# ATEM Mini Audio?



## StradivariusBone

Like everyone else on the planet, I am now becoming an expert in live and not-so-live video production. The church I work for has recently acquiring an ATEM Mini switcher to eventually feed a livestream. For now we're just doing pre-recorded. Our workflow has been to record multiple cameras all feeding the switcher and capture audio from an M32 with a laptop configured with Dante Virtual Soundcard (which works great!). Since it's not live, I'll do some work on the tracks on the laptop, send the audio to my boss who then stitches it together with the video as needed. We've tried a few things to feed the ATEM mini with an audio feed however, with limited success. So far it's just distorted and sounds like it's clipping the input to the ATEM, but it's fine at the sources. There doesn't appear to be any way to monitor audio at the ATEM either. 

First, it does have two inputs labeled Mic 1 and 2. From everything I've read online, it looks like these are looking for unbalanced stereo input, like a standard 3.5mm headphone connection. I configured an output from the DVS laptop to send and we got signal, but on the playback it's always distorted. Then it occurred to me yesterday that the HDMI connections are probably also feeding in audio from the cameras. This ATEM Mini seems to be marketed toward fancy YouTubers, so it would make sense that they'd utilize camera audio as well. The software that configures the switcher seems limited at best, and I haven't had a chance to really dig into it yet, but I can't seem to find anything to modify other than enabling the mic 1/2 inputs and adjusting the input gain. 

My thought now is to bypass the switcher entirely for audio and feed it directly to a computer that will run OBS via some sort of USB interface. I'm not sure if OBS has the capability to compensate for latency though. Longterm thought is to use DVS running off the Dante to send audio to a control room that's isolated acoustically and then inject that with the video feed to go live. Is this a workable path?


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## RonHebbard

StradivariusBone said:


> Like everyone else on the planet, I am now becoming an expert in live and not-so-live video production. The church I work for has recently acquiring an ATEM Mini switcher to eventually feed a livestream. For now we're just doing pre-recorded. Our workflow has been to record multiple cameras all feeding the switcher and capture audio from an M32 with a laptop configured with Dante Virtual Soundcard (which works great!). Since it's not live, I'll do some work on the tracks on the laptop, send the audio to my boss who then stitches it together with the video as needed. We've tried a few things to feed the ATEM mini with an audio feed however, with limited success. So far it's just distorted and sounds like it's clipping the input to the ATEM, but it's fine at the sources. There doesn't appear to be any way to monitor audio at the ATEM either.
> 
> First, it does have two inputs labeled Mic 1 and 2. From everything I've read online, it looks like these are looking for unbalanced stereo input, like a standard 3.5mm headphone connection. I configured an output from the DVS laptop to send and we got signal, but on the playback it's always distorted. Then it occurred to me yesterday that the HDMI connections are probably also feeding in audio from the cameras. This ATEM Mini seems to be marketed toward fancy YouTubers, so it would make sense that they'd utilize camera audio as well. The software that configures the switcher seems limited at best, and I haven't had a chance to really dig into it yet, but I can't seem to find anything to modify other than enabling the mic 1/2 inputs and adjusting the input gain.
> 
> My thought now is to bypass the switcher entirely for audio and feed it directly to a computer that will run OBS via some sort of USB interface. I'm not sure if OBS has the capability to compensate for latency though. Longterm thought is to use DVS running off the Dante to send audio to a control room that's isolated acoustically and then inject that with the video feed to go live. Is this a workable path?


 *@StradivariusBone *
Several things are incorrect: (I believe we've discussed this one once or twice before here on Dave's Control Booth Forum.)
*a*; The headphone output is MUCH too high in level for an unpadded microphone level input (akin to applying 277 /480 to a 120 volt lamp).
*b*; The headphone output will provide two unbalanced outputs, one left and one right: Two unbalanced outputs do not equate to one balanced input.
*c*; When sounds are mixed to stereo outputs, most mix engineers place bass down the centre to use your stereo woofers efficiently; like wise vocalists and featured soloists are routinely panned straight down the centre.
This works well with two unbalanced / mono inputs NOT SO MUCH with one balanced input.
With a balanced input, signals of equal levels arriving 180 degrees out of synch' cancel for a theoretical net level of ZERO normally resulting in little to no bass, extremely distant, hollow, barely there vocals (think budget engineered vocal eliminators) with only echoey stereo reverb effects remaining of anything panned down the centre.

