SGI: Video

In this screenshot of my software manager, it shows the size of my DMediaPro Development Environment to be 8 bytes, that can't be right can it? For example I'm looking for the xtdigvid_confidence script in /usr/diags and it's not there, so my installation must be horked, right? Can anyone with a working installation of this stuff tell me what package the xtdigvid_confidence test is in? Thanks a bunch!

I'm currently away from my gear, so I'm not able to look, but clicking the drop arrow next to the product name in Software Manager should give you additional detail as to which subsystems were (or weren't) installed and where installed files should be located in your directory structure.

The product release notes are another good source of the how, what, where and why of a particular installation package. If the product name appears as underscored blue text in Software Manager (like the example in your screen capture), you can open the release notes by clicking the highlighted product name. If you're working from the command line, release notes can typically be called with some variation of the following command .

Ha ha yeah I guess that wasn't my best thought out post; big picture wise the problem is that I've got a Dual-Channel Display, a DMediaPro 2 board and a DMediaPro 5 equipped VBOB, and none of it works. Then I saw this post: http://forums.nekochan.net/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=16725699 and I thought ah cool I'll just run xtdigvid_confidence and my troubles will be over and I'll be on the way to winning. But so far, not so much...

Not sure if you still want the info, but since I'm now back home with the gear......

My DMediaPro DM2/DM3 ML Development Environment looks to be pretty much the same as yours (btw, that's 8 kilo bytes): /usr/diags/ml_xtdigvid/bin? xtdigvid_confidence needs root-level hardware access. If you've got your V12/DCD/DM2 hardware setup as illustrated in one of the Discreet manuals , my *guess* is a completely configured Discreet software environment (along with any other required-by-discreet hardware) might be the fly in the ointment. If the Discreet end doesn't have the at least the minimum configuration needed to be functional, I don't think he underlying ml_xtdigvid installation will offer much in the way of end-user functionality.

Huh! For some reason it didn't install on mine. Obviously a clear-cut case calling for a do-over...

I've gotten into the habit of always doing a custom install rather than use the default selections - which is probably how I ended up with the diagnostic subsystems installed.

Hmmmm, it does not appear to be a part of the tardist I downloaded, 6.5.21_dmediapro_DM2_DM3_1.1.3ml.tar.gz, would you happen to know offhand where I can find the complete version?

You already have the same distribution I used.

Have you tried using the drop arrow next to expand the selection DMediaPro DM2/DM3 ML Execution Environment 1.1.3ml for IRIX 6.5 so that the subsystem choices (like Diagnostics) are exposed for selection?

As far as I know there was only one 1.1.3 revision released. If the sub-selection for Diagnostics doesn't appear, you could double check make sure Software Manager isn't set up to allow viewing of only top level product selections .

Huh! I just assumed for no good reason that everything that was inside those top level directories got installed by default, but you're right, the diagnostics and sample code are in there and were not installed, but now they are, thanks! It's actually a lot of work popping all those subdirectories open looking for NEWs...

So I just tried xtdigvid_confidence and mostly it fails. I don't have one of the white LVDS cables, just two black ones, I know I've seen conjecture about whether there are any differences between the two, and in this instance I was assuming there aren't, but could that be the reason it's not working? That the white LVDS cable is somehow different from the black one?

Anything slightly more enlightening appear in the log file(s?) mentioned in your xtdigvid_confidence screenshot?

I'd suggest posting a copy of the log (/usr/tmp/XTDIGVID_logs/xtdigvid_confidence.log.12-11-11_23.07) and the test summary (/usr/tmp/XTDIGVID_logs/test.sum) to see if anyone can offer additional advice after looking at the contents of those log files.

Thanks recondas, I'll have a look at it tonight. Those files are monstrously long and I just thought if someone actually knew that it is necessary to have both a white and a black LVDS cable between the DM2 and DM5 (as I mentioned above I don't have a white one so am trying it with two blacks), I wouldn't have to slog through them...

I noticed the FAIL message visible in your screen capture refers to a loopback test and wondered if the fail might have occurred because the test might have required some specific loopback cabling configuration that might not have been in place.

Since there were five errors during testing that a look at the logs might show if any of the other four sounded more (or less) ominous than a loopback failure.

Yes, the test requires the HD and SD outputs and inputs to be looped together with BNC cables, but I'm pretty sure I did that right, there's only one input for HD and SD but two outputs, I just assumed those were for fanout and didn't T the second set to the inputs, but maybe I should have, the instructions weren't perfectly clear about that, I guess the easiest thing to do would be to dig up a set of T's and try it again....

Well I tossed the joint like an FBI agent but I could only find 1 BNC-T, so I installed it and reran the test (I need three more T's to tie all the SD and HD ins to their respective outs), but anyway there was no difference in the test output, whereas if leaving only three of the four outputs floating (as before) was the problem it should have shown 25% less errors (I'm assuming).

I'm getting a ton of these: I/O ERROR communicating with VBOB: : Resource temporarily unavailable (the test runs for about 10 minutes so there's page after page of this kind of output):



So at this point it seems that either I need to find a white LVDS cable to tie the DM2 and DM5 together (in conjunction with one of the two black ones that I aleady have), or something is wrong with the DM2, the DM5, the VBOB, or any combination of the three. I have a spare VBOB here that I've not tried yet, but no spare DM2 or DM5, and (as I'm fond of pointing out) no white LVDS cable.

So much to do, so little time...

Anecdotal wisdom (put that one on your list of tech-related oxymorons) is the ends of the VBoB LVDS cables were color-coded white and black primarily to prevent inadvertent cross-connection and are functionally identical.

The only we'll know for sure is if someone who has two black ones steps in with a comment. I got the impression that more than a few nekochan members picked up a set of two of the black cables from Richtom1, so maybe at least one of them would be kind enough to weigh in on no-white-cable functionality. If someone would also be kind enough to post the pin out of both cables we could resolve the color-difference issue for posterity's sake .

Since you've got two of the black ones you could get us fifty percent of the way to resolving the issue - not to mention helping to discover if there might be pin-compatible alternatives to the nearly nonexistent SGI LDVS cables