Support

Updating your Raptor

Step 1: Click the link below, download and read the HTML update file. Follow instructions to download, expand and install the ZIP update file, then let the deck restart.

Step 2: If you see a message at the bottom of the Raptor computer screen (GUI) that instructs you to install another update, please download it from the link below and install it on the deck.

All software subscriptions, On-Set Monitors, Quads and Duals – both v2 and v1:

Click here for current Raptor updates

Final updates for older decks:

Recent changes

Raptor64 v2024.4, April 11, 2024

New “Ins” / “Enable processed SDI loopthrough video” menu item allows user to disable SDI loopthrough video from being processed in the Raptor64 application.
New “Ins” / “Enable on-screen display on processed SDI loopthrough video” allows on-screen display to be blocked from SDI loopthrough video.
New “Ins” / “Enable timecode in processed SDI loopthrough video” allows timecode to be blocked from the SDI loopthrough video.
The “Ins” menu now shows a count of the active capture buffers, which gives info about SDI loopthrough video latency.
General performance and stability enhancements

Raptor64 v2024.3, March 27, 2024

New feature – camera inputs can be rotated 90 degrees (which is a ¼ turn to the right) or 270 degrees (which is a ¼ turn to the left), in addition to being rotated upside-down. Additionally, before rotating, each input can be zoomed out to see the entire frame, or just the inner square can be rotated. These new menu items are on the “Ins” / “Mirror and/or rotate input for non-upright camera” menu.
New feature – camera inputs can be mirrored, side-to-side, for shooting the reflection off a mirror. The new menu option (“Mirror input side-to-side”) is on the “Ins” / “Mirror and/or rotate input for non-upright camera” menu.
New “Enable timecode capture” item on “Ins” / “Timecode” menu. If this is unchecked, timecode present in incoming SDI signals will not be looped through the Raptor in Live and Record modes, and recording timecode into the file will not be available.
Fixed problem where repeated, fast seeking of plate video might cause VFX channel video to freeze.
Removed HDGraphics5174.exe from distribution files to make download and installation faster.
General performance and stability enhancements

Raptor64 v2024.2, February 29, 2024

New feature – variable Luminance key in VFX. A new slider lets you specify how white or gray or black the luma key is. Clickable labels above the slider let you easily select “Black” vs “Gray” vs “White”. There’s a new “+ B & W” slider that lets you choose how many black, white, or gray colors are keyed out that are near the selected key color. Sliding this control to the left keys fewer colors, sliding it to the right keys more. Clickable labels above the slider let you easily choose “Less” (for the smallest number of keyed colors) or “More”! There’s a new “+ colors” slider, that lets you add or remove some colors from your key. This and the + B & W slider let you choose a larger or smaller range of keyed colors.
Fixed playlisting problem where adding clips resulted in “File loaded” message, instead of showing “Pause”.
Fixed audio mute checkboxes. Now, if you check either the analog audio mute or embedded audio mute checkboxes, they will not get unchecked when you change what the deck is doing, like going from pause to play, or play to live. The problem was in how the auto-mute menu items on the “Outs” menu are handled.
“File” / “Backup or restore files and metadata” menu item renamed (was “Backup or restore deck”), and the backup window it launches is now called “Backup or restore files and metadata” (it was called “Backup clips”), since this window is used to both backup files and metadata to an external disk, and to restore files and metadata from an existing backup. “Import clips” is still different in that it assumes the file is coming from something other than a Raptor, so there’s no metadata to bring in.
General performance and stability enhancements

Raptor64 v2024.1, January 4, 2024

New feature – “Outs” / “Expand quadrant on output #1” (and 2, 3, and 4) lets user expand any quadrant (top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right) on any output in both input and output modes. The quadrant is expanded on the SDI output, streaming output, and on the local renderer window. Raptor video windows display “Top left quad”, “Bottom right quad”, etc, on the top line if a quadrant is expanded.
Fixed problem where after renaming clip, you couldn’t record new file with that same name.
Fixed problem where the “Ins” / “Camera: …” menu item on SDI #3 or SDI #4 displayed the wrong camera ID, even though the camera ID had been correctly set, and other places showed the correct information.

