HyperDeck Control

My Name is Matt Gililland and I am a Control Systems Programmer in Houston. I was recently given the task of controlling a BlackMagic HyperDeck via TCP/IP using a QSC Qsys control system. I went over the protocol, made sure my sockets and ports were correct, and attempted to connect TCP/IP to port 9993. I got a response when the socket connected of 500 and the name of the unit, but after that, i got no control or any response at all, including unsolicited responses from pressing the buttons on the unit. I then connected using PuTTy to the same IP and port and it worked right away, the unit controlled and responded commands and gave unsolicited feedback. Beyond the control that is laid out in the manual are there any other negotiation factors in play that I need to know about? I am really stuck on this one.

Hi, Matt! I found your question while searching for exactly the same thing. I had wired up buttons in a text controller to send "stop", "play", and "record" for basic operation. They weren't working, so I turned to the internet and got it to work.

Make sure you add the line ending to your commands. I added "\r\n" to the end of each to be as much like what the HyperDeck would get from a telnet session as possible, but only the "\n" is required. (The "\r" on its own doesn't trigger it. Ending with "\n" and "\r\n" does.)

Hope that helps!

P.S. I figured it out watching Introduction to the HyperDeck Control Protocol on the developer page (can't post a link) at about 1:50 when he says it's a "text-based protocol".

If you can ensure the deck is using the latest firmware (8.4 currently) then there's a newly implemented REST protocol which I've personally found quite a lot easier to deal with that the proprietary TCP one that was the status quo before.

The manual was lacking a few details about endpoints, but I've figured them out and detailed them in some posts here:
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=200616

Overall I've found it easier to program for and more responsive. There's an outstanding issue with some inaccurate details being provided by the Websocket notification service, but if they're important to you, it's easy to use the Websocket notification as a trigger to poll directly to double-check the information.