UHD HD Switch

Jun 2021

Introduction

At the time of writing, the CE1 only operates in either HD or UHD mode (variant 1 and variant 2, don't ask me what variant 3 is).
So if the unit is set to UHD mode, you cannot do a HD encode (white lie, you can but the M1 CPU tries to upscale HD to UHD and you run out of CPU).
So to change mode you have to edit a file and then reboot the unit. This should be addressed around August 2021.

Changing Mode (variant)

To change variant we need to edit one file on the CE1. This file is located at:

/var/opt/mediakind/platform/
The file is called
dta_2174b_variant_force

You can either edit this file in vi, and change the parameter to be either a 1 (for HD) or a 2 (for UHD). After editing you need to reboot the unit.
A slightly quicker way to edit this file is to use the following command:

echo 2 > /var/opt/mediakind/platform/dta_2174b_variant_force

After 'echo' type a 1 or 2 depending on whether you want HD (1) or UHD (2) then reboot.

Multiple SDI Cards

If you have multiple SDI cards (say in EL G9 where you could have 3 cards) you can use the following:
Navigate to the following directory:

/var/opt/mediakind/platform

There should be a file here called:

dta_217x_platform

rename this file or you won't be able to create the relevant directory:

mv dta_217x_platform dta_217x_platform.org

Now you can create the following directory (ensure you are in /var/opt/mediakind/platform)

mkdir dta_217x_variant

Navigate to /var/opt/mediakind/platform/dta_217x_variant

cd /var/opt/mediakind/platform/dta_217x_variant