The DVS-2000C had been our online edit suite switcher for many years. I would say it's probably at least 10 years old. It's always worked great for us with no problems. I recently decommissioned our online suite, so this switcher became available for use. I decided to use it this weekend for the Champ Car race as it seemed like a perfect fit. I had been testing it and working with it for the past couple of weeks, and everything was going fine.

Today, I was setting XPT's and setting my outputs for the ASSIGN out, EDIT PVW out etcetera. Everything was going great. I think the problem started when I went in the INIT Menu. I thought it would be a good idea to reset the switcher to have a clean slate for setting my crosspoints and outputs. So, I did a RESET and a CLR. I think this was a bad idea, because that's when I think I lost my Program output. None of the three SDI program outputs work anymore. I looked through the menus and couldn't find anywhere to activate the Program outputs.

I do have a work around of assigning the PGM out of an AUX bus, or an ASSIGN output, as this works. However it would be great to have the Program outputs working for this event.

Do you think it's just a software issue? Or hardware? I was speaking with Bill Everitt from Sony USA today about this problem. He said the 1601 output driver I/C's were notorious for failing. He said they usually got noisy first, and then failed. However, I've seen no noise with the Program out during testing. Also upon inspection, I saw that we actually have 1602 output driver I/C's which Bill said were better; an upgrade to the 1601's. The 1602 chips apparently are parallel to serial converters for the SDI outputs.

Anyway, do you think re-loading the software from the ROM pack would be a good idea, or would I be running the risk of making things worse? I really need to have the switcher functioning this weekend so I can't run the risk of making things worse. I think the version of the software on the system was 1.13 or maybe 1.31. I can't remember. I'm not sure of the version we have on the ROM pack at the office, but it may be newer than what I've mentioned. Would the switcher revert to an older version of the software after I did the INIT?

Thanks for your help. Any ideas would be great; as I've said, I'd like to have it running this weekend.

Thanks,
Keith