How do you solve this / get to where you want to be?
Any / all of several ways:
*1*; Use your stereo headphone output to feed two, unbalanced, line level inputs.
*2*; Use a fancy direct box purpose designed for exactly this use.
*3*; Use two direct boxes with input pads to pad each of your two unbalanced signals down to balanced microphone levels then drive your two balanced microphone level inputs.
There's a few points to ponder.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard


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## Calc

I'll let others chime in on the ATEM, but I can address your OBS questions.
You have a couple of options for latency adjustment in OBS, depending on which way you need to adjust.
The place to adjust audio is Edit>Advanced Audio Properties. That'll let you adjust delays on your audio inputs, including negative delays. There are reports that adding longer delays gets glitchy by chewing up buffer, but I've never had a problem with smaller delays.
Video is delayed by adding a filter to the source. Right click on it > Filters > Hit the "+" under "Audio/Video Filters" > Video Delay


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## DrewE

A 3.5mm microphone input is likely not a balanced input, but rather intended for a computer-style condenser microphone (with "plug-in power", which is just a low biasing voltage on the order of a few volts present). A (pair of) passive direct boxes and appropriate cabling would be as good a solution as any for an analog connection. Padding may or may not be required in practice; but a lot of direct boxes do have a pad in any case. As to how the appropriate cabling would be wired, I can't say offhand; Google may be your best friend for that.

Looking at the manual, though, they do suggest you can plug a music player or similar device into the inputs as well as a microphone. That's pretty strange. Even more annoying is the utter lack of anything resembling technical data on these audio inputs, such as what input levels they accept or what pinouts they use or whether they are in fact stereo. You could try reducing the input gain in the mixer page of the control software thingy to see if that prevents clipping.

Frankly, the audio side of things really looks to me like something cobbled together by people who understood video but not professional audio.


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## FMEng

I'm tempted to say use Dante into the laptop, but there's a catch. Dante really needs to be on a dedicated network port. If the stream goes out on wifi, it might work. Dante has very low latency, so I doubt that will be an issue.

If you want to get audio into into the ATEM, it would help to know what the mic jack is. ATEM offers no specs, but they show an 1/8" TRS being plugged in. Is it stereo, or is it balanced? Plug in a stereo cable, such as a TRS to dual RCA, turn up the gain, and induce a buzz into one channel at a time by touching one RCA center pin at a time. If you hear the buzz in just one channel, it is stereo. 

If you can scrounge up some sacrificial audio cables and resistors, and are interested in doing some soldering, I can sketch up a simple attenuator circuit to properly match the M32 to the ATEM.


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## StradivariusBone

DrewE said:


> Looking at the manual, though, they do suggest you can plug a music player or similar device into the inputs as well as a microphone. That's pretty strange. Even more annoying is the utter lack of anything resembling technical data on these audio inputs, such as what input levels they accept or what pinouts they use or whether they are in fact stereo. You could try reducing the input gain in the mixer page of the control software thingy to see if that prevents clipping.



The documentation on the ATEM mini is sparse. It does claim that each "mic" is actually a stereo in, but I'm assuming that it's TRS L/R/Common that it's looking for. But it also says that it takes plugging in a condenser mic. I know my computer audio ports are now configurable to accept line in/headphone out/mic in/etc, so I'm guessing that might be what this does? I haven't been successful in finding the right setting for that. Complicating matters is the HDMI carrying audio from the cameras, which I hadn't considered until yesterday. Google-Fu is coming up way short. 


DrewE said:


> Frankly, the audio side of things really looks to me like something cobbled together by people who understood video but not professional audio.


This is exactly what I told my boss LOL

The Dante side of things has been performing remarkably well. It took some configuring as there are a few known issues with DVS and Mac OSX right now, but once I sorted those out it has not been a problem. The DVS is running at 10ms of latency so it is noticeably different from live, but I have no clue how backed up the video feed is. I'll try the trick with a stereo cable to see what it gets. In the software it does show level indicators running on two inputs per channel. My first thought was to run it with input from DVS and a direct out from the M32 that I would mix live (we do a 2-track to USB backup recording) so with that we would in effect have 4 safety recordings for audio (USB recording, input to ATEM from M32, DVS to MacBook running StudioOne, output from DVS Macbook into ATEM). 