Raptor64 v2023.11, November 30, 2023

New feature – “Rotate input for upside-down camera” option for each video input on “Ins” menu. If checked, the video input will be rotated 180 degrees before it’s looped out, shown on a video window, streamed, recorded, or sent to the VFX system. This makes it easy to accommodate upside-down cameras. When an input is rotated, “(Input rotated)” is displayed at the top of the video window, next to the format.
New feature – analog and embedded audio can be muted independently. There are now two checkboxes next to the audio level meters, labeled “Analog” (to mute analog audio) and “Emb” (to mute embedded audio). The “Outs” menu now has two items to set up automatic muting of either analog or embedded audio – “Analog audio output muting” and “Embedded audio output muting” each have three options – “Mute in Live”, “Mute in Record”, and “Mute in Play”, to automatically mute in any of those states.
Changed VFX video rotation so after rotating, scale can be used to “unzoom” the video, to recover any part of the frame that had clipped off the screen. With this, video can be rotated 90 degrees, then scaled down so the entire image is visible.
Fixed Ctrl+F to always do a partial search, so if clips with scene numbers 10 and 100 both exist, searching for 10 will find both of them.
Fixed Ctrl+F so typing a search term and hitting <enter> executes the search. Then, hitting Ctrl+G repeats the search.
Fixed problem where newly selected plate file might not be active until “Live” is pressed to go to “Live” a second time.

Wi-Fi equipment notes

Ubiquiti UniFi Wi-Fi 6 access points, UniFi cloud key, and EdgeRouter-X router

This is still our favorite on-set Wi-Fi solution.

If your idea of the perfect Wi-Fi 6 setup includes access points mounted on stands positioned around the set, then you might prefer UniFi Wi-Fi 6 access points managed by a UniFi cloud key, and powered by PoE (power over Ethernet) injectors. This setup also requires an EdgeRouter-X router, and could require a gigabit Ethernet switch.
This setup requires more gear in your cart — the cloud key, PoE injectors, router, and switch will live in your cart — but the access points can be positioned right by the Director, Script Supervisor, or other people who need the Wi-Fi signal. Since they’re powered by PoE in your cart, each access point requires only a single Ethernet cable back to your cart.
A UniFi network like this isn’t as easy to setup or manage as a network based on an Alien router. You’d manage the Access Points through the Cloud Key from a mobile browser, and if you need to manage the EdgeRouter-X, that’s also done from a mobile browser.
As with the Alien routers, multiple UniFi access points can be configured to work together in a single mesh network, and they support a wired backhaul for maximum performance.
Click here to download our setup instructions for UniFi Wi-Fi 6 access points, a Cloud Key Gen2, and an EdgeRouter-X.

➡️ Click here to download our setup instructions for a Ubiquiti UniFi Wi-Fi 6 access points, UniFi cloud key, and EdgeRouter-X router.

Ubiquiti AmpliFi Alien router

If you want Wi-Fi gear for Video Assist streaming that offers Wi-Fi 6, performs well, is easy to configure and use, and comes in a single piece, the Ubiquiti AmpliFi Alien router might be a great choice. Unfortunately, it runs from AC power, and you can’t disable the Wi-Fi on the unit at your cart, if you only want Wi-Fi out at the director’s cart.
It powers on in about 60 seconds, and has an LCD front panel showing a progress bar as it’s starting. It includes 4 gigabit Ethernet ports on it’s back for attaching wired Ethernet devices, like your Raptor and Videohub. Its initial setup and on-set monitoring are done from an app on your iPhone, iPad or Android phone or Android tablet.
The Alien router is a good choice if you want an “all-in-one” device that will live on your cart, and you have room on top of your cart for something 10″ tall and about 4.5″ across that looks like a swollen Pringles can. It’s internal antennas are built into the top of the router, so works best sitting somewhere up high. It’s powered by 120V AC, has an internal power supply, and comes with a removable 2-pin AC power cord like a Mac Mini.
If you need to cover more space, multiple Alien routers can be used together in a single mesh network. It also supports a wired backhaul for maximum performance.
We believe the Wi-Fi 6 performance of an AmpliFi Alien router is as good as that of a UniFi Wi-Fi 6 access point.

➡️Click here to download our setup instructions for an Alien router.

Ruckus R710 and EdgeRouter-X

NOTE: We do not recommend the use of the Ruckus R710 AP, as it is no longer competitive with many other Wi-Fi access points. Before finding the Ubiquiti Wi-Fi 6 products, we liked the Ruckus R710 access point and EdgeRouter-X as a Wi-Fi (not Wi-Fi 6) solution for streaming. We believe that either of the previous Wi-Fi 6 solutions are better than using the Ruckus R710.
Click here to download our setup instructions for the Ruckus R710 and EdgeRouter-X.

