Technical Bulletin for Fanned PLAY

Technical Bulletin for Fanned PLAY

SEPTEMBER 2023

SUMMARY 

BirdDog has recently begun shipping a new revision of the BirdDog PLAY. This revision has been developed to address important performance issues encountered by some users. These issues occur under specific workloads in combination with challenging heat environments and specifically with playback of 1080p60 Full NDI® content and multicast.

These issues can cause the onboard processor in PLAY to throttle its clock frequency down and can result in dropped frames or other undesired behavior.

It is important to highlight that this issue does not affect all users, and in most cases existing PLAY units function as expected.
Over the course of the last 3 months BirdDog has optimized the PLAY platform extensively to address these issues. We approached this with a combination of software and hardware changes. The result is a new version of the PLAY hardware. Any new PLAY unit shipping from BirdDog now includes an internal fan and vent holes on the lid.

The rest of the hardware platform remains unchanged and thus software updates are fully compatible across both the fanless and fanned units. Therefore both types of PLAY units can benefit from performance improvements delivered by new firmware releases.

VOLUNTARY REPLACEMENT PROGRAM

We are in the final stages of developing a Voluntary Replacement Program to allow any existing PLAY customer that wishes to replace their existing PLAY units with the new fanned version. The details of this program will be communicated to our extensive dealer network and other typical channels by the end of this month.

NEW FEATURES PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS FOR EXISTING PLAY DEVICES 

While developing this update, over a dozen software improvements and bugs were addressed and three major features were introduced including:
  1. Native BirdDog Cloud Connectivity
  2. SRT Support
  3. Custom Splash Screen
Details of these new features will be included in the user guide and shared in the release notes on our website when the firmware is posted.

CURRENT ISSUES

The software release that shipped with these new PLAY units contains two known issues and fixes detailed below. These known issues are addressed in the latest firmware version 1.0.30. It is recommended any PLAY unit shipped after September 1st 2023 be upgraded to this firmware which can be found here.

Firmware 1.0.30 can be safely applied to previous PLAY fanless units and will increase performance, address over a dozen bugs and add the deliver the features outlined above.

BirdDog technical support is always available at help@birddog.tv to assist you with any questions you may have, or to provide help in resolving the issues should you require any additional support.

FIXES

Device Stuck on IP Address 192.168.100.100

During our manufacturing process each PLAY device receives a series of tests in ‘QA mode’ to ensure all hardware is functioning correctly, during this process a final flag sets the device to run in ‘production mode’. If your device remains stuck on IP Address 192.168.100.100, it needs to connect to a computer one final time to enter ‘production mode’. 

Setup your computer with a static IP address set to 192.168.100.123 (It is imperative to use this IP address and none other).  
  1. Power on your PLAY.  
  2. PLAY will boot up to the IP address 192.168.100.100.  
  3. Login to the BirdDog BirdUI (Web Interface) from your computers web browser at http://192.168.100.100 (password is ‘birddog’ by default) and confirm on the dashboard that the hostname has displayed as “birddog-xxxxx” (where xxxxx is a series of alphanumeric characters corresponding to the MAC address of the unit).  
  4. Once this is verified, return your computer network settings to their original configuration and power cycle your PLAY 
  5. PLAY should now startup as expected.

BirdUI Unavailable at Startup

This issue can occur when PLAY starts up without the ability to reach the internet. This can occur either because PLAY is on an isolated network, with no access to the internet, or if there is a DNS proxy or other filtering device disrupting access. This is a bug and is addressed in the 1.0.30 Firmware.

  1. Connect the PLAY to a network that has direct access to the internet.  

  1. In this configuration, the PLAY will boot up and its BirdUI will be accessible.  

  1. Login to your PLAY by entering the IP Address shown on the Splash Screen displayed on the HDMI output of PLAY (password is ‘birddog’ by default) 

  1. Use the WebUI to apply the .30 firmware linked above 

  1. BirdUI will be now available regardless of internet connectivity.


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