With the DVS MacBook, I configured an aggregate device using USB interface that has a headphone monitor port out. So StudioOne sees the 32 channels coming in to the Mac and then buses the main mix out to the USB device. That works great, so I know from that point the audio being fed into the ATEM is fine. Something is going haywire in how it's being processed after that I suppose. And yeah, Google and BlackMagic documentation is not helping, which is where I reached out here thinking someone had seen it before.


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## FMEng

There's also a third way to do this. If you take the Dante card out of the M32, and install any card with a USB port, you can connect to the laptop via USB. With the driver's installed, it becomes a sound device to the laptop. My worry is that the laptop is already getting video via USB, so that hardware might be drinking from a firehose.


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## FMEng

Do any of the cameras have XLR line inputs?


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## StradivariusBone

FMEng said:


> There's also a third way to do this. If you take the Dante card out of the M32, and install any card with a USB port, you can connect to the laptop via USB. With the driver's installed, it becomes a sound device to the laptop. My worry is that the laptop is already getting video via USB, so that hardware might be drinking from a firehose.



We actually have two computers setup for this. The Dante laptop is only running StudioOne and Dante Virtual Soundcard. The ATEM Mini is set up with an iMac that we use for running ProPresenter. And yes, at least one of the cameras has an XLR line input, stereo no less. You're a genius, FMEng! I think that's our next trick to attempt!


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## Dionysus

Just jumping in without reading all the comments....
There is a full mixer built into the ATEM mini!

The gain on the input is likely too high, all you have to do is connect a computer with the ATEM control software and BOOM full access to all the controls not on the surface. Including a comprehensive mixer! I got an ATEM mini right before the $^# hit the fan and love it. Currently have a streaming setup on my desk.

EDIT: 

You can get the software (and the update patch for the ATEM) on the blackmagic website. It is NOT laid out the best. you are looking for https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/family/atem-live-production-switchers
ATEM Switchers 8.2 Update
Install this on your control computer, you can use this to control the ATEM and to apply updates along with configuring network settings etc. Just use the USB-C connection


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## Dionysus

DrewE said:


> A 3.5mm microphone input is likely not a balanced input, but rather intended for a computer-style condenser microphone (with "plug-in power", which is just a low biasing voltage on the order of a few volts present). A (pair of) passive direct boxes and appropriate cabling would be as good a solution as any for an analog connection. Padding may or may not be required in practice; but a lot of direct boxes do have a pad in any case. As to how the appropriate cabling would be wired, I can't say offhand; Google may be your best friend for that.
> 
> Looking at the manual, though, they do suggest you can plug a music player or similar device into the inputs as well as a microphone. That's pretty strange. Even more annoying is the utter lack of anything resembling technical data on these audio inputs, such as what input levels they accept or what pinouts they use or whether they are in fact stereo. You could try reducing the input gain in the mixer page of the control software thingy to see if that prevents clipping.
> 
> Frankly, the audio side of things really looks to me like something cobbled together by people who understood video but not professional audio.



It is intended as a "professional mic input" to be used with XLR to 3.5mm adapters. Not sure how they have that working exactly... Some kind of switched circuit?
Most people I know who use ATEMs usually connect microphones to cameras, and then feed that signal to their switcher together with the video.
ONE of the important reasons why this is typically done is that there is a built-in latency (lag) on HDMI and similar connections. So if you want audio and video 100% in sync its best to connect the mic to the camera anyways.
When feeding audio outside of your switcher keep this latency in mind if you want to keep a good sync. Delay the output to match as best you can.


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## StradivariusBone

Dionysus said:


> So if you want audio and video 100% in sync its best to connect the mic to the camera



So in that case we'd want to use a mixbus pair instead of DVS. I'm downloading the software on my personal computer now to see if I can figure it out. I found the page where audio is controlled, but a lot of it was greyed out and it was hard to see where everything was being routed. It looks like it all just forces to get mixed to the stereo mix. I feel like I'm missing a page where a lot more settings are based on what I've seen online.


