AJA HD10AMA analogue audio pinouts

The HD10AMA is a great de/embedder with two HD/SDi outs; very useful gadget. Here is the D25 details.

AES audio on D-25 connectors

I've been working at a facility that delivers DCP masters to cinemas and the thing that we had to pay lots of attention to is the pinouts for various multi-channel audio servers and monitoring boxes, principally;

• Dolby 650 & 750 surround processors - the gadgets that "tame" a room to make it sound like a cinema or screening environment should
• TC Electronic TM09 multi-channel monitors; used for loudness monitoring (R128 & ITU.1770)
• Dolby DS100 & 200 servers
• Doremi DCP2000 servers

They are all different!

I could just list all the pinouts from the manuals but here are a couple of grabs from cable schedules that show exactly how to do it over DMP-10 cable, krone blocks etc.

Odyssey Products have a great PDF summerising them

 

Miranda, Grass Valley and good-old GPI tallies

I never realised that lots of manufacturers use ACOS protocol to send tally and UMD-names between vision mixers, multi-viewers and routers. I assumed that big switchers still used GPI closures for tallies but when I got to a customer's site to make a GVG Kayak mixer talk to a Miranda Kaleido multi-viewer I couldn't find the RS422 port on the back of the Miranda; turns out it's an option!

So - back to the good old dry-GPI (i.e. relay closure) tallies.








After a couple of false starts here is the cable used to connect the GVG to the multiviewer.

The next thing is to associate the appropriate GPI ins with the video inputs on the multi-viewer; this is X-Edit, Miranda's network config tool. Once you've dragged the GPIs to the source lines you have to go into the layout tool and associate the UMD red-light-up (it the RHS of the UMD definition) with the GPI event - you can set as many or as few of the virtual displays to activate.

Crystal Vision audio pinouts

RS232 - fifty years old!

It was 1962 that the first draft of the RS232 standard for serial communications was published. 

I used to have a good side-line in making null-modem RS232 cables for my colleague who were often confused by why you even need a cross-over cable. The thing to remember about RS232C is that it was only ever intended as a means of connecting dumb terminals (think VT100) to modems.

The EIA RS232C (1969) standard defines two types of equipment:

• DCE - Data Communicating Equipment; typically a modem.
• DTE - Data Terminal Equipment; typically a dumb-terminal or PC (in the last thirty years!)

Only one style of connector is defined - the 25-pin D-type (no 9-pins or RJ45s!) and the sex of the connector reflects DTE or DCE (male for DTE, female for DCE) - that's it; everything else is a departure from the standard. So, the original intention was:

terminal <-> modem <- phone or leased line -> modem <-> mainframe

or, put another way:

DTE <-RS232-> DCE <- phone or leased line -> DCE <-RS232-> DTE

And that's it - it wasn't intended for management ports on disk arrays or ethernet switches, just modem/computer connectivity. Once you've grasped that fact you get an understanding of what some of the pins (used to be!) used for and why you need null-modem adapters/cables sometimes.

DTE (P.C.) <-RS232-> null modem cable/adapter <-RS232-> DTE

So it's probably worth looking at the pinouts for RS232, 

There's an awful lot in there! All the signalling lines that allow the modem to tell the terminal that it's picked up the 'phone line and detected a carrier or is getting a ring signal (RI - ring indicator) are all largely historic now, but have to still be paid attention to in some circumstances. What the standard assumes is a 25-core cable, all pins wired pin-pin with a female end at the DTE (to connect to the terminal's male connector) and a male end at the DCE. Notice that the transmit pin on the DTE end connects to the receive pin on the DCE end (Tx - Rx) and vice versa. The same is true of all the handshaking pins (RTS; request to send - CTS; clear to send).

So, if you need to connect a DTE to a DTE (PC to PC or PC to anything else that regards itself as a DTE - has a male connector) you need a cable that does the cross-over for you, a null-modem cable.

