timsabre Posted November 24, 2014 Share Posted November 24, 2014 Can anybody recommend a box which will take in VGA at a variety of resolutions and rescale/resample to output as a 720p/50Hz HDMI signal? Preferably under £500. We use a Blackmagic Atem1 mixer at church to do a live web broadcast and manage the routing to a projector, and the inputs have to exactly match the mixer settings or you just get a black screen. We've had a run of people turning up with presentations on macbooks recently and it seems to be impossible to get a macbook to output at 720p/50Hz (or indeed anything at 50Hz), so the mixer won't display it. We were thinking a VGA-HDMI box might be a get out for us. But there are a lot of units out there from £5.99 up to £5000 and none of the more budget end seem to list the output resolutions they will support. I am guessing that the cheaper ones will vary the output depending on what the input is, which we don't want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave m Posted November 24, 2014 Share Posted November 24, 2014 so are you swapping MacBooks or presentations? Rather than mess about with conversion boxes, why not sort the issue with ONE laptop and shift the presentations? there was a similar thread a few days ago. Getting the resolution of the laptop to be a happy compromise is tricky.I use a Pannasonic HS series mixer with a DVI board but only one laptop is happy to work with it so I keep that as a dedicated one for video. you can get thunderbolt to HDMI I think? Blackmagic may be able to suggest stuff. Holdan are the distributer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart91 Posted November 24, 2014 Share Posted November 24, 2014 Rather than mess about with conversion boxes, why not sort the issue with ONE laptop and shift the presentations? The problem with this approach is that guest speakers etc. will often turn up at the very last minute, and expect to plug their laptop in on stage and run it from there. Sure, you could get around the problem with planning and preparation but it's often difficult to get the chance to do anything about it until moments before an event is due to kick off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elsbury Posted November 24, 2014 Share Posted November 24, 2014 Sounds like an edid issue. I can't always get 720p out of our macs on vga unless I have a particular interface that supports edid spoofing. Have you considered a hall research dvi spoofer ( or similar) ? :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilary Watts Posted November 24, 2014 Share Posted November 24, 2014 I was looking at this item on ebay recently and it appears to provide what you want. I didn't actually buy it as the 'possible urgent need' didn't materialise. However, the seller is based at Bridlington, just up the road from you, so you may be able to arrange a demo of some sort before buying it. The contact number he gives is 01262 424900. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AHYoung Posted November 24, 2014 Share Posted November 24, 2014 literally just supplied a Kramer Vp425 vga to hdmi scaler to work with and atem 1me for this very purpose. I configured both and tested fully in the office at 1080i50 and all good, but the customer wasnt finding it so plug and play... Ive recently been involved in a few installs where theres the need to plug "anything" into a vision mixer and its really not that easy and theres no simple cheap solution that works with everything. with a Macbook, if you uncheck best for display in properties with it connected via hdmi to the atem, it should give you the resolution you need... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave m Posted November 24, 2014 Share Posted November 24, 2014 Allowing random laptops to rock up and plug in is fraught with issues.Loads of times people turn up but have the output switched off or on some weird setting and suddenly it is the venue's fault.Even had people who turn up with PP on a stick with loads of slides but the embedded video is still at home on a different hd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J Pearce Posted November 24, 2014 Share Posted November 24, 2014 Or people who turn up with embedded youtube/vimeo links and can't understand why your dedicated show playout machine isn't connected to the internet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted November 24, 2014 Author Share Posted November 24, 2014 Thanks for the replies, indeed we do have a dedicated playback machine but some people insist on using their own mac at the last minute. If we had a magic vga box as a backup solution it would help us all keep our hair. Alistair I will try that setting on the macbook. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmxlights Posted November 24, 2014 Share Posted November 24, 2014 I had the same thing happen the other day when we where doing the sound, lighting and scoreboard. we where asked over the phone could we show a powerpoint file but when we got it was Microsoft publisher file and not a powerpoint file and we did not have Publisher on the laptop I tryed to explane that publisher files will not open in powerpoint they told me I need new software and a new laptop as they do it all the time. So I asked them to bring their laptop to me and we would use it to show the file when they did they also could not get powerpoint to open the publisher file. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete McCrea Posted November 24, 2014 Share Posted November 24, 2014 I've ended up having to use an ImagePRO to convert a macs 1280x720@49.9hz to 1280x720@50 to get an ATEM to recognise it. They are very picky. As mentioned above, a DVI Parrot/EDID minder can help. I believe there is also an option to control click on the resolutions in the preference pane which opens up further options in the display setting on OSX. I did spot an old Extron box on eBay a few days ago, something like the DVS406 which had an SDI option fitted. This would take a VGA input and give you HDSDI out which might help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sleepytom Posted November 25, 2014 Share Posted November 25, 2014 http://www.datavideo.info/Converters/DAC-70 works with Atem and is good quality and affordable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilary Watts Posted December 12, 2014 Share Posted December 12, 2014 .....bump! I've just bought one of these from the seller mentioned in my previous post and thought it might be helpful to pass on my experience with it. It was needed at a few hour's notice and it was simply what he had available at his office without going to his warehouse. It worked perfectly to convert the VGA output of an old laptop running windows XP to a projector with an hdmi input. I simply plugged it in and it worked without reading the sheet of instructions but now that I've had time to do so I see that it states as follows: 1. Up-scales VGA to HDMI 720p or 1080p (selectable by a button on front panel) 2. Supports VGA input: 640*480, 800*600,1024*768,1152*864,1280*720,1280*768,1280*800,1280*960,1360*768,1366*768,1440*900,1400*1050,1680*1050,1920*1080 (all at 60Hz) Recommended Input resolution 1024*768 I haven't been able to check the resolution of the laptop output but given its age I would think it wold be at the lower end of the scale. Hilary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
irishsound Posted December 17, 2014 Share Posted December 17, 2014 Kramer is a great company for this. http://www.kramerelectronics.co.uk/products/model.asp?pid=2307&sf=556 In the US its only $236. Not sure what it would be for you. But it says you can select the output and can specifically do 720p @ 50. Hope this helps. Good Luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted December 17, 2014 Author Share Posted December 17, 2014 In the US its only $236. Not sure what it would be for you. But it says you can select the output and can specifically do 720p @ 50. By the mysterious wonders of UK/US pricing it is £322 for us.Looks like it would do the trick though. I have several options now, just need to persuade them to spend the money... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.