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## FMEng

Dionysus said:


> It is intended as a "professional mic input" to be used with XLR to 3.5mm adapters.



That's just plain nutty. Is this how bad the industry has gotten? The device looks pretty well designed otherwise, but they couldn't find the real estate for 1/4" jacks, or better? I hope those are adapter cables because most 1/8" jacks will break from the stress of holding a heavy pair of XLRs.

The M32 can apply delay to any output.


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## DrewE

Dionysus said:


> It is intended as a "professional mic input" to be used with XLR to 3.5mm adapters. Not sure how they have that working exactly... Some kind of switched circuit?


If that's true, it would be really nice if the manual made some general mention of the fact, doubly so since it basically seems comprehensive and thorough and well-written.

All I could glean from it was that they were "stereo" 3.5mm jacks (which implies two channels of unbalanced audio), but that you could plug in a microphone such as a lavalier microphone (typically also unbalanced, with plug-in power, and not directly adaptable to standard XLR microphone inputs that supply phantom power) or an audio player (line-level stereo audio, I'd guess). Nothing there implied a balanced input, nor gave anything beyond a very broad hint as to the permissible range of input levels.


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## StradivariusBone

That's exactly how I interpreted it. Now I'm not a video guy, so I'm wondering if in the world of prosumer video and Youtubers that there are more devices that output something that would be friendly? My boss wanted to buy an XLR adapter but I told him without even understanding how it's wired it may make matters worse. I've been feeding it unbalanced line level stereo from a headphone monitor output and getting distortion, even though the levels in the app were set below clipping and when listening back on headphones the input mix sounded fine. Do those beltpack receivers that camera guys use have 3.5mm out? Is that what they are thinking of? I have to say, it's really well-built aside from this little headache.


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## AudioGreg

Launch the ATEM control software. On the main screen there is a little gear icon lower left. Clicking it brings up switcher settings. On the Audio tab you will find settings to make the Mic inputs Mic or Line level, and apply plug-in-power if needed for your mic. Both inputs are stereo unbalanced 3.5mm connectors.


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## StradivariusBone

Lookie here! Found the very inconspicuous gear icon hidden in the bottom left. We are feeding one of the mic inputs from a mixbus directly and the other from Dante. We'll see how it works in a few.


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## FMEng

That's great. The software and hardware is much more complete than the spec sheet or the manual. It's a fairly common problem these days.


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## StradivariusBone

I'm an avid user of LightFactory. I am very familiar with manual lag. It's not bad now but I think at one point we were 5 or 6 versions back from where the software was. 

Still recording, but so be far so good!


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## StradivariusBone

So I'm pretty confident that we're getting audio into the ATEM at an appropriate level, however the final recording was still a mess of distortion. There was more to the signal path that I didn't realize. So the ATEM mini has a USB-C that can send the output video and audio to a computer to be captured by OBS, etc. What we are doing is using the HDMI out to a HDMI to SDI converter and then into a recording device from BlackMagic called the Hyperdeck Mini. I didn't even realize that SDI could carry an audio signal, much less 16 channels worth! Anyway, I was under the impression that the computer was capturing the whole program, but I'm pretty confident the gain structure problems are coming on after it leaves the ATEM. I haven't begun to dive into the Hyperdeck manual yet, but I'm betting there's something internal there that's an issue.


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## AudioGreg

nope, no audio settings in the Hyperdeck mini, well other than to select the number of channels recorded. SDI embedded audio only carries what is fed into it, you can't change what's in the SDI stream without going through a processing device. And BTW, HDMI audio can only carry 8 channels of audio. The entire ATEM line only supports 2ch audio.

plug your ATEM HDMI output directly into a monitor and listen for quality there. it's good then the SDI>HDMI is causing the distortion. If it's a BMD converter I recommend updating its firmware. the ATEM outputs 1080p, older firmware did have audio issues with this at one point. current converter firmware works well.

If the audio is bad in the monitor then the problem is upstream and either in the ATEM, or the source feeding the ATEM. you have listened to the cable going into the ATEM to check quality there, right?

I've tested this with a line level source into my ATEM mini, HDMI out thru a Decimator and recorded to a Hyperdeck Mini-playback was flawless and distortion free so it's possible to get a good thru-put and recording.

