[Richard Crowley]

You did not identify the cameras or even the connection signal.

I regularly use 300-ft lengths of cheap RG6 cable to run SDI from my Sony EX1 and NX5 cameras to my video switcher. This is the kind of cable used for satellite and cable TV installations and 1000 ft reels generally cost ~$50 in my area.

[Richard Crowley]

1) Why are you using a HD digital switcher when all the rest of your equipment is SD analog? You are spending as much on converters as the switcher cost. Not to mention the awkward SD-HD-SD problems.

2) I would think there is a significant possibility that one or both of your cameras will not produce a compatible signal through those (or any?) converters. I would want to test it (or get good first-hand confirmation) that your combination is compatible before spending any $$$.

3) I would also want to confirm that the output of the Intensity Extreme is compatible with the ATEM TVS. Blackmagic Design has a nasty habit of making equipment that isn’t necessarily compatible with each other. I solved this problem with a cheap netbook PC with HDMI output, but if you are stuck in Apple-land maybe a Mac mini with HDMI output would do the job of insert playback.

There is an ATEM-specific forum that has a compatibility list at…
https://www.atemuser.com/CompatibleEquipment

[Richard Crowley]

Over what distance?
Under what circumstances?
With what budget?

Full broadcast quality digital transmission links quite easily cost more than the camera. Do you REALLY need wireless? How are you powering the camera? How are you controlling it?

[Richard Crowley]

Yes, most of my current systems have Firewire. But you can bet that it is disappearing even as you read this sentence. It is not something I would invest in going forward. In their typical corporate style, Apple demanded high-price royalties for each Firewire port which kept Firewire from ever reaching the popularity and ubiquity of USB (which is royalty-free). And USB3 has now overtaken Firewire in both speed, and implementation price. This and other developments (like Thunderbolt) spells doom for Firewire.

You don’t need USB3 even for several channels of SPDIF/AES3. USB2 is plenty fast enough. That is why you don’t find many audio devices with USB3.

I found several SPDIF to USB gadgets on eBay. Most are < $15.

The device you cited does NOT appear to have digital inputs or outputs, so it is still not clear exactly what you are asking about here?

[Richard Crowley]

1) That device does not appear to have digital inputs or outputs. You initially stated that you were interested in capturing your digital recordings in the digital domain.
2) That device uses Firewire interface to the computer which is a dying commodity. Newer generations of computers (those that even had Firewire) are replacing it with USB3. So it isn’t surprising that driver support for any Firewire devices will decrease in the future.
3) It is not at all clear that using a device like this has any significant advantage over simply running the analog output from your DAT player into whatever analog inputs are already available in your computer.

[Richard Crowley]

Do not touch the screws! They hold the optical connectors in place.

It will make no difference in time whether you capture the recordings in digital or analog. It may not make any difference in quality, either, given the quality of the original signals.

If you really want to do the capture in the digital domain, there are small and inexpensive adapters available to take digital audio signals and input them into your computer via USB.

[Richard Crowley]

If you are going to use that computer only to control the ATEM, then you must disable the computer’s automatic network configuration so it won’t reset each time you turn it back on.

Or if you are going to use the computer to both control the ATEM, and also to operate on the internet, you can configure the ATEM to match the internet configuration. The instructions are in the manual.

[Richard Crowley]

If you take the ATEM and the Cat5 cable and the computer back home does it work?
It sounds like it may be related to how your computer boots. Maybe it resets the network configuration upon boot, so you must re-configure it each time.
If you re-configure the computer network settings at the studio does it work?

[Richard Crowley]

The only standalone SDI distribution amplifier I can find from Miranda is this one:
https://www.miranda.com/pdf/datasheets/SDA-172p.datasheet.en.pdf
Their their other DA products appear to be board-level that plug into a larger frame.

It mentions nothing about any special handling (insertion or striping) of the audio data. It would seem reasonable to expect that SDI equipment passes through any audio data unless otherwise specified.

[Richard Crowley]

The USB connection has nothing to do with controlling the ATEM. I would disconnect it until you have the control problem resolved.

So SOMETHING must be different between home studio. But you do not give us enough detail to know what it is?

At home you have the ATEM connected to your computer using a simple Cat5 cable with one end plugged into the ATEM, and the other end plugged into the computer.

But how do you have it connected at the studio? Is it the same ATEM and the same Cat5 network cable and the same computer? Or is SOMETHING different? WHY does your computer ask for a new IP address?