Resolume or BMD Atem TV Studio or ...

[Matt Riley]

Hi guys,

 

I've recently found myself talking over potential upgrades with a couple of church/multiuse venues and following some research, both of these systems have popped up on my radar. The first has an EX3 at the moment (looking to get more) and a Barco CLM HD8 firing onto a standard 1080p 16:9 screen, but sadly ran out of cash before the proposed Broadcast Pix Slate could be installed? (So the budget is low!)

 

Ideally, it would be principally used for live IMAG, Projected song lyrics (over IMAG and animated backgrounds), Powerpoints and video content. It would also be desirable to eventually (once IP rights issues are worked out) quickly upload or possibly live stream teaching/ services / events to the web. Ease of use is imperative as well.

 

They currently have a potentially spare rackmount i7 box which looks to be very well specced for running Resolume, but the cost of software and filling it up with cards is pretty close to double the cost of the ATEM TVS. The TVS looks to be perfect, apart from the fact that it is only 1080i / 720p and ideally it would be good to keep all the cameras and playback at 1080p res. There is no real need for scaling as part of the process as all of the sources can manage 1080p.

 

I've done a lot of research into control options and both the ATEM and the Resolume system and both have their unique advantages - parts of the Resolume system could be controlled by the Chamsys lighting system as well as a Touch OSC or midi interface for more conventional switching tasks, and it would integrate better into the lighting design... Meanwhile the ATEM is a single, dedicated box which is cheaper, with fewer headaches which could be controlled from the Words PC and possibly an inexpensive arduino based custom hardware controller in the future.

 

So in summary:

 

BMD plus points

One box

Cheap

Low latency for IMAG

Can be controlled from projection PC

 

minus points:

Only 1080i

Sorting out hardware control likely to be a bit of a ball ache

 

Resolume plus points:

Better integrated with lighting system

More control options

1080p

Possible to do different 'mixes' for overflow rooms/streaming and main screen.

More scope for growth - ie digital scenery, LED Screens, etc

Could use HD USB Webcam for inexpensive 'safety' wide shot

 

minus points:

More expensive

More config / maintenance

More complicated interface

Harder to guarantee latency?

 

Which would you go for? Someone please tell me that BMD are just about to release a 1080p update to the ATEM range!

 

Second venue to follow!

[AHYoung]

You say ease of use is imperative , but you are considering running VJ software on a Custom Pc filled with capture cards controlled by another device running lighting control software via a touchscreen...

 

from what you describe the super cheap BMD / ATem unit does everything you want and will do it out the box with workable latency. Hardware control is a simple matter as you either buy the controller designed for it or one of the http://skaarhoj.com/ units. Be prepared to pay for it though, but the option is there to use a pc for control for nothing. Its worth noting that the resolutions need to be specific and you are going to be limited to hdmi ins only, so it may require a scaler to be provided for the connection of laptops / computers, but thats going to be the same if you go for a resolume based system.

[Matt Riley]

You say ease of use is imperative , but you are considering running VJ software on a Custom Pc filled with capture cards controlled by another device running lighting control software via a touchscreen...

True - though you're conflating ease of use and ease of programming! I'm pretty sure that if I dedicated a short amount of time I could have something running using other touchosc or a hardware midi controller with nice big easy to push buttons to switch between sources. And the lighting state integration could make the playback side of things easier once programmed!

from what you describe the super cheap BMD / ATem unit does everything you want and will do it out the box with workable latency. Hardware control is a simple matter as you either buy the controller designed for it or one of the http://skaarhoj.com/ units. Be prepared to pay for it though, but the option is there to use a pc for control for nothing. Its worth noting that the resolutions need to be specific and you are going to be limited to hdmi ins only, so it may require a scaler to be provided for the connection of laptops / computers, but thats going to be the same if you go for a resolume based system.

So in this case the in projector scaling needed to go from 1080i to the native 1080p won't have a significant effect on latency ? I've looked at the skaarhoj designs and would probably eventually build a nice 19" rack interface based on one of his designs ( though the buttons are likely to be a bit less pricey!)