EDIT-it comes to mind you never mentioned what you have going on in the ATEM mixer. Are other channels turned on, or just the mic input with your external feed? if your entire mix is on the mic input, i'd make sure you have all other faders turned off.


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## StradivariusBone

Yeah, it's going HDMI out from the ATEM into a Decimator MD-LX and then into the HyperDeck. Audio sources prior to the ATEM both sound fine and we did turn off all the HDMI input sources. Levels were set on the ATEM software mixer so everything was in the green, barely touching anything yellow. The meters on the HyperDeck also show no evidence of clipping. Both originators of the audio sound fine too. The Dante recordings are pristine and we're capturing 2-ch audio at the board via the USB stick off the same channels fed to the ATEM. I'll examine the HDMI out to see if that makes any difference prior to the Decimator.


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## FMEng

I doubt the Decimator converter would do any audio gain change, but the HyperDeck does have the capability. Once again, it has a whole mixer that has a computer interface.


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## TimMc

Are all audio sample rates set the same in all devices? I'm guessing that the HDMI spec/protocol is auto-negotiating if it's not a fixed value, but this is clearly not i/o level-related.


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## StradivariusBone

Everything I've set up is talking at 48KHz and 24bit. I want to say I recall seeing sample rate in the ATEM too, but I actually can't recall. I haven't touched the settings on the Hyperdeck. Next shot I get at it I will pull the HMDI output from the switcher and monitor the audio and also dig into the Hyperdeck a bit. FMEng is saying there are mixer settings and AudioGreg is saying there isn't. Time will tell! Or my buddy Manuel.


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## cac2244

StradivariusBone said:


> Like everyone else on the planet, I am now becoming an expert in live and not-so-live video production. The church I work for has recently acquiring an ATEM Mini switcher to eventually feed a livestream. For now we're just doing pre-recorded. Our workflow has been to record multiple cameras all feeding the switcher and capture audio from an M32 with a laptop configured with Dante Virtual Soundcard (which works great!). Since it's not live, I'll do some work on the tracks on the laptop, send the audio to my boss who then stitches it together with the video as needed. We've tried a few things to feed the ATEM mini with an audio feed however, with limited success. So far it's just distorted and sounds like it's clipping the input to the ATEM, but it's fine at the sources. There doesn't appear to be any way to monitor audio at the ATEM either.
> 
> First, it does have two inputs labeled Mic 1 and 2. From everything I've read online, it looks like these are looking for unbalanced stereo input, like a standard 3.5mm headphone connection. I configured an output from the DVS laptop to send and we got signal, but on the playback it's always distorted. Then it occurred to me yesterday that the HDMI connections are probably also feeding in audio from the cameras. This ATEM Mini seems to be marketed toward fancy YouTubers, so it would make sense that they'd utilize camera audio as well. The software that configures the switcher seems limited at best, and I haven't had a chance to really dig into it yet, but I can't seem to find anything to modify other than enabling the mic 1/2 inputs and adjusting the input gain.
> 
> My thought now is to bypass the switcher entirely for audio and feed it directly to a computer that will run OBS via some sort of USB interface. I'm not sure if OBS has the capability to compensate for latency though. Longterm thought is to use DVS running off the Dante to send audio to a control room that's isolated acoustically and then inject that with the video feed to go live. Is this a workable path?



On the mic inputs I have the exact same problem... Mic input is horrible no matter what I feed. I have tried with my Rode Wireless go, and garbage, with my Shure SM58. Also with mics on the camera, through HDMI is also very bad. I am starting to think that I have a faulty unit.


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## StradivariusBone

So success! Finally! As it turns out there was a firmware update for both the ATEM and the Hyperdeck. My boss who has been working with those primarily said there might've been a note in the update log about audio quality but he wasn't exactly sure. We pulled a feed directly from the ATEM and found that the quality was better, but still fuzzy when we recorded to the Hyperdeck. It turns out that the metering they use in the app is a bit off. Those of us used to being OK with dipping into yellow will actually clip out the ATEM. We had the gain knob set to almost the bottom and then it was able to work fine. We also acquired a separate computer so we can monitor the ATEM's software page and run slides for the bottom third at the same time, which helped. I'd recommend dropping the gain down a lot and making sure the firmware is up to date. I haven't had a moment to read through the notes to confirm or deny. It might have just been the gain was still too high even though the software said it was not clipping. I'm not sure. It's annoying not being able to monitor at the switcher, but otherwise we're now pretty happy with this. Only a month or so after the fact.


