Ursa Mini 4K internal speaker

The place for questions about shooting with Blackmagic Cameras.
  • Author
  • Message
Offline

sickshow

  • Posts: 8
  • Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:49 am
  • Real Name: Alexander Tundakov

Ursa Mini 4K internal speaker

PostMon Apr 23, 2018 4:44 am

Hello! My name is Alexander. My first post here. Has anyone of you folks had any issues with the internal speaker of Ursa Mini 4K? Something is wrong with my speaker. It’s either unintelligibly quiet or, if I turn the speaker volume to 100%, it’s creaking quite loudly. You know, like an old broken radio. Is it physically damaged or is it some kind of interference, or a software glitch? Any suggestions as to how can I fix it other than turning it off for good and keep on using headphones? This is what I happily did until today, that’s why I can’t even tell for sure when it broke. This time, I was recording sound through built-in mic. Don’t have an XLR mic with me right now to check if using it can change anything. Have just updated the software to 4.9 (which is the latest for UM4K, from what I know) - to no effect. What else can I check before contacting the official support? Thanks.
Offline

sickshow

  • Posts: 8
  • Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:49 am
  • Real Name: Alexander Tundakov

Re: Ursa Mini 4K internal speaker

PostTue Apr 24, 2018 10:42 pm

sickshow wrote:Hello! My name is Alexander. My first post here. Has anyone of you folks had any issues with the internal speaker of Ursa Mini 4K? Something is wrong with my speaker. It’s either unintelligibly quiet or, if I turn the speaker volume to 100%, it’s creaking quite loudly. You know, like an old broken radio. Is it physically damaged or is it some kind of interference, or a software glitch? Any suggestions as to how can I fix it other than turning it off for good and keep on using headphones? This is what I happily did until today, that’s why I can’t even tell for sure when it broke. This time, I was recording sound through built-in mic. Don’t have an XLR mic with me right now to check if using it can change anything. Have just updated the software to 4.9 (which is the latest for UM4K, from what I know) - to no effect. What else can I check before contacting the official support? Thanks.
up


Отправлено с моего iPhone используя Tapatalk
Offline
User avatar

Uli Plank

  • Posts: 21280
  • Joined: Fri Feb 08, 2013 2:48 am
  • Location: Germany and Indonesia

Re: Ursa Mini 4K internal speaker

PostWed Apr 25, 2018 6:03 am

It is tiny and normally you'd not want to listen to it on set anyway.
Such speakers in cameras are generally only usable to hear if there is any sound recorded at all.
No, an iGPU is not enough, and you can't use HEVC 10 bit 4:2:2 in the free version.

Studio 18.6.5, MacOS 13.6.5
MacBook M1 Pro, 16 GPU cores, 32 GB RAM and iPhone 15 Pro
Speed Editor, UltraStudio Monitor 3G, iMac 2017, eGPU
Offline

sickshow

  • Posts: 8
  • Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:49 am
  • Real Name: Alexander Tundakov

Re: Ursa Mini 4K internal speaker

PostThu Apr 26, 2018 7:16 pm

This is exactly why I need this function - to hear if any sound recorded but I can’t do just that. All I hear is screeching noise or no sound at all if I mute the speaker. Does your speaker work (assuming you own an Ursa Mini 4K)? Thanks.
Offline
User avatar

rick.lang

  • Posts: 17175
  • Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2012 5:41 pm
  • Location: Victoria BC Canada

Re: Ursa Mini 4K internal speaker

PostFri Apr 27, 2018 2:53 am

Just curious, have you used headphones via the headphone jack to monitor sound? If you haven’t done that start with the gain turned down to something like 25% or less as it’s quite sensitive. The headphone jack gives you the sound as it’s being recorded so you know that’s what is on the audio track.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Rick Lang
Offline

sickshow

  • Posts: 8
  • Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:49 am
  • Real Name: Alexander Tundakov

Re: Ursa Mini 4K internal speaker

PostFri Apr 27, 2018 5:51 am

I have monitored it both through headphones and through the speaker. Yes, sound out of headphones, not taking the natural built-in mic’s noise into account, is all fine and much much louder. I think I’ve tried all the obvious combinations of sound setup at this point. I even used the color bars sound signal as a reference and it sounds normal through the speaker if I don’t push the speaker’s loudness over 50%. If I do, it starts making noises again. But the color bars reference tone must be what, 440Hz at 0dB? If so, the speaker can reproduce low frequencies around 0dB alright. Then, my assumption is, it’s the high frequencies that it handles totally wrong. I’ve just got an idea. My brother has a sound tone generator. I’m willing to go extra mile and get to the bottom of things before I start tearing this mf down :) I’ll put the speaker to test and, if anyone else is interested, will post the results. I need to think about the methodology first. I guess the good start is to reset the camera to its defaults and run the generator through the frequencies. I don’t want to mess with xlr inputs etc. I want to feed the tone into some reasonably good speakers, probably from my hi-fi sound system and then put the camera within, say, one meter of the sound source. I don’t have any professional sound level meter, though, and am not sure how precise this test can be. I think, I can check the frequencies with oscillograph but what about loudness? Well, I guess I as well can leave it to the Ursa Mini LCD’s audio meters.
Offline

sickshow

  • Posts: 8
  • Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:49 am
  • Real Name: Alexander Tundakov

Re: Ursa Mini 4K internal speaker

PostFri Apr 27, 2018 5:57 am

Also, how good are all those software sound level testers? There’s quite a few of them for iOS. Are they all just toys?
Offline
User avatar

Robert Niessner

  • Posts: 4948
  • Joined: Thu Feb 21, 2013 9:51 am
  • Location: Graz, Austria

Re: Ursa Mini 4K internal speaker

PostFri Apr 27, 2018 2:00 pm

SPL Meter is a very accurate one, I have it in use since many years.

„SPL Meter“ von Andrew Smith
https://itunes.apple.com/at/app/spl-met ... 06756?mt=8
Saying "Thx for help!" is not a crime.
--------------------------------
Robert Niessner
LAUFBILDkommission
Graz / Austria
--------------------------------
Blackmagic Camera Blog (German):
http://laufbildkommission.wordpress.com

Read the blog in English via Google Translate:
http://tinyurl.com/pjf6a3m
Offline

sickshow

  • Posts: 8
  • Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:49 am
  • Real Name: Alexander Tundakov

Re: Ursa Mini 4K internal speaker

PostSat Apr 28, 2018 7:12 am

Thanks, I’ll give it a try.

Return to Cinematography

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Bob Moore, Shawn Miller and 104 guests