Jun 2021
Updated Jan 2024

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.

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.

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

To set the card variant type we need to assign a number for that card mode, lets assume we want card 1 in HD mode (variant 1) and card 2 in UHD mode (variant 2):

echo 1 > /var/opt/mediakind/platform/dta_217x_variant/1
echo 2 > /var/opt/mediakind/platform/dta_217x_variant/2

This file is read at boot, so for the configuration to apply you need to reboot the unit.

• Variant 1:
  HD SDI input (each input is up to 3G-SDI)

• Variant 2:
  1 UHD channel over 4x3G-SDI on ports 1,2,3 and 4 with DTA-2174B
  1 UHD channel over 4x3G-SDI on ports 1-4 or 5-8 with DTA-2178