A7III no longer works with UltraStudio Mini Recorder

I've been tearing my hair out with this today. Recent firmware and/or software updates have lead to the A7III (one of the most popular cameras in the world right now) not working with the Mini Recorder. There's no longer any way to stream footage to my Mac.

This is an issue that many people seem to be having, including well-known vlogger Jason Vong who mentioned in the comments of his video about live streaming with Sony cameras that he no longer uses a Mini Recorder for this reason.

I'm not sure how to contact the engineering team, but is this something that could be looked into? Has anyone out there with the A7III managed to get it working?

I just bought the UltraStudio Mini Recorder and I have the sony a7iii. I can't get it to work for the life of me. Can anyone help? This is so frustrating I'm about to ship it back

Is this an A7 III only issue? I recently purchased the Mini Recorder for use with my A7R III - not getting any picture and even QuickTime says "This Operation could not be completed" when I select the Mini Recorder as an input. Any help appreciated.

[Tony Rivera]

Send an email to your regions support office and you can also reference this post so that the support team can look into this.

Does anyone of you found a solution for this? I've bougt the Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Recorder today, but cant get it to work with A7RIII.

Did anyone already check the Output resolution and framerate on a normal tv?? Hit the INFO button and see what it says.

Ultrastudio mini recorders only support up to 1080i50/60. I bet the camera outputs 1080P50/60 or some other resolution not supported by the UMR

HD Video Standards

720p50, 720p59.94, 720p60
1080p23.98, 1080p24, 1080p25, 1080p29.97, 1080p30
1080PsF23.98, 1080PsF24, 1080PsF25, 1080PsF29.97, 1080PsF30
1080i50, 1080i59.94, 1080i60

Color Space

REC 601, REC 709

HDMI Video Sampling

4:4:4, 4:2:2 & 4:2:0

I'm having the same issue, I got a UMR from Amazon and the techs said it was faulty. They sent me another and it's doing the same exact thing as the first one. Can someone confirm that this is only affection the Sony a7iii? Maybe I should gave with the elgato one

I contacted BMD and Sony today. We went through the tech support process. BMD design determined it was compatibility issues and so did Sony. Apparently, the a7 series doesn't support the proper output.

You need to know what Res and frame rates are being outputted by the camera. Once you know that you can select a capture card that works with those resolutions.
As mentioned above prob a 1080i Vs 1080p or mode A mode B scenario.

From my mobile using Tapatalk

I can use the Mini Recorder with my A7RII perfectly fine, but only if I set the camera's HDMI output to 1080i, anything else like "Auto" or 1080p (not even to mention 4K) will break the connection. If this setting is not available in the menu anymore, I'd blame Sony.

My business is just starting out so forgive me if this question is elementary.

We purchased a Decklink hd 3D extreme card used on eBay. We plugged it in yesterday and even though the packaging it does 1080 we can’t can only get the media express software to show up setting one of our cameras to 720.

Initially we are trying to capture using an A7 II, Hero 5 neither of those sources does the capture card detect or bring in the video. We took our Nikon 7100 and set to 720 and we are getting video into the system.

I am assuming that we can capture two Sid inputs and the one hdmi all at the same time or is that not going to happen?

I noticed in another post the capture had to be set to 720p50. We are running win 10 pro

Hi Neil,
No that card will only input 1 channel at a time. It has more inputs so you can switch between them in software to select which source you want to capture from. Like a TV were you can choose which input you want to have as a source.
Only the modern Decklink Duo, Decklink Quad and 8K Pro have more channels then 1.

The Card you bought is a rather old card!! As you bought it from ebay are you even sure it is a good working one? It might be defective!
Also did you install the new Desktop Video 11 software? And if so did you get a promt to update the firmware of the card? If not your card is not active correct in the computer.

Thank you for the diagram. The card does work and yes it is old, however we only stream a couple times a year so it was the right price for our purpose.

It is capturing in 1080 it was a matter of I got in there and started experimenting! The Sony A7 II still does not work but we have other options.

I am hopeful my second channel of Sdi does work we were plugging into the wrong port.

