7Q+ not detecting A7s on startup?

R

re_curly81

Active member
Is the 7Q+ supposed to detect the A7s upon startup? I keep having to unplug an replug the HDMI once everything is turned on to get a signal. I know I'm going to wear out the ports pretty quick doing it this way. Is there a sequence to turning everything on to avoid this?

Aso, sometimes I have to try 2 or 3 times to get it to detect a signal. Both units are brand new, with the stock cable.

Trevor
 
This is an unfortunate quirk with this camera. Try power cycling the A7s or the Odyssey. I usually find turning off the camera and then repowering will bring up the connection.

What is happening is that the HDMI circuit on either end is "looking" for its counterpart. The camera has an HDMI transmitter and the Odyssey has an HDMI receiver. The way HDMI works, they must recognize each other, with the receiver announcing what level signal it can accept from the transmitter. This is commonly referred to as a "handshake". Sometimes if the circuits are already powered & connected when an adjustment is made in the menus, they will refuse to re-attempt a handshake. The only way to get them to change is to either remove power or unplug so that they let go.

SDI is so much simpler.
 
Thanks Mitch. My first shoot with it today. Worked great. If I turn the 7q+ on first, wait for it to load, then turn on the A7s, then it worked with no need to unplug anything. I turned the A7s off/on throughout the shoot out of habit, and it always sync'd up right away.
 
Thanks for answering the same question I had. For me it works most times, as you said, powering the Odyssey first, wait for the SSD check, then power the A7s.

I had two kind of "strange" situations though. Are these known as unproblematic too?


  1. Sometimes the Odyssey shows "Invalid Input" (green) when powering the A7s on. In most times turning A7s off and on again solves it, sometimes it needs 2-3 switches, very seldom an unplugging of HDMI is necassary to get a valid UHD 4:2:2 connection.
  2. I had two times (after successfully recording), where I stopped the recording by camera trigger, turned the A7s off, then wanted to "Shut down" the Odyssey. The popup for confirmation came up, but touching the [x] to confirm would not work. The Odyssey was not frozen, but would not except the confirmation. One time it helped to turn on the A7s again, one time I disconnected the power plug. Would not like to do so after an important recording.

Anybody had this too? I changed HDMI plugs and cables already to be sure. No. 1 happens still some times.
 
Regarding #1 i had similiar experiences. Although one time the a7s was in manual mode not video mode. Regarding #2 I had this too, but found it only happens when low voltage, and the entire touchscreen wouldn't work.
 
Thanks for the hint!
I used such short adapter (but straight, not elbow) with success. But finally, I changed to a short "plug" adapter, which I strongly fixed between two screws (4mm + 1/4'') with hook-and-loop tape. The mini adapter stays fully plugged all the time, even at transportation (in protective neopren case for tablets) - it simply cannot move. Same with a short micro cable adapter (straight) fixed with the HDMI-cage included with the A7s. This way, I only have to handle a full HDMI cable - the fragile micro and mini plugs stay fixed in both hardware gears.

BTW - both errors written above happened first, before I fixed the adapters. Its not a slightly introduced damage because of transportation.
 
Mitch Gross said:
This is an unfortunate quirk with this camera. Try power cycling the A7s or the Odyssey. I usually find turning off the camera and then repowering will bring up the connection.

What is happening is that the HDMI circuit on either end is "looking" for its counterpart. The camera has an HDMI transmitter and the Odyssey has an HDMI receiver. The way HDMI works, they must recognize each other, with the receiver announcing what level signal it can accept from the transmitter. This is commonly referred to as a "handshake". Sometimes if the circuits are already powered & connected when an adjustment is made in the menus, they will refuse to re-attempt a handshake. The only way to get them to change is to either remove power or unplug so that they let go.

SDI is so much simpler.
Click to expand...

What about with the 7q? I wanted to use my 7q and my fs700/a7s in multi monitoring mode to do a color match, but can't get my 7Q (not 7q+) to recognise my a7s through hdmi? Thoughts?
 
ianthom said:
What about with the 7q? I wanted to use my 7q and my fs700/a7s in multi monitoring mode to do a color match, but can't get my 7Q (not 7q+) to recognise my a7s through hdmi? Thoughts?
Click to expand...
The Odyssey7Q (not Odyssey7Q+) can only accept up to 1080p30 or 1080i60 over HDMI. It will not accept an UHD signal over HDMI. Even in HD, the A7s outputs either 50/60p or 50/60i, so you must set the camera to interlaced output in order for the Odyssey7Q to be able to receive the signal.

If you would like to record up to 1080p60 from your A7s onto the Odyssey7Q, it is possible using an HDMI->SDI signal converter in between. You must make sure that the signal converter can handle a 1080p60 signal, as most can only handle up to 1080p30 or 1080i60. There is a cheap ($35-$50) Chinese converter that is sold on Amazon that does the job quite well. I own one myself. It goes by several brands on Amazon and it varies in different countries (when I was in Toronto and tried to find it, Amazon Canada only showed it under a different brand name), but the one I have is the Excelvan MINI 3G HDMI to SDI Converter.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ID4BVD0?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00
 
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Mitch Gross said:
The Odyssey7Q (not Odyssey7Q+) can only accept up to 1080p30 or 1080i60 over HDMI. It will not accept an UHD signal over HDMI. Even in HD, the A7s outputs either 50/60p or 50/60i, so you must set the camera to interlaced output in order for the Odyssey7Q to be able to receive the signal.

If you would like to record up to 1080p60 from your A7s onto the Odyssey7Q, it is possible using an HDMI->SDI signal converter in between. You must make sure that the signal converter can handle a 1080p60 signal, as most can only handle up to 1080p30 or 1080i60. There is a cheap ($35-$50) Chinese converter that is sold on Amazon that does the job quite well. I own one myself. It goes by several brands on Amazon and it varies in different countries (when I was in Toronto and tried to find it, Amazon Canada only showed it under a different brand name), but the one I have is the Excelvan MINI 3G HDMI to SDI Converter.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ID4BVD0?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00
Click to expand...

Thanks Mitch, I have the camera set to 50i and still no dice...are there any other settings on the 7Q or the camera I need to account for? keeping in mind it is just for monitoring not recording...
 
Under the INPUTS menu, please make sure that you are set to HD ProRes recording and that the Video Cadence is set to Interlaced. There's some odd stuff with the Sony A7s requiring its HDMI "handshake" in a certain order, so sometimes you need to make sure that the Odyssey is switched on first and connected, then switch on the A7s. But then others find that the cable needs to be plugged and unplugged on a fresh power-up. I don't have an A7s with me at the moment to determine the correct procedure iwhen in HD an interlace, but I can tell you that I have done it successfully.

If you remain unable to get them to work together, please contact our tech support at cdsupport@convergent-design.com for assistance. The engineers have an A7s at their disposal with which to determine the correct procedure.
 
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