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Real face of MK-V Customer support


Tomas Riuka

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Chris, will your new monitor contain a re-clocker? This is essentially like a Time Base Corrector. Nice...

 

At the moment we have not planned for a reclocker on the input of the new monitor. Our engineer assures me that it will not be needed, but I asked him to put space on the board for one anyways. He mentioned that the HD-SDI has been a problem for a lot of manufactures, since the board designers arent familiar with designing a board for RF signals. He mentioned on some of the very first designs he did, there were the same breakup problems. They were solved by having an RF engineer do the layout of the HD-SDI portion of the board, and the problems were solved.

 

Most engineers working with HD-SDI will tell you to use the shortest cable possible, and not have any right angles, "T"s or barrels. They will also say to use the cables with the heaviest shielding. I challenged our designer, and told him I want a monitor that works perfectly with 500 feet a crappy cable lying in water and mud with multiple barrels inline. He commented that this was not the ideal way for running HD-SDI. I responded by saying that this is what we have to deal with every day in our industry, so it better work. Hopefully he comes through on the first try. If not we will tweak the HD-SDI board until it meets our criteria.

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Thomas -- sorry to hear of your problems. Did the engineer or anyone ever call you back? If the sales person was talking about next Monday, a week is a long time to wait to have a question answered...or a solution given. Weird that it was happening with sd as well.

 

They already know about this problem as I know it has been discussed before -- the angry sales person no doubt has heard of this problem with other sleds and is familiar with what they had to do to fix it. I really can't imagine how frustrating is is to run into this problem with a very expensive and fairly new piece of equipment. Hope this all gets resolved but you may have to isolate the exact issue and have it repaired/replaced yourself or try the decimator as Charles suggested (might be the easiest/cheapest solution).

 

rb

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It seems to me that if the solution was as simple as using different cable, the company that just sold him a 20k+ rig might just send him the correct cable? More over if (as it seems it is) the problem is with every rig and can be fixed so easily, wouldn't they just fix it? I mean from a business stand point if Thomas is not the first customer to have this problem wouldn't the company want to avoid it in the future?

 

 

The problem is'nt in the cables on the MK-V rigs, it's in what they call "Electronics" in their UCP and LCP's

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^^ I see.... But regardless, it would seem like fixing the problem (or at least acknowledging) the problem would be the way to go. Arguing with or ignoring the customer can't be the smart response.

 

I would imagine that at the very least there has been one person who was going to buy an MK-V rig that decided not to based solely on the poor customer service reviews. Would seem like fixing the problem would be the cheap way out.

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Right, i cant stay out of this.

First of all, there is no way in the world you tread your costumer like that, FAIL.

 

Now, many of you may know of my problems with the all new v3 + as i got the same issues as thomas. But becose i use a lot of wireless hd camera's it gets worse. Using the hd output on a not shielded rig, caused all kind of problems. The curlded postcable starts to act like a transmitter, trowing all kind of signals back into the air, making the bartech useless for instance.

 

I have told howard this almost from the beginning of his release of the v3. And never got any solution. If it it about a problem he just wont answer, if you want to buy, he replys within 5 minuts.

 

As we speak, i am in a hotel in munich germany for 2 days where i am spending to get my two rigs working the way the should be working in The first place. I have pictures of the i side of the complete v3. There is no part, and i mean not even one, made for hd. Not to mention the power rates that are made to burn. So everything is getting replaced now, all cables, connectors, wires postcable etc. And i am convinced that it will work the way it should be. To bad i only had to open all boxes, i am sure it will void my warranty :-)

 

Cheers

(sorry, writing on a iphoneis hard)

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Good morning everyone,

 

Seems like enough has been said and answered. To make things clear - i tried. Number of cables - tiny, thick ones, even with gold plated connectors - nothing helped. Also to notice, connecting monitor directly with he camera - solves all the issues. Then even with the cheaper chinese 1$ cable i couldn't replicate the issue. All problems start when signal is wired through the sled. Also note, that same thing happens not only sith hd-sdi signal, but also composite!