[AHYoung]

cant see how going from interlaced to progressive can have more than half a frames additional delay if at all, as at least half the lines wont be affected. all the hd webcams, capture cards for resolume etc will have comedy latency. Capture cards are designed to prioritise quality rather than latency as they are designed for editing not live work, you need something like an active silicone capture card and that costs the same as the TV studio.

The Skarrhog stuff is expensive as it uses expensive buttons and faders, you can use their programming and circuits with cheaper buttons and faders in a custom case or you can build your own custom interfaces as the informaation is all out there and available so if you dont want an off the shelf solution but a project id start there as you at least know that from the video in to out, its going to work properly...

[sleepytom]

You seem a little confused about a few things. The ATEM is a vision mixer, it's not much use for titles / graphics etc (you'll need some kind of media server / presentation machine) on the other hand Resolume can't play powerpoints and operationally it is potentially complex.

 

Also you don't have 1080p sources - the EX3 is 1080i.

 

The most professional solution would be an ATEM with a CasparCG media server for your graphics and VT playbacks. This would allow you to do full broadcast quality HD graphics nicely keyed over the video cameras. I'd suggest that using the "JustMacros" application along side the ATEM and CasparCG would give a very operationally simple solution http://atemuser.com/forums/atem-vision-mixers/blackmagic-atems/atem-macros-xkeys

 

I would suggest the 1ME rather than the TVS - this gives you AUX outputs for your additional rooms and it's USB3 output can be fed directly into streaming software such as FlashMediaLiveEncoder. (it can even go direct into Resolume via USB3 with a very low latency- around 1 frame)

 

As to Kaspers prices then I think they offer really good value for money. The buttons are properly professional quality like you'd find on a sony or grass valley switcher. People used to things like the MX70 will be amazed by the Skaarhoj quality!

 

I'd be happy to have a chat with you about the different options and various pit falls, I'm a long term ATEM + Resolume user so have been though many of the options / issues that these two have!

[Matt Riley]

Hi Tom,

 

I've spent some considerable time on atemuser looking through the threads and was hoping you might appear! I'm pleased to say the EX3 is definitely a 1080p camcorder. In terms of graphics, there wouldn't really be any lower thirds etc, it would be more displaying powerpoints and short films in quicktime format (through a projection pc with operator), and eventually vj style integration with the lighting rig with lyrics keyed over the top.

 

I think this definitely is a case of going down the atem route - in terms of the output, the system is currently running direct from the projection pc at 1080p without any live IMAG - how much of a quality step back do you think it will be?

 

I think when I was considering the options I wasn't necessarily confused about the purpose of the two products - I initially considered something like the atem may be a no brainer, but it seems that there is a real march towards integrating lighting, scenic/atmospheric projection and conventional sources, with people beginning to run camera feeds through media servers with capture cards. Part of me was getting a bit carried away and wondered whether that flexibility to integrate atmospheric projection, led elements, lighting and timecode/click track stuff (and the ability to operate at 1080p) was worth the extra faff factor?

 

A couple of latency questions?

If you connect up a single freerun source to the atem, does that mean that the minimum system latency automatically goes to 1 frame across all inputs - ie 40ms?

In terms of the less expensive crop of hdmi full HD projectors have you had a chance to try the atem with them?

I'm not going to use it for this solution, but was I right in hearing that you had managed to achieve 1 frame latency from a capture card in resolume? Was this 40ms from camera to projector input? If so, that's pretty amazing!

[grizzly]

I'm pleased to say the EX3 is definitely a 1080p camcorder.

 

It's not quite that simple, I'm afraid.

To get any sort of progressive output on the SDI or YPbPr outputs, in the OTHERS menu, you'd need to set the 'Country' to 'NTSC Area', rather than 'PAL Area', then in 'Genlock', change '24P Sytem' from 60i to 24PsF.

Then set the 'Video Format' to an appropriate setting (1080/30P or 1080/24P, say).

Even then, the format may not be exactly what you are after.

 

 

[Matt Riley]

OK guys, soz - my bad! There I was thinking that because it could record at 1080p, that it was able to output 1080p ;) Would I be right in thinking it's due to the lack of 3g SDI which makes getting 1080p out of it for live use a bit of a no-no?