At this point it's worth talking about handshaking; if you have a modem talking over a slow line (and in the 1960s that would have been 110 baud; some people can type faster than that!) you need a mechanism of first ensuring the link is up (DSR; Data Set Ready and DTR; Data Terminal Ready) and then the flow of data is controlled (RTS; Ready to Send, CTS; Clear to Send). BUT, spin forward thirty years and you're using RS232 for PC-PC or other management functionality and the flow control needs to be either 'spoofed' by the cross-over cable OR it's probably being done by the software using one of several RS232 flow-control protocols. The most common if these is XON/XOFF and uses two special character to pause and resume transmission;

If you look in your Windows device manager for a port's settings you can see;

 So with all this in mind here are the pinouts for a null-modem cable; in fact there are two you can make - a three-wire (use a piece of FST - useful if all you've got is an audio tieline!) or a six-wire (which takes the hardware handshaking pins through) - send it down a cat5 line! In the case of the three-wire the handshaking lines are looped back on their equivalents at each end so that hardware flow control never stops the link.

So the final thing is probably to give the pinouts for a 9-pin -> 9-pin (which would by definition be female to female) null modem cable for RS232C DTE-DTE cable;

Avid Knowledge Base XMON Cable Specifications

When building a custom XMON cable what guidelines should be followed? Here are the general specifications for the XMON cable. Note that 24m is the maximum recommended cable run. Beyond this distance some signal degradation may be noticeable (especially talkback and headphone quality). 

• Belden 9505 equivalent cable, 24 gauge, with sets of 5 twisted pairs. 
• Stranded tinned copper conductor 
• Twisted pairs - Only 5 pairs of cables are used: Signal pairs are 1 & 9, 2 & 10, 5 & 13, 6 & 14, 8 & 15
• Cores cabled under Aluminum/Mylar foil 
• Connectors are 15-pin D(m) 

I always resort to using the pre-made Avid cable as I have NEVER got this to work as a homebrew!

Beyerdynamic DT-250 series headsets

I'm just prep'ing a few Beyerdynamic DT250 headsets for a customer - football club we work with a lot! Their commentary guys love these headsets and the quality/comfort is hard to beat for either pitch-side or commentary booth use. They come with a proprietary connector and being German it's all beautifully manufactured.

This customer sometimes uses these with portable Glensound ISDN codecs (reporter-type mobile packs) and sometimes with Yamaha audio mixers and so they need both the 5-pin XLR option and the 3-pin XLR/1/4" stereo jack cable. Since removing the rigged cable requires a screwdriver and is fiddly I normally ship these with the 5-pin cable and make up a breakout;

Alternatively you can order the two different cable options, if you can get your colleagues in Sales to pay attention!

AES pinouts for old Sony PCM800 recorder

Struggled to find this the other day.

RS422 / Sony P2 protocol and serial stuff!

When running P2 protocol over RS422 (i.e. Sony VTR remotes) there is no hardware handshaking so RTS and CTS (Request To Send and Clear To Send) aren’t used; a bit like the old 3-wire XModem/YModem/Kermit protocols used in RS232 (remember RS422 is just a balanced version of RS232).

We base our RS422 wiring on the Quartz remote standard (Quartz were one of the first firms to use RJ45s & cat5 for RS422 remotes):

However – I know for certain that Probel use a different standard and many places are wired to whatever the local standard is; remember – until ten years ago most places wired ‘422 on star-quad cable rather than cat5e/6. I don’t know if current model Evertz routers have maintained the Quartz standard – I bet they have given they bought Quartz for its router business.

Whatever wiring standard is used always make sure that pins 2 & 7 are a twisted pair and likewise 3 & 8 otherwise you lose all the advantage of common-mode noise rejection that balanced RS422 brings.

Finally you need to be certain if a place is wired for chassis earth (pin 1 on a 9-pin) or signal earth (pins 4 & 6 on 9-pin). Signal earth is best as there is always a chance of earth-hum between areas when you tie chassis earths together but hopefully properly designed kit with balanced lines have the signal earth floating WRT to power/chassis ground. BUT, you have to stick with the local standard; if the engineer has wired only chassis earths you need to continue using pin 1 or even shorting pins 1, 4 & 6 at the remote end.

RS422 - still with us! My notes

They print nicely - make them full page.

Scene Double 25pin-15pin SVGA

The guys at Scene Double are very helpful - we use a lot of their extenders for sending SVGA a long way and we had to make up a replacement 25 pin (D) - 15 pin (HD) cable. I emailed Ray;

I wondered if you could let us have the pinouts so I can quickly knock them up a new cable.

