Fiber Studio Converter DB-9 PTZ

Hi everyone,
I’m using the Blackmagic Fiber Converter system to connect my Polecam to the control room. Everything works perfectly when I use the Micro Studio Camera 4K G2.

However, I sometimes also use an Ikegami HDL-23 camera. Camera control for that model runs via RS-422 over a LAN cable. I’ve already built two DB-9 to LAN adapters and tried to operate the camera control via the PTZ port on the Blackmagic system – unfortunately, without success.

In the same production setup, I’ve also tried to send the sync signal through the sync input on the Studio Converter and the output on the Camera Converter. Sadly, this doesn’t seem to work either. Is this just a typical “Blackmagic quirk”?

At the moment, I have to run not only the SMPTE cable but also a separate sync cable and LAN cable across the studio – which understandably causes some frustration for the studio tech team.

Has anyone had similar experiences or might have an idea what could be causing these issues?

Best regards Marc Eggers

Hi Marc,

afaik BMD is using TiCo compression/codec for the Camera / Studio Fiber Converters. I think there have been a lot of posts about this here. Try to search for „TiCo“.

That being said, I think there is no way to get a „simple“ Sync signal transferred. TiCo is just compressing SDI (the video portion of it) signals.

https://www.tico-alliance.org/technology

You could try to PM forum member Daniel Wittenaar from xtreemtec.nl as he has a lot of experience and some custom build goodies for the BMD Fiber range (even a working solution for RS422, I believe).

Maybe that helps a little.

Knut

[Gary Adams]

Hello Marc. The DB9 RS-422 only supports VISCA protocol from Studio Fiber Converter to the camera. The Ethernet port is not implemented to the camera.

If you feed tri level reference to the Studio Converter you should see it at the Camera Fiber Converter reference out. Make sure you are feeding an SDI return signal on return 1 at the same frame rate as the camera and reference in order for all the signals to work properly.

I hope this helps. Gary