➡️Click here to download our setup instructions for the Ruckus R710 and EdgeRouter-X.

FAQ

• How do I control a Videohub with my Raptor?

With the new Smart Videohub series (the ones with AC power and a LCD monitor on the front panel), Blackmagic changed the way they’re controlled. These Smart Videohubs can only be controlled over a LAN connection — the USB connection is there only for firmware updates.

Hook your deck and Smart Videohub together with a gigabit router (our suggested method), or by just plugging a LAN cable between them (if you have nothing else to connect to a LAN), and give them both time to get up and running.

Look in the “Info” panel at the bottom left corner of the Raptor’s GUI, and note it’s IP address.

Using it’s front panel, assign the Smart Videohub an IP address where the first three octets (first three numbers with dots between them — like 192.168.1, or 169.254.200) match the IP address of your deck. Then just pick any number between 10 and 250 for the last octet that’s different from what your deck has (I’d suggest using something between 200 and 250).

The subnet mask should remain “255.255.255.0”, and the gateway IP address doesn’t matter.

After doing that, I would power cycle the entire cart a few times, to ensure the deck controls the Smart Videohub each time it comes up.

• Raptor networking and streaming

For streaming to work, a Raptor must be hooked up (via wired ethernet) to a WiFi Access Point or WiFi router.

A DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server assigns IP addresses to all the devices on a network. By using DHCP, you’re able to easily ensure that your TCP/IP addresses will not conflict, and that all of your devices will be able to talk to each other.

NOTE: there can be only one DHCP server on any network.

Raptors, iPads, and most other networking devices support DHCP. However, Videohubs can’t get their IP address from a DHCP server, so they must have an IP address assigned manually to work on a network. For video assist needs, the big difference between a router and a switch or hub is that a router has a DHCP server in it. A Ruckus R710 access point can also be configured to enable it’s internal DHCP server.

If you need to hook two of your carts together making a single network for file sharing, you must ensure there’s only one DHCP server (router) on the entire network. If each cart has it’s own gigabit router, you should replace one of the routers with a gigabit switch.

• External drive formats

If you need to use an external disk on both a Mac and a Raptor, all Quad and Dual decks come with MacDrive software so they can read and write (non-RAID) HFS+ disks. Older, single-channel decks would need to use exFAT (which isn’t as robust as HFS+).

Also, if a drive isn’t being recognized, try plugging it into both the blue USB3 ports and the non-blue USB2 ports, and be sure to use the drive’s power supply, if it came with one.

If a disk will only be used with Raptors or other Windows devices, NTFS is a great drive format.

NOTE: APFS (Apple File System) is currently not recognized by any operating system other than MacOS, so Raptors cannot read APFS disks.

• Raptors and external drives

When a Raptor looks for files to add to the sourcelist, it first looks on the internal disk (in the E:\RXVideo folder), then it looks in the RXVideo folder on any USB-attached hard drives. If it finds clips only on an external drive, it shows the camera ID for that clip as a lowercase letter, indicating that it will be played from an external disk.

If you’ve used “File” / “Backup or restore deck” to back up all of your files to a USB hard drive, and then deleted the original files from the internal disk, the deck will find and play your backup files directly from the USB hard drive, with all of the bookmarks, ins and outs, and other metadata.

So, you could back up a few files (or all the files) from the internal disk, disconnect the USB hard drive (so the files on the USB drive can’t possibly be deleted), and click “File” / “Delete all clips from this deck” to clear everything off the internal disk, to give yourself lots of room.

Before you delete any files, however, you should triple-check that you see an asterisk (*) in the “B” column on all of your files in your sourcelist. That “*” indicates that a file is backed up.

Plus, I’d do a test delete of a few files, just to make sure there are no problems playing the files from the USB hard drive. And, it’s smart to back up all of the files to a second USB hard drive before deleting any originals from the deck.
Get backup disks large enough to hold everything you expect to need. Drives are always getting bigger and cheaper, but right now, there are 8TB and 10TB USB hard drives for a few hundred dollars.

If you get a WD external hard drive that works with their “Drive utilities” software, you can install it onto another computer, and use “Drive Utilities” to set the drive to never go to sleep. That’s very important! If your external drive goes to sleep, there will be a delay of a few seconds every time you try to play anything from the drive.

This same mechanism lets you back up all of the files on one deck, then move the USB hard drive to another deck, and have instant access to all of those files.

Raptor

Digital Video Assist