 

I did try 3 different monitors, all the same.

 

I must have to admit that am new to big rigs, so i didn't have knowledge nor experience when i bought the rig to try immediately once i got it. Now with a few months time with a rig on my hands i experienced issues, not only with hd-sdi, also power issues.

 

I found out that when working with wireless broadcast cameras (powered from the sled) my len's zoom control would stop working at some point, though the batteries are around 70% full. Sadly, this is a power issue, because camera with wireless transmitter, monitor etc sucks around 70-80watts and the voltage simply drops below where lens stops functioning properly.

 

I did see my distribution box contents when i was building inverted base onthe sled, and as a guy who has been working in car audio industry, cables made hesitate if they can bear any high load, tiny, really tiny...

 

Also after long searches on internet and talking to different Nexus ops, a number of them reported suffering the same issues. When i was was buying the rig, i was aware to some extent, but naturally i thought well... This has been probably 2 years old issue so it must have been solved? I would do that for sure!

 

Now seems like there are companies and some ops who fixed that, so this is fixable and i'm not whining at something that is normal...

 

All i want is to have sled's electronics functioning properly. Of course, i'd prefer that fixed permanently by mk-v, by changing cables, connectors, electronics whatever is needed to fix that. For some it might be easy to go to someone, pay the money and have it done. For me in my country - not so easy when our rates locally are 5x lower than in US or EU. Every dollar is precious for me.

 

Hopefully this gets sorted out in some sensible way. I have exchanged a number of emails with Howard after posting this info, we will se how it goes. There is solution and for the money i paid, i deserve to get that either way. Others who experience the same issue - too.

 

After reading and gathering all info, the only solution is to change the desing of electronics, cabling etc. If that is so, it should happen and there should V4 or whatever.

 

I like my sled , so not going to try to refund it, instead get the issues fixed forever for the future, so i could work without problems and everyone would know there is a solution.

 

Job, i am curious to see the pictures!

 

I'm just an honest man, who spent all he has earned within 4 years and loaned the the same from bank to get into big rigs and this is my fight for my future!

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Its no rocket science thomas, it all can be fixed.

In the meantime, you could downconvert your hd signal to sd, so you can work

 

 

Not an option unfortunately, i will have to wire outside. I cannot downconvert as i use my Boxx Meridian alot and i mount it at the bottom of the sled, so i need HD-SDI signal there. Furthermore, even when signal is sd sdi, it is still prone to same issues exactly as hd-sdi....

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When you hook the monitor up directly to the camera without going through the sled, then key the radio does it do the same thing? I was having problems at one time and it turned out to be the monitor oddly enough. My service from MK-V has always been spot on.

 

JA

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John - no, connected directly everything is working perfectly fine as i wrote before and showed on video. I wouldn't have posted any of this, but i tried a number of cables, 3 different monitors. As repeated a few times already, none of the problems happen when monitor is connected directly to the camera with any cable.

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John - no, connected directly everything is working perfectly fine as i wrote before and showed on video. I wouldn't have posted any of this, but i tried a number of cables, 3 different monitors. As repeated a few times already, none of the problems happen when monitor is connected directly to the camera with any cable.

I'm really sorry,but my opinion is that HD and Digital Cameras sucks!!!!!!.I'm still working with component signal and I still using my canatrans for everything and I had never had a problem(Decimator or AJA) and fly!!!!!!!!!!

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When people write reviews of products and customer service here it's usually for good reason. When multiple people write similar reviews it shows a pattern. Rarely is it intended to be mean spirited.

 

We're a tough group of perfectionists and professionals with specific needs; that makes us tough customers as well. The fact that for the most part we all act as colleagues and share information gives us some power and strength in numbers with our vendors. The marginal vendors for the most part fade away; apparently MK-V has nine lives.

 

I've never done business with them either, but when all the stink went down about the AR and how the inventor and their owners were being treated I took time to read every single archived post from Mr. Smith / MK-V. That told me everything I ever needed to know.

 

Sorry you got burned but this has been a "Buyer Beware" vendor for 5-6 years at least.

 

Robert

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