I just got my Vidiot in the mail, but I’m a newbie to Video Synthesis and I’m already stuck.
Could anyone give me some advice?
Here’s where I’m at so far - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTX3iZtCzKQ
I’ve read the manual. I believe it’s hooked up correctly, but, no matter how many knobs or switches I try, how many combinations of patching, nothing happens. Is this normal? Am I missing something obvious? I assume I just need to learn to patch it? Thanks
ok so first off the patch cord you plug in in the video goes from the sync input of one oscillator to the Luma input. So that shouldn’t do anything
the patch points that have black fill around the outside of them are outputs and the ones with a circle and empty fill around them are inputs.
have you tried the signal you are sending to the vidiot directly to the monitor?
I would then try to take the Luma RCA output (on the vidiot it is the RCA connector on the back with the eye symbol) to your monitor.
see if it is giving you the same behavior
have you tried sending a different signal to theRCA luma input on the vidiot?
Hi wednesdayayay, thanks so much for the reply …
I tried your advice: I’ve tried different sources, and different monitors, and I’ve tried from the Luma output, and I’ve tested every knob and switch and possible combination I can think of, but I get the same results …
Here’s a “Part 2” of my situation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPlZH3gFiWQ
Same results. I’ve tried patching every witch-way and playing with all knobs and switches, but nothing ever changes.
Also, maybe this is a dumb question but …
If I remove my source all-together, I just get a black screen: Nothing. No matter how many combinations of knobs and switches, it will be a black screen.
Here’s a quick “Part 3” that shows what I mean - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LcTBHYMZtQ
It seems it could be a similar problem that this user had - Vidiot - Troubleshooting
In that case, the recommendation is to take the Vidiot apart and Twist the Ribbon Cable - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpiPMf4VLQE
So, my questions are …
Thanks again for your help!
that looks pretty weird
so short answer is no that isn’t normal
you should be getting output from the vidiot even with nothing plugged into it (depending on the knob positions)
so I would imagine since it seems to fit the description of the other vidiots that were having trouble you could flip the cable and give it a go!
one of the reasons I spoke about the black fill on the jacks is that the RCA jacks also have this fill around them
if you look at the back of the unit
starting from the left
the first RCA jack has black fill so it is meant to be an output
the second has the empty/white fill so it is meant to be an input
the third (luma) and fourth (color) both have black fill and are meant to be outputs
the reason you were passing full color video was that the first two jacks (depending on the switch settings) allow for whatever is at the input (2nd RCA jack) to come out the 1st RCA jack to allow for syncing with other systems. . For instance (this is from memory so I may have something messed up) if you took this output into the input of a visual cortex you could process the same video in parallel via the vidiot and visual cortex at the same time and you could then use outputs from either system into the inputs of the other.
Conversely and the way I’ve had it set up recently I take one of the two RCA outputs from a visual cortex based system into the input (2nd RCA) turn Loop through (3rd switch including power) off and I’m sending sync starting from the visual cortex into several modules then out the RCA jack on the side of the vessel case into the 1st RCA jack on the vidiot.
If the loop through switch is down you can then sync the vidiot to other sources by sending the sync signal into the 1st RCA jack
again I’ll have to take a look at my setup again to be 100% sure but I’ll get back to you with some video to give you a better idea
here is a basic normal operating behavior video of the vidiot
I’ll get more in depth but I wanted to get this up for you asap since you are still having issues 
please make sure to post if you decide to open yours up and flip the cable
Great thanks for that video, very helpful!
I think I’ve fixed the Problem …
I needed to take apart the Vidiot, twist the Ribbon Cable, and put it back together …
Here’s my final video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-4-g9rR2bc
Thanks again: Knowing that it wasn’t behaving normally out of the box, led me to the solution (which another user had in this forum) - thanks for your help