ATEM Television Studio: Shipping/releasing soon?

[Doug Fish]

Raising this thread from the dead to state that I FINALLY received an e-mail today notifying me that the ATEM Television Studio has shipped. Likely won’t get to me until Monday.

We’ll finally know if it lives up to the hype.

[Matt Penner]

Where did you order it from? B&H Photo still shows that it is on pre-order and I haven’t received an email yet from them that they have it in stock.

Let us know how it works out! 🙂 I’m especially anxious to find out about saving the H.264 footage out to a USB drive.

[Doug Fish]

Markertek.

The ATEM TVS works well in my limited testing, including H.264 recording. Gripes: It hates lengthy HDMI cords (or at least cheap ones), doesn’t have an on/off switch, requires AES/EBU audio via its BNC connection, and still doesn’t have standard def implemented. But it’s an amazing product for the price.

[Thierry Humeau]

Got mine too and here are a few comments following initial testing…

– Despite a few shortcomings on first use, $995 for this piece of hardware and software is a steal. There is no product on the market that offer this kind of functionality and built quality in that price range.

– Audio needs to be fed through the AES/EBU input so, you’ll have to spend an extra $400 to $700 to get an A/D converter box + maybe some kind of sync generator to do this. You could theoratically feed audio directly to your recording device (deck, solid state recorder,….) but this will introduced quite a bit of delay due the processing lag introduced to the video by ATEM TS

– The specs sheet says Media Pool is limited to 2 graphics. On my TS, I can load all 36 Media Pool slots so, I am not sure if this limitation was lifted on the final release of TS. Or the limit may just be with graphic w/ alpha channels. Will do more testing today, but if there is indeed a 2 graphics w/alpa limit in the Media Pool for ATEM TS, this would seriously cripple the system even for simple live situations when a few keys need to be rolled in sequence.

– All graphics imported in the Media Pool need to be reimported when ATEM TS is powered off or when quitting ATEM’s Control Pannel. I am not sure why but this is a real pain as graphics take a lot of time to reimport and reorganize in the Media Pool. Media Pool does not keep track on any previously imported graphic after a restart.

– When keying graphics, you need to configure keying attributes for alpha channels , I wish the system could automatically handle graphic keys with file that have builtin transparency such as PNGs, TARGA, Photoshop, etc…

– I find the interface a bit confusing when juggling between DSKs and Media Players. We need a streamlined interfaced when access to graphics and keying parameters can be all set in the same place

– Customization of the MultiView display on TS is limited to just labeling sources and choosing from one of the 4 layout presets. This is annoying as there is no way to rearrange or get it off blank, unused source windows. This being a bit critical for the operator confort and precision, full customization should really be made avail to TS as well.

So, looking at the limitations above, potential buyers may consider spending more and go with the next model up, the ATEM 1 M/E which has analog audio I/Os, more Media Pool capacity, DVEs, etc… but surprisingly, no H.264 encoding. This is a serious oversight from Black Magic to not have offered H.264 encoding accross the ATEM product line. I am wondering if H.264 encoding could be added to the ATEM 1 M/E or 2 M/E models down the road.

Hope this helps.

Take care,

[Thierry Humeau]

Fyi, I noticed an error for the ATEM TS Specs on both, Black Magic’s web site specs and operation manual. The ATEM TS can hold 20 stills (w/ alpha channel) in the Media Pool, not 2 as stated in Black Magic literature. The ATEM 1 M/E and 2 M/E can hold 32 stils.

[Thierry Humeau]

Does anyone have a recommendation for a simple, low cost A/D converter to feed XLR balanced audio to the AES/EBU digital audio input on the ATEM Television Studio? Most A/D audio box I see cost almost as much as the TS alone. It almost makes more sense to buy an ATEM 1 M/E instead which comes with analog audio I/Os.

Take care,

[Doug Fish]

Yes. The Behringer Ultramatch SRC2496, which costs $164. You’ll need the cabling to feed XLR into the SRC2496, and a RCA to BNC cable to feed the RCA digital audio out to the BNC input of the ATEM TVS in the AES/EBU format.

Haven’t done extensive testing, but working well thus far.

[Thierry Humeau]

Thanks Doug. Pretty amazing piece of gear for the price. My typical setup to use the TS is a small events with 2 or 3 cameras where we are fed house analog audio. We record the HD-SDI output of the TS to a XDCAM HD deck and feed the house analog audio to it. Doing so, create a recording with quite a delay between audio and video. So, I assume that using the Beringher A/D converter and feedeing the house audio into the TS will alleviate this. What do you think? Also, do I need some kind of sync generator to feed both, TS and A/D converter?

Best,

[Doug Fish]

In my testing, I *might* hear the audio arriving slightly before the video, but it would be imperceptible unless you are carefully looking for it. However, I can’t guarantee anything to you, because it’s always a matter of matching up the delays in the audio and the video. Depending on your setup, you may have more or less video delay than I have. My suggestion is to get the SRC2496 (or whatever you end up purchasing) and see if there’s a problem. I *think* it will eliminate the delay from your existing setup, but I don’t know how exacting your demands are.

The ATEM TVS syncs your video, but has no audio control options–whatever you are sending in as audio at that moment is what it mates with the video. Thus, any audio delay necessary will require an outside solution. Genlocking is really beyond me, I’m just a novice.

[Thierry Humeau]

Thanks Doug. Not too picky about the delay as long as it is not obvious. Right now by feeding analog audio directly to the deck and having the video processed by the ATEM TS, there is almost 1/2 sec delay so, it’s bad. I am sure feeding digital audio to the TS will fix this.

Take care.