[Kip Draper]

At-once I appreciated the nature of your statement, chuckled, and my reply was meant as a strange-but-true-&-here’s-how, and it’s actually not a bad idea for some applications.

In my micro ctrl room (picture a walk-in closet), up high is cooler, less-travelled airspace as opposed to a rear mount to 1 of 3 stuffed 12u rack cases on wheels already exploding in rear w/ wires in ever-flux. Mounting switcher below where beam meets roof + stacking 4 flat Atlona HDMI cables as one, I used the 90-deg angle of roof/beam to guidewire a graceful loop into the 1M/E, w/ far less tension transferred to the receptacles than in its former location. I can work on it at back-saving eye level, it has all the airflow required for a long lifespan, and the icing? The white LEDs now cast 2 perfect eyeballs onto the ceiling (a custom perm-marker mouth was added), allowing me to confirm its status at a quick glance, to which it always responds w/ a smile. 🙂

Your reply put me on the notion of a 2nd bracket (16″ depth here) to move HyperDeck Studio to a more convenient location, maybe on wall of monitors or… So no need for apologies: one man’s tongue-in-cheek is another man’s cup-o-tea!

Nonetheless, I will assume all fault for veering off-topic on a topic seldom viewed, answered, nor its answer even known by its makers until a few wash-up on a beach somewhere. 😉

[Kip Draper]

>>Blackmagic’s gear is getting so darn shallow, someone’s going to have to start making racks that are only half a foot deep!

4″ of depth works great w/ ATEM 1 M/E, but I flip the 1 M/E over so back becomes front making inputs/outputs easier to access, though there is enough clearance if mounted w/ flat, logo side facing forward. But if it’s tangle of thick HDMI cable or need to access it fast & often, backside out is best bet obviously.

It’s a ~$29, very burly, Startech wall mount bracket* measuring 2u x 4″ x 19″. I mount it on slanted/exposed wood ceiling beams of a studio at eye level w/ the hinged section towards the floor so gravity does the lowering work if I need to remove 1M/E, etc. This method also gets the 1 M/E out of the rear of a stuffy, noisy rack and into the ambient zone and essentially isolated w/ regard to electrical fields. And my cable routing to stage is mostly over head, so a bonus side-effect is realizing about 10 ‘new’ surplus feet of cable from 4 HDMI & 2 SDI inputs.

*this heavy duty all steel bracket is intended to be used for networking patch panels. However, if mounted it w/ proper bolts, I can do pull-ups on it (I’m @ 150 lbs.) & it doesn’t budge. It’s not going ANYwhere. There is also a 2u Tripp LITE bracket w/ 16″ of depth, and 1u and 4u Startech models (NewEgg) that would appear to accommodate the TVS & the 2 M/E respectively. If you’re 100% road warrior, the StarTech 12U 19-Inch Desktop Open Frame 2 Post Rack(Amazon) may do the trick, but I’ve yet to lay hands on one so I can’t provide a proper opinion on this particular quasi-portable rack.

[Kip Draper]

It’s usually the shortest (length-wise) card in any box, and since it is not designed to convert to low profile (wishlist!) w/ even a custom homemade bracket due to the obvious fact that the circuit board uses every mm of the height of a standard card; the height of the BMI Pro is its limiting factor in this case.

I have a few running in long 3u rack boxes (iStarUSA 3U Rackmount Server Chassis Front-mounted ATX Power Supply) that atypically accommodates standard ATX mainboards & an ATX PS2. (19.00″ x 5.25″ x 20.80″)

I’m guessing stepping down to a 2u box & micro-ATX mainboard is plausible w/ riser cards or you could just leave the lid off 😉 Coincidentally, w/ the exception of a risers refresher course & finding a suitable micro-ATX mainboard I can live with, I’ve set aside the other required components tested to fit into a road-friendlier, (iStarUSA 2U Rackmount Server Chassis microATX + ATX PS2), live streaming box generally the size of a 17″ notebook if its 2u width is disregarded (15.0″ x 3.5″ x 19.0″).

I’ve never built nor disassembled a 1u box, but I essentially eliminated it as a possibility since I’m pretty sure you’re forced into video(GPU) on the mainboard.

[Kip Draper]

Fabio, any luck w/ Atlona or did you postpone? Also I noticed Amazon had that little X-100 for $155 a few days ago. Your link leaving this forum takes me to a welcome post w/ 1 reply whether I’m logged-in over there or not. Care to summarize? I can guess the consensus, but this is an extreme hobby, or on-the-cheap studio for myself. After the 1M/E purchase, I’d love to toss a few HD-SDI cams on the CC, but I’m 6-months justifying (to her) the NEED for my first pro cam. 😉

I hope I don’t come off as promoting pricey HDMI as the way to go; From my reading, Bob is absolutely correct to recommend converters over HDMI cable. [but Bob have you evaluated that ultra bling $1000/meter HDMI? 😉 ] If the converters had been $295 when I paid same ballpark for 1 50′ & 2 25′ Atlona cables, I would have purchased at least one converter. However, 2 @ $800 creeps close to 50% of the cost for an HD-SDI cam. With the price drop, I think I made the right call to keep the cash in my pro cam piggy bank. Plus, I have 4 top-shelf Vixias that are finally rock-solid, never leave a well-lit studio, and only broadcast to the Internet, so I doubt 90% of my audience could pick the HD-SDI shot out of an HDMI line-up.