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## josh88

I'm actually picking up a mini to use with OBS soon as well. My answer to this whole problem was to just use a separate audio interface into the OBS computer and adding an audio capture to feed it separately from my board along with the video capture from the cameras/Atem mini.


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## BCAP

I apologize about slightly derailing here but my question is very closely related. I'd be happy to start another thread if necessary.


For a year or so I have been looking for a portable video streaming setup that would let me switch my 4 existing video cameras with HDMI outs and steam that out to YouTube or Facebook, or another content delivery network perhaps. And to do this at different venues - conference halls, perhaps music venues, etc. I would like my client to be able to send their participants a link to the streaming "event" maybe even monetized. I have done some research but I'm at a point where I think I need to ask for some opinions.


Similar to the OP I would like to deliver audio via the outputs of my mixing board to provide nicely mixed audio.


The equipment I think I'll need:

- Something like a Roland V-1HD video switcher. It has RCA audio ins - not ideal as I'd like balanced but I'll take it over 1/8". It does have a preview out which is nice, and additional control via USB.

- An HDMI to CAT5 extender devices to get the video to the switcher?

- A streaming box something like the AJA HELO H.264 to bring the audio and video out to the provider.

- A streaming CDN service like www.dacast.com

- Decent ethernet connection in the venue in question; or, some other way to get the stream up there when the venue has none.



My questions are:

- Is anyone currently running a setup like this? Pros/Cons, is the equipment I suggest feasible - or is there something better?

- Is there a streaming web forum or another resource where I could get more information about how to do what I want to do?

- I too would be concerned about video / audio delay and synch. I imagine it's hard to know for sure whether it would be an issue or not with the kind of setup above.

- How does one go about ensuring the venue is made responsible to pay for appropriate royalties and rights if any of the video content being streamed is copyrighted; but more importantly, my service would be indemnified.


Thanks in advance!


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## MRW Lights

You have a few options here... you've done a good job at collecting lots of parts and peices to get the job done. There are simpler in the box solutions that may help, though they also depend on your budget. Before going in to corporate broadcast I ran a performance venue with a setup similar to what you're looking at with a broadcast box consisting of a BlackMagic ATEM Studio and Telestream's Wirecast (an alternative to dacast). I had a sony PTZ controller for my cameras and an XKey that acted as the switcher for Wirecast. Audio was handled by the DM2K in our studio, but as long as you're getting an audio feed the ATEM Studio will take that in. You may want to consider a clocking device of some type, either to sync to the venue or standalone to bring everything together before going in to your switcher and out to the web. Another option to the AJA box is the blackmagic webcaster. 

If you need a cell solution for locations that either won't provide you access to the internet, or you can't rely on it, you can go full buget up to the Live U Solo. Super fan of the Live U product line and that is a pretty slick sling it to the cloud box. 

Now on to the biggie regarding performance, venue and streaming licensing from NOT A LAWYER, but someone who deals with the lawyers and process often. You can try all you want and hopefully it's not a battle to get the venue to produce the appropriate documentation. You can ask them to sign an agreement stating that you as a contractor do not accept any liability and that "they" are solely responsible for obtaining all appropriate rights thereby indemnifying you from any and all liability during or after performance/broadcast. HOWEVER, ignorance is not bliss. The wilful production, capture, broadcast, or redistribution of copyrighted material by any party may be subject to the full penalties of the law. If you know someone is going to commit a crime and you help them commit the crime you can say it's not your fault all you want, you were there and you did it. I have left several jobs because of similar issues of it's okay we're a school, or it's okay they won't come after us.... at some point morals cost more than the paycheck, but that's your call to make as it was mine.

The important things to note here are: a performance agreement does not typically include recording rights other than those for archival purposes only strictly without distribution. A licensing agreement to capture a performance does typically include the right to stream the performance. Most streaming licensing agreements allow for the 1 time airing synchronously of a live event and may not be available for replay or download during or upon the end of the live performance.


