# Live news studio on stage?



## Kieran Emerson (Jan 9, 2015)

We are doing a show in a few weeks which requires the use of a news studio type set up on stage, the aim is to have an actor present a news broadcast on stage and have a camera man stood on stage filming it like you would in a studio. We then want this video to be shown live on a screen behind the person but have all the captions etc. overlayed live onto the video. Can anyone suggest what software/ hardware we would need to do this? (we are using a camera with a HDMI output and the projector screen is a datapath video wall with 4 short throw projectors.


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## Joshualangman (Jan 9, 2015)

I would use camera and video cues in QLab. You can do everything you'll need that way.


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## Kieran Emerson (Jan 9, 2015)

any ideas how i would get the footage from the camera into QLab then out to a projector?


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## StradivariusBone (Jan 9, 2015)

I'd think you'd have decent latency issues with QLab and I'm not sure you can do it without a switcher inline (don't know, never tried live video feed into it before). What kind of input does your video wall require? Is it possible to go direct from the camera to whatever is blending those projectors? I'm thinking the less you have in the chain, the less $$ and latency you'll have in the final product.


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## Kieran Emerson (Jan 9, 2015)

We're using a datapath system which takes a HDMI input and we would like to overlay graphics etc so cant just go straight from camera into source unfortnately


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## llburg (Jan 9, 2015)

See if somebody will rent you one of these Blackmagic ATEM TV studio things: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/atemtelevisionstudio.

If not, they're $1000 and sell on eBay pretty wells


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## Kieran Emerson (Jan 9, 2015)

Thanks!


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## lwinters630 (Jan 9, 2015)

Pro presenter with live switcher.


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## StradivariusBone (Jan 12, 2015)

2nd the Blackmagic ATEM.


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## Senorfish (Jan 12, 2015)

Be aware that HDMI is intended for cable runs in the neighborhood of 25' or so if I recall correctly. If you're needing a run of 75' or more from the camera to the switcher or projectors, then you're going to want to convert HDMI--> ethernet --> 100' cat5 cable --> ethernet --> HDMI. That's two converter boxes from these guys https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/miniconverters


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## AlexDonkle (Jan 19, 2015)

3rd the ATEM TV Studio. I'd rent if possible.

For overlaying text / graphics you're referring to a downstream keyer (DSK), which that Blackmagic box has built-in. This is how TV report's names and graphics fade in and out during live TV broadcasts (among other things). Captions are typically generated by a "Character Generator" which unfortunately the ATEM doesn't have built-in. You'll need something else to generate the caption text as video and feed that into the Blackmagic box as well during each show (a computer running power point would likely be the easiest / cheaper source to do this). The text will generate as a black screen with black text, so you'd use one of the Blackmagic box's upstream keyers to remove the "black color" same as a green screen works. That way you get white text shown on top of live video. 

You'll need a laptop running Blackmagic software during the show to control it, but that shouldn't be too much of an issue (the other way to control the ATEM is using the 1M/E Control panel, but that's extremely expensive an unnecessary).

Do not route live video into a computer if at all possible though. This is frequently attempted by churches for IMAG and theatres for special effects like you're describing, but the latency always too high and distracting.

Lastly, I would try ahead of time plugging your camera directly into your video projectors before looking into the ATEM. Depending on the number of conversions you're already doing, the latency of the projector internal processing may already be too high.


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## Jay Ashworth (Jan 19, 2015)

Note that you can't put the "air" feed, with the live camera, lower thirds, and such, *on a monitor that's in the camera shot*; that way lies madness and sweaty palms.


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