[Jeff Hartman]

[Don Stephens] “I’m confused as to why BMD would post specs that aren’t implemented yet but act as if they are. This is not a terribly new product, either, so there’s been time for at least a couple firmware releases.”

I’m having exactly the same issue with their OpenGear Up/Down/Cross converter cards: no captioning with certain combinations of input and output formats. They told me back in December that this was a known issue that would be corrected in a firmware relase. Now, in May, there is still no fix for this — and there is still no documentation for the product.

It’s the same issue we had with their ATEM Television Studio, which was explicitly specified to work with both SD and HD formats. They shipped for many months before a firmware revision last November finally enabled standard def functionality.

BMD makes some neat stuff, but you can’t depend on their specifications as a guide to whether the product will actually perform a given task. At this point I am only purchasing their gear if it is proven to actually work for my application. Innovation and cost-effectiveness are great… but only after making sure the product actually delivers what is promised.

Sorry for the rant… but the point is, this is no anomaly.

Jeff Hartman
Engineering Project Manager
Newport Television, Northeast

[Jeff Hartman]

If you’re so inclined, it’s pretty easy to make your own cable. Here are the pinouts per the Multibridge manual:

AES IN 1: pin 1 high, pin 14 low, pin 10 ground
AES IN 2: pin 2 high, pin 15 low, pin 12 ground
AES IN 3: pin 3 high, pin 16 low, pin 13 ground
AES IN 4: pin 4 high, pin 17 low, pin 22 ground
AES OUT 1: pin 5 high, pin 18 low, pin 23 ground
AES OUT 2: pin 6 high, pin 19 low, pin 24 ground
AES OUT 3: pin 7 high, pin 20 low, pin 25 ground
AES OUT 4: pin 8 high, pin 21 low

They don’t indicate a separate ground for AES out 4, but any of the other ground pins should work fine.

At the opposite (XLR) end, high connects to pin 2, low to pin 3, and ground to pin 1.

This is the same pinout that Yamaha, Mackie, Sony, and Apogee use — and it’s distinctly difference from the Tascam DA88 protocol.

You can find the manual online at https://www.planetdv.net/Pdfs/Multibridge_Win_Manual.pdf — the pinout is on page 32.

Regards,

Jeff Hartman
Engineering Project Manager
Newport Television, Northeast

[Jeff Hartman]

I’ll agree with what Richard wrote — we have both an HD Tricaster and several ATEM units — but would caution that Blackmagic is not particularly good with customer support, and that they tend to sell functionality that doesn’t yet exist. For example, the ATEM Television Studio was sold for the better part of a year before they released a firmware revision that let it actually operate in standard definition, even though SD was in the sales literature from the start. I’m still waiting for a firmware update to correct captioning problems with up-down-cross converter cards I bought last December.

My point is not to rant, but rather to suggest that you make certain that whichever product you select actually performs all of the functions you need and expect before you write the check.

For what it’s worth, you might also want to take a look at the Ross Crossover or Carbonite: they are very stable, less clunky than the Tricaster, and perform automatic format conversion on the inputs. Ross technical support is about the best I have seen in 30+ years.

Jeff Hartman
Engineering Project Manager
Newport Television, Northeast

[Jeff Hartman]

You’re going to need to de-embed the audio from each HDMI feed so you can send it to a separate audio mixer. There are a number of companies that make de-embedders: several that come to mind are the Atlona AT-HD570, the Extron HAE100, and the Kramer FC-46XL (these are examples, not necessarily recommendations, and are in no particular order). Unfortunately, Blackmagic does not make a single device that does this. Typically, you would bring the feed from the camcorder to the de-embedder’s HDMI input; then wire the de-embedder’s HDMI output to the ATEM. Analog audio from the de-embedder goes to your audio console for mixing.

But… there is another factor at play here that you might want to consider: the maximum length you can run with HDMI. If the distances involved are more than a few dozen feet, you might want to pair a Blackmagic HDMI to SDI miniconverter with each camera and run coax back to your control point; then, just before the ATEM, pass the coax feed through a Blackmagic SDI to HDMI miniconverter. This actually opens up more options for you: it gives you the choice of plugging the camera feed into either an HDMI or an HD-SDI input on the ATEM, plus it provides the de-embedded audio for your mixer. Much more versatile, and much more robust.

Regards,

Jeff Hartman
Engineering Project Manager
Newport Television, Northeast

[Jeff Hartman]

Thanks, Bob —

That’s pretty much what I guessed, but I hadn’t thought about the Sony… we have historically gone back and forth between Dell and HP over the years. Appreciate the input!

— Jeff

[Jeff Hartman]

Good point, Justin. I was actually intending to keep the keyboard in place for the sake of actually punching sources, but using the touch functions to access the other buttons like transitions. The people using the equipment will generally not have broadcasting or production experience — this is for a church — so I want to keep things as intuitive and simple as possible.

— Jeff

[Jeff Hartman]

Hey, Bob —

By any chance have you tried using a touchscreen to control the ATEM TVS? I’m working up a project now that includes three of these along with a router, and it seems like an all-in-one PC with touchscreen and solid state hard drive for each ATEM could be pretty good operationally, but I haven’t actually tried it. (No, they wouldn’t be recording the video… just sitting on a small machine control network that doesn’t hit the internet — so performance isn’t a big issue.)

Thanks for your input —

Jeff

[Jeff Hartman]

[Robbie Brandon] “DOes the ATEM TVS embed audio to the SDI and HDMI program outs via the AES/EBU connector? I have got confirmation that the ATEM 1 M/E embeds the audio into the SDI/HDMI program outs, but i also heard the TVS only embeds to the H.264 stream out of the usb2.0 output. Can anyone confirm on way or the other?”

Yes, the AES feed you supply does indeed get embedded in the SDI and HDMI outputs, and becomes part of the H.264 stream. The AES input is unbalanced and needs to be at 48K sample rate.

— Jeff

[Jeff Hartman]

A quick note: I get a 404 error by clicking the “buy” link on your web site.

Thanks again,

Jeff

[Jeff Hartman]

Thanks, Richard — I haven’t explored alternative software, and should have been more careful to state up front that my observations or recommendations are based strictly upon personal hands-on experience and on functionality that is directly supported by Blackmagic. Having said that, I should check out the software you refer to, as it could be very helpful for an application of mine.

Appreciate the heads-up!

— Jeff