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## StradivariusBone

josh88 said:


> I'm actually picking up a mini to use with OBS soon as well. My answer to this whole problem was to just use a separate audio interface into the OBS computer and adding an audio capture to feed it separately from my board along with the video capture from the cameras/Atem mini.



I just did that yesterday (not with a ATEM mini, but the Blackmagic capture thunderbolt thing). OBS handled it flawlessly. I seriously think someone with enough python knowledge could find a way to make that program cure COVID. It is so unbelievably useful for freeware.


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## StradivariusBone

BCAP said:


> I apologize about slightly derailing here but my question is very closely related. I'd be happy to start another thread if necessary.
> 
> 
> For a year or so I have been looking for a portable video streaming setup that would let me switch my 4 existing video cameras with HDMI outs and steam that out to YouTube or Facebook, or another content delivery network perhaps. And to do this at different venues - conference halls, perhaps music venues, etc. I would like my client to be able to send their participants a link to the streaming "event" maybe even monetized. I have done some research but I'm at a point where I think I need to ask for some opinions.
> 
> 
> Similar to the OP I would like to deliver audio via the outputs of my mixing board to provide nicely mixed audio.



So our setup includes 4 HDMI sources for video into an ATEM mini. That goes to a HDMI to SDI converter to a HyperDeck Mini to capture it on SD cards and from there it will output to a BlackMagic Mini Recorder which will then connect via Thunderbolt to the stream computer. We are planning on getting an X32 production console to capture a Dante feed from the main board and use that to mix down the audio in the production room and then into an interface to feed into OBS to fire up the stream. 

Our trick is that we have two venues in one campus. My thought, rather than buy two of everything is to find a way to make both venues networked to the same production booth. There is no need to simultaneously stream from both venues, but one will go live at 9:30am and then next at 11am. Dante is easy. The room will be near one venue, so copper connections to the switch will be fine, but the other one will need fiber. Video is more problematic. I'm wondering if just running individual SDI feeds from each camera position to the production room makes the most sense, but we are exploring IP options. The distance is the problem. NDI? I think that's what it's called, is a network video option, but I've heard it is quite expensive. 

Another route I'm going to explore a bit more involves gear from Kramer. They have some sort of HDMI via IP setup that allows a source to be broadcast over a network and then picked up by decoding boxes that output the HDMI to a display. This seems viable for overflow rooms, rather than relying on the livestream and taxing our network more.


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## eadler

Do you have bare copper possible or just network? How long are the runs? Are the cameras HDMI or SDI? HDbaseT might be doable if they're HDMI (and you can get ones with PoC although I'm not sure how far they run). SDI can run pretty far if you have decent drivers.


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## StradivariusBone

There is existing network but we are looking at running Cat5/6 specifically for the new setup. Cameras all feed HDMI and the switcher only accepts HDMI. The catch is getting 2-4 video feeds from a building that's probably over 300' as the cable flies. The far building is also the "traditional worship" and therefore also "less cool with camera people setting up shop in a visible space" crew. So we are looking at PTZ in there.


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## TimMc

I don't think gigabit networks will have enough throughput for 4 HD cameras but video over IP isn't my mother tongue. If you have to go fibre things get expensive really fast. The fibre itself isn't outrageous, it's all the widgets, doohickeys, thingamabobs and gak to convert signals, multiplex them onto the fibre, demux, distribute and convert back again that turn into the real money.


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## Ben Stiegler

This is probably fantasy, but would it not be great if there was a way to control camera's bitrate/quality in these limited link situations, so that when they are in preview mode, they are sending fast thumbnails, but not full-on stream. Then, when punched live, the datarate goes to full, several frames later the take or dissolve happens, and whatever source came off live goes to a lower data rate.


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## FMEng

I've been researching the same question. Yes, 1 GHz IP networks have plenty of bandwidth for multiple cameras. I'm strongly considering a Newtek Tricaster Mini HD-4 for my church. It's a one box solution for switching, camera control, recording, and streaming. It connects to the cameras via the NDI standard, so it's one, network cable to each camera. That one cable does the power via PoE+, the video, and the pan/tilt/zoom control. The Tricaster can speak Dante for audio, and has analog line inputs, too. Newtek sells PTZ cameras, and they sell software drivers for Sony, Panasonic, and some other cameras, too. 