Waiting in hindsight would have been the best call lol, but I had shows to do & haven’t noticed BMD knock $100 off of any product under $500. I’m betting their heavy duty was to be released priced @$100 more, and disappointing numbers on regular mini conv priced same as AJA & Atlona converters triggered Plan B. I’m sure that spike is still rocketing, and competing converters @ $100 more are in the dregs.

Undercutting w/ as good or better quality and/or features is BMD’s game plan w/ this market, and I was miffed & curious that HDMI mini conv were exact same price as AJA conv. Good companies move fast and will stand up & box, but I haven’t noticed any takers moving towards the ring, and I don’t know much about the industry, but I get the sense most won’t turn to fight until it’s too late. It’s similar to the CDNs continuing to gouge & torture their captives while AWS and the Allies detonate nukes right on top of them.

[Kip Draper]

And if you tested same cables on a different ATEM 1 M/E, I bet you would have differing results as well. This was obvious when I was testing w/ 5 different Intensity Pro cards. Same inconsistent results w/ AverMedia HDMI cards and about 20 different 1.4 HDMI, ~$3/meter cabling of varying lengths, thickness, & manuf. (they’re all made in China).

I threw up my hands and threw money at it when it became obvious that the 1 M/E itself was not the answer to my HDMI woes. I’m not ready to throw the SDI cash yet, but ~$6/meter cabling(read entire thread) finally produced sufficient consistency & reliability on my 1 M/E.

Would like to hear others’ results and I will eventually test the Atlona flat cables on multiple Intensity/Aver cards, but it will not be soon. I’ve concluded that HDMI, just like its Firewire predecessor, works most of the time on a good day under normal circumstances.

[Kip Draper]

Yes I was referring to cam menu: I’m at 24MXP, 60i, 1080i, HDMI control is off. You might reset the cam to factory default then mimic these settings.

Confirm the BMI Pro still works w/ other cam & current Mac. Confirm HFS100 HDMI port works through other means like HDMI to TV playback. Test component from cam @ 1080i to BMI Pro component inputs. Try Wirecast(1080i 59.94 deinterlaced) & FME (1080i 59.94 29.97fps deinterlaced) to see if you can get a live picture.

I picked up the tiny but fullHD X-100 for $169/free ship on a newegg sale. I’m not recommending it necessarily, but brand-name fullHD for under $170 is a super cheap HDMI backup cam for me that I can also tripod close to the stage floor & not feel any pain when it’s inevitably kicked over.

[Kip Draper]

You must have a setting wrong; it should work on most 6′ or under cables. For BMI Pro: is HDMI cable from HFS100 plugged into the outermost/bottom HDMI INPUT? The middle HDMI female next to the breakout cable connector is OUTPUT. Did you adjust the settings in BM Control Panel? I have HDMI/Component for “output”, HDMI/HDMI for “input” and I have both input & output processing “off”.

Set HFS100 to 1080i, 60i, then go to Media Express, edit, prefs, set to 1080i 59.94, and you should have capture from the HFS100.

I have not used that Sony but I have used a $150 Toshiba X-100 full HD and it looks outstanding for $150! I use it for closeups sometimes when I need small & unobtrusive. The CX-130 should be close to the HFS100 I would guess at a glance. I might grab one…

[Kip Draper]

I use HDMI female-to-HDMI mini male adapters to go into the cams. It can be a flimsy connection, but all of my cams are wall-mounted so I tack the HDMI strategically so that it bears the weight/pressure of the connection & not the adapter/cam’s HDMI mini port.

If I were using tripods I’d use burly ones and tape or velcro the HDMI cable as described so that it’s limp going into the cam, which is coincidentally easier w/ flat cable for me.

I lost the HDMI port on one of my HFS100s and since then have given both the delicate ports and the expensive cabling the attention/treatment required for consumer equipment on the bleeding edge.

My HDMI cams:
2 HF S100
1 HV 40
1 HF M40

[Kip Draper]

I’ve been using Atlona flat cables w/ the 1 M/E w/ great success. I currently use two 25′ & one 50′ to connect 3 Vixias. The 25-footers are always there & have never dropped. The 50-footer requires one unplug/plug-back-in at the switcher upon cold boot, but once it’s warm, it’s perfect & has never dropped.

Before the 1 M/E, I logged too many hours troubleshooting cheaper cables (~$1/foot) w/ multiple BMI Pros & Wirecast. ~$2/foot & 50′ max seems to be the sweet spot for consistency/reliability in my case, but I have no reason to test further (yet), and I am thankful for that. A bargain for me & they are sharp-looking, slim, & easy to pull even 3 on top of one another.

[Kip Draper]

Sounds to me like you need to go into the Blackmagic Control Panel (in Windows CP) and adjust input/output. Then adjust in Media Express to get a picture there.

To my knowledge, Livekey is only there for Decklink.

And always buy the best HDMI cables you can afford/justify, or have a closet full of cheap ones to test until you get the magic combination. Then be prepared to begin anew when you power-up again.

I’ve had the best luck Atlona flat cables (orange/gold connectors): on an ATEM 1 M/E, they’ve never failed to register in 25′-&-under lengths. The 50-footer can require a few plugs/unplugs on power-up, but it’s solid after warming-up & has never dropped on me. Coincidentally, I’m bringing Program from the 1 M/E into a BMI Pro via a 25ft HDMI run & it’s perfect so far.

And I no longer drop them from the ceiling nor trample them into a box or drawer; I pamper them like they cost ~$2/foot because they do but worth every dollar to me.