Neil

SDI Input A would be the only port that would work in SDI input mode. Because it is a 3D card. The SDI in B port is only for 3D purposes.

Thank you that is good to know.

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to let you know that after countless sessions of trying just about everything under the sun to get the A7iii to work with my BMD Ultrastudio Mini Recorders (swapping cables, swapping UMRs around with other working cameras simultaneously running through the same computer, countless reboots, switching the System Preferences BlackMagic Desktop Video settings from SDI and back to HDMI etc... along with various permutations of the above "fix attempts"), the solution that worked for me was to cycle HDMI Info Display from On to Off whilst connected via HDMI. This is assuming that you have the camera set to 1080i of course. As random and voodoo as this solution seems, I have replicated this as being successful, at least on my side. I'm not sure why but perhaps the menu setting switch refreshes, declares and negotiates the appropriate/compatible HDMI settings effectively to the UMR this way.

Please report back here with results.

Thanks so much

Toggling TC on/off (either setting) worked for me but only after I reset the mini recorder.

HDMI set to
1080i
HDMI Control On

Works

I am having a similar problem with a Sony RX100M6. I've tried your suggestions above but it doesn't seem to solve the issue. I'm wondering if there is some other issue like the color space/ format that needs to be set as well.

I also have a Fuji XT3 which works fine with the same Mini Recorder, and the RX100M6 I've tested the cables going to a TV which works fine as well.

So it seems something funky about the Sony's output that the Mini Recorder doesn't like.

There is some handshaking going on between the camera and the Mini Recorder, if you have HDMI Info Display turned on, and plug the camera into the Mini Recorder, the camera screen goes blank. Also, if you switch between SDI and HDMI, the screen comes back when switched to SDI in the Desktop Video Setup app. So the Sony seems to know it's talking to the HDMI, but it's not outputting a format that is recognized.

Bummer, because these little RX100 cameras look great in low light and are quite compact.

I've tried everything listed here with no success. Impossible to make my A7III work with BM UltraStudio Mini Recorder. I've tried on Mac (MacBoor Air and MacBook Pro).
Any other clues?

I've tried it all on here too and am unable to get it working with my Sony A7SII. It's a bummer because it was all working a few weeks ago when I bought the BMD and was running macOS Mojave. The only thing that's changed for me is I updated to Catalina, which doesn't even run OBS currently. Very frustrating

I'm going to try it with my RED camera via SDI later today to try narrowing down whether it's MacOS thing or a Sony HDMI compatibility thing.

My setup:
Sony A7SII -> HDMI -> BMD UltraStudio Mini Rec -> Thunderbolt cable -> Apple Thunderbolt to USBC dongle -> 2017 MacBook Pro w/ Touch Bar
BMD is running the current 11.4.1 software
MacOS is the current Catalina 10.15

Worked for months perfectly with Sony RX100 Mark III on Mojave, AND still does on my MacBook Air. (running Mojave).
On my powermac however Catalina (beta) does not work anymore. Will try roll back to official Catalina to see if that works

Using an ATOMOS Ninja V with my Sony A7III I've noticed something very strange that needs further verification. And I think this might be the cause of this issue.

When I select the HDMI Resolution to 1080p and 24p the video output detected by the Ninja V is still 1080p59.94. The same thing happens when selecting 1080i24p, the actual output detected by Ninja V is 1080i59.94.

So it seems that the 24p Output is not working at all with the A7III. Now, is this only with mine or is this a general issue?

Could someone try to check this out, please?

Thanks

Hey guys, had the same problem easily solved going through my Ninja V, which apparently stabilises the HDMI signal.

Also made it work toggling few time between NTSC and PAL and landing on a 50i PAL settings. It feels like it takes a bit of time for the Sony and the UMR to talk to each other.

Keep trying toggling between PAL and NTSC (make sure you are on an 1080i setting, either 50 or 60).
Another try is to keep toggling on and of "Control for HDMI" in the HDMI setting menu. That worked for someone else.

Happy filming to everyone.

Luca

Going into the the HDMI settings and changing the output resolution 1080i worked for me. I also turned off the other HDMI output settings.

I have a sony ariii and black magic mini recorder connected to a mac mini using OBS.