The system likely costs a little more than mix and match systems, but it is more flexible and a much easier to install. It seems to be a thoroughly complete and well thought out product. The university I used to work for has used Tricasters for several years for streaming concerts and other events. I asked their AV guru how he likes the system. He recommends it and said they now have cameras in several venues across campus all connected to a control room in their office.


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## StradivariusBone

That Tricaster box looks pretty remarkable. We've already chomped on the switcher and production gear though, so it might be overkill. I've got to read more into it, but the NDI stuff looks promising. Each camera gets a input box and then you put the output in the production room next to the switcher? The pricetag is waaaaaay up there though. The mini-HD-4 is $10k! Yee!

Is there a setup like Dante for video? I guess it wouldn't be too crazy to setup some kinda server at the venue side and then create streams that could be picked up by a client in the production room.


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## FMEng

If the camera supports NDI/HX then it does not need a converter. You would need a converter for cameras with SDI or HDMI outputs. They also make Tricaster models that include HDMI and SDI inputs, along with NDI. The mini HD-4 has a street price of $6k. I see the Tricaster for use where the production has to be done by one operator, using PTZ cameras. For the larger church, where you have a team of people to run cameras, there are other solutions.


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## TimMc

FMEng said:


> I've been researching the same question. Yes, 1 GHz IP networks have plenty of bandwidth for multiple cameras. I'm strongly considering a Newtek Tricaster Mini HD-4 for my church. It's a one box solution for switching, camera control, recording, and streaming. It connects to the cameras via the NDI standard, so it's one, network cable to each camera. That one cable does the power via PoE+, the video, and the pan/tilt/zoom control. The Tricaster can speak Dante for audio, and has analog line inputs, too. Newtek sells PTZ cameras, and they sell software drivers for Sony, Panasonic, and some other cameras, too.
> 
> The system likely costs a little more than mix and match systems, but it is more flexible and a much easier to install. It seems to be a thoroughly complete and well thought out product. The university I used to work for has used Tricasters for several years for streaming concerts and other events. I asked their AV guru how he likes the system. He recommends it and said they now have cameras in several venues across campus all connected to a control room in their office.



I guess I was thinking of uncompressed video. With H.264 you can squeeze 4 HD signals on a gigabit network. Probably been on too many broadcast webinars to think outside uncompressed video box...

I've not seen the newest batch of Tricasters in the wild but a couple of years ago was providing sound and lights for an even where the Tricaster Mini pooped out it's video card. It was just old enough that Newtek didn't have spares, odd enough that finding one new, anywhere within a 3 hour drive wasn't happening. Finally a replacement was found at a local computer salvage shop. The moral of the story was "always have a Plan B." The streaming guys had a work around but it didn't have the production values the Tricaster provided.

That said, that's the only field failure of a Tricaster I've witnessed that was not the result of pilot error.


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## josh88

StradivariusBone said:


> That goes to a HDMI to SDI converter to a HyperDeck Mini to capture it on SD cards and from there it will output to a BlackMagic Mini Recorder which will then connect via Thunderbolt to the stream computer.



I've used the Hyperdecks for exactly that purpose. I know the ATEM Pro lets you record directly to a flash drive or external hard drive. We skipped that and got the regular ATEM. Is there a reason you're recording via the hyperdecks and not just using OBS to also record the stream to the desktop?


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## eadler

You could use NDI and use compressed video as others have suggested but you could also wire all the camera positions to a local switcher and remote the program output, a multiviewer, and a control panel. This will be higher quality, especially presuming you're going to be compressing again.


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## macsound

josh88 said:


> I've used the Hyperdecks for exactly that purpose. I know the ATEM Pro lets you record directly to a flash drive or external hard drive. We skipped that and got the regular ATEM. Is there a reason you're recording via the hyperdecks and not just using OBS to also record the stream to the desktop?


We do this same thing. ATEM to hyperdeck, hyperdeck to Thunderbolt capture to OBS on a mac to YouTube.
We use the hyperdeck because we wanted to replicate a VCR.
Someone comes in to operate a funeral or wedding or boy scout meeting, they turn on the camera and wireless mic and press record. No computers or tech knowledge required.


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