Flickering LEDs only with external grabber / Videos attatched

Hmmm..

If possible, try attaching a computer monitor to the splitter (with tv attached) to see the image it's passing along to the converter.

If its clear, then I would suspect the hdmi2av converter.

Might be able to test the hdmi2av converter (and grabber) with something else that output's video with hdmi. A dvd player or a laptop with hdmi out, even a desktop computer.

Could test the usb grabber with something that output to rca style connectors. A dvd player or camcorder maybe.

Hey, i have the same problem with my setup. I've got the APA102 but the problem is exactly the same. I already tried to switch out every part to see if one of them is causing the issue, but the problem still persists. My setup also worked flawlessly until a power outage a few months ago, after they fixed the power outage the problem started. An interesting fact is, that the flickering changes with the set frequency (e.g. high frequency = fast flickering and low frequency = slow flickering). Also i use double shielded cables for data and clock... so that's that.

All of the ground wires are tied together, correct?
A loose ground wire can cause similar reactions.

And with that, I'm out of ideas on a remedy.
Sorry. :(. .

Hi, I had the same setup and flickering and solved it this way:
Signal from Source (PC) is 60Hz. HDMI 2 AV converter is in NTSC mode. There is a little slider next to the power input. (NTSC is 59.94Hz). And set the value of the grabber property "standard" to "NTSC".

So it might be the same for you that the input is 60Hz (likely if you are in the EU).

Before the slider was on "PAL". Which works with 50Hz and can cause this kind of flickering due to different frequencies. Imagine it like someone talking too fast and you can understand most but not all of the words.

Changing the baudrate, core_freq or other frequencies changed the behavior of the 'random' flickering. But did not lead to a solution for me.

Now there is only a little flickering left in extreme situation like: left half of the screen black(#000000) and right half of the screen dark grey(#111111). Only the LED's right on the edge between these two colors are flickering a little bit. But that is due to the fact, that the converter does not provide a static output for a static input. Therefore true black input does not imply true black output. This flickering gets a little bit reduced by enabling the smoothing feature.

Yes exactly. If your source signal is 60Hz the slider on the HDMI 2 AV Converter should be on NTSC and the grabber setting in the configfile should be NTSC aswell.

Hi all,
i am running into exactly the same problem ... i got an RPi 2 with APA102 ...
On bright scenes, no problem but on darker scenes there is a nervous flickering on some LEDs, especially the non-white ones.
I tried / changed nearly everything. There is no flickering on my captured image. If i freeze the screen you can see it very clearly. This must be some interference stuff impacting the grabber chain since there is no problem with testing internal grabber or setting solid colors from hyperion client. Ill try the ntsc workaround but i am pretty sure that will make no difference ...

okay, with change to NTSC: no approvement ...

As a side note: I already ran this setup with a WS2812B Strip with no problems ... this may have to do something with the APA102 ... but i dont know what

Same issue with apa102 from aliexpress. I tried with a raspberry zero + level shifter and then with a esp8266. Always the same issue

Might have found something when testing the stream from the grabber. It produces a lot of noise that could lead to make Hyperion creates that flickering. Maybe a faulty UTV007 or HDMI to rca...

Got also APA102 from Aliexpress .. my grabber does not produce that noise so much ... i am sure, that has something to do with the software and not with hardware since the internal grabber and solid colors are very stable, no matter which brightness or speed ...

Any progress on this?

I fixed the LEDs flickering by adjusting the Grabber cropping, so that there were no margins:

The margins had visual artifacts and noise, hence the flicker. I have used "Take grabber screenshot" to see where are my margins.

My grabber had no option to switch to NTSC, seems to be fully automatic. Id does work only while set to NTSC in Hyperion.

Grabber: LogiLink
LED strip: APA102.

I have the exact same problem. Die LEDS are flickering like in the video you've posted. Also just when im using the external grabber. Ever since im using the internal grabber everything is fine. I changed the external graber and the hdmi splitter but the problem still persists. I have also the APA102 from AliExpress.

So it seems like thats a bigger problem, maybe a software problem.

Is it possible to install an old hyperion version on the rasp just to check if its a software problem?

Hey Guys,

dunno if someone is still following this thread...but yeah I have the same problem with APA Leds as described above: I get some flickering at darker scenes. But what I registered beside my flickering was LEDs staying on regardless a pitch black image. So after I couldn't solve my problem with the flickering, I try to scrutinize the other one:

LEDs stay on at black color

So right now the flickering is mostly gone at darker scenes but you have to finde your own value for threshold.

sorry for digging this up but after playing around with all the workarounds suggested here which ultimately resulted in a deteriorated picture (cropped / colors washed out) , i think i found an actual solution to this problem:

(this is on hyperion.NG):go to Capture Hardware Tab -> USB Capture -> shrink factor (or whatever it is called in english): 2

what happened for me is this: checking the live video feed i now have a much more stable image (less flickering around the edges) and thus the LED flickering is gone. CPU load on my RPI4 didn't really make a big jump (sits at around ~20%) but image quality improved heaps. Of course the results are even better if you set the value to 1 but then my RPI4 shows cpu loads at around 60%

seems like the problem was just that the image received after the splitter->converter->capture orgy was just flickering as hell with the shrink factor set to default (8 or something, can't remember) and thus hyperion tried its best to reproduce this for the LEDs^^

anyway, maybe this helps somebdy