He replied with suitable engineering forthrightness!

I would not advise knocking up cables with mini coax.

Job done!

Tektronix WVR7120 audio pinouts

Why do Tek lock their PDFs?!

Notes to self - RS422 and balanced audio connectors

I've just finished a job that another SI had done some initial work on. Unfortunately (and although they had used cat5 patch panels) they hadn't used the pinouts that everyone else (Probel, Quartz etc.) uses for sending RS422 over cat5. Anyhow - here are the details in case you ever need to convert. Also - it's best to use the signal earth (pins 4 & 6) rather than the chassis ground (pin 1) - especially if you're running between areas.

Another thing - it's best to use 1/4¨ jacks on mixer inputs as increasingly mixers only have a subset of inputs with XLRs!

Best RS422 tester EVER!

This is the most useful piece of test kit I have ever made! I often have to buzz out RS422 machine controls and since every wireman gets the screens correct (pins 4 & 6 for the Tx & Rx screens) you can rely on them being where you expect. After that it's just a matter of having a 2k, 3k, 7k & 8k resistor on the appropriate pins and you can stick it at the end of the run and see where the pins are missing/swapped over by connecting your multimeter across pins 4 & 6 and the signal pins. I always have one handy (and they often get nicked!)

Bluefish AES breakout cable

We have to make these and I always forget the pinouts!

SCART pins and their functions

Since I use this blog as a repository (via the search box on the right - go on, give it a go!) and a colleague asked me about SCART pins today I thought I'd better squirrel the info away.

1. 1. AUDIO Output Right
2. 2. AUDIO Input Right
3. 3. AUDIO Output Left
4. 4. AUDIO Ground
5. 5. BLUE Video Ground
6. 6. AUDIO Input Left
7. 7. BLUE Video
8. 8. Function Switching (See Note)
9. 9. GREEN Video Ground>
10. 10. Comms.Data Line 2
11. 11. GREEN Video
12. 12. Comms. Data Line 1
13. 13. RED Video Ground
14. 14. Comms. Data Ground
15. 15. RED Video
16. 16. Blanking
17. 17. VIDEO Ground
18. 18. Blanking Ground
19. 19. VIDEO Output
20. 20. VIDEO Input
21. 21. Common Ground / Screen

Note: Pin 8 provides function switching. Applying 9.5-12V to the pin will cause a compatible TV or VCR to switch to the AV (SCART) input. It may also switch on the equipment from standby. Applying 0V or leaving unconnected will switch back to TV. Some TV's also use this pin to select the aspect ratio. Applying 5-8V to pin 8 will switch to 16:9 mode. This may be used by DVD players to set TV to correct ratio. Connect ground to pin 14 or pin 18.

Data sheets for the A450 audio switch and the Crystal Vision Demon pinouts - I use these all the time and never have the details to hand when I need them.

Tektronics WVR7100 & 6100 remote cables - we put in a load of these waveform monitors and I'm a big fan - you fundamentally can't get a more accurate video signal analyser. Anyhow - they come with dire warnings about how you can extend the optional control panel - essentially the manual suggests you should ONLY use the provided 8m cable - kinda daft when most edit suites are more than 30m away from the machine room!
So, here is the pinout for doing it over cat5 - pin 9 is the ground and pins 2 & 8 are +Vcc

9 - brown
8 & 2 - brown/white
1 - orange
3 - orange/white
4 - blue
5 - blue / white
6 - green
7 - green / white

I've tested it to 50m and it seems fine. In my case it is going via a patch in the machine room, a wallbox and a patch in the suite.

For a mid-90's vintage monitor,

Sony PVM monitor remote connectorI spent all day searching for this and my old colleague (from Oasis TV days) Darren Tucker (now chief engineer at Lip Sync) dug it out for me. The part is a HiRose HR10A connector - the RS part number for the twenty-pin male cable mount is 779-734. Sony have since moved on to using RJ45 and D-9 connectors for remote control. Before the 20-pin they used to have a square HiRose connector so it pays to look it up before you buy the ends (which are expensive!).

I'm upgrading a Yamaha 02R mixer - this is the AES pinout.