like a BMD bidir HDMI/SDI) right before the switcher, the flickering goes away.

webexse wrote:I've also noticed some quirks with both of my Constellation 2ME:s
After I upgraded to 9.3 I got some intermittent flickering when using "long" SDI cables, for some definition of long. Sometimes with 15m cables, and sometime with 80m cables. The cables all worked well before upgrading, and no issues with my TVS HD:s.
I upgraded to 9.4, but it didn't make a difference. I haven't had time to downgrade and see if that resolves the issue.

I found a workaround though - if I put a converter (like a BMD bidir HDMI/SDI) right before the switcher, the flickering goes away.

That's interesting. I've tried a few more things since my original post.
I did have the back of my rack paneled and so short SDI jumpers were going from the switcher, hyperdecks, audio monitor, and web presenters out to the back panel. I don't believe this was causing anything as I've had this setup a long time before updating to 9.4. However, while making things clean and easier to access, the back paneling limited access to the back of the units and also limited certain routing and signal flow options as I didn't have EVERY port sent out to the panel and rather "optimized" ports for my typical signal flow. So, as of now, the custom port panel has been removed and I am connecting everything straight into the switcher and other units on the rack.

I also ran reference out of one of my hyperdecks down to the PC with the DeckLink 8k card in an attempt to get it to lock onto what the rest of the source flow is doing. I have heard that if you are using the DeckLink cards for playback of any sort, you pretty much HAVE to reference lock them to keep them in sync with everything else.

I've also updated my software to the 9.5 update that was just released, although that did not install any new firmware on the Constellation, and rather updated my ATEM Mini Extreme Pro ISO that I have as well.

Anyway, all that to say that I recently hooked the machine with the DeckLink card back into the switcher, along with all of my other sources and let everything "burn" for a bit and now, wouldn't you know it, I am not seeing the random flicker. Will be closely monitoring it and doing a few more tests where I fire everything up and let it "burn" for a bit to be sure before my next event where I'll be using my system.