Blackmagic MultiView 16, 4: mass remote control

Hello guys,

recently we purchased a few units. Currently, we are still purchasing all necessary stuff in order to set up a monitor wall.

I have an issue. The multiviewers support labels for each incoming signals. It is possible to have it either ON or OFF. The monitoring personnel will be using the whole system. Someone wants labels, someone else may not want them. Employee A starts his shift by turning ON the labels. When Employee B comes, he can turn them OFF. It would not be very pleasant to do it manually to all ten units.

I saw that BMD Multiview units support RS422. Is it possible to turn the labels ON or OFF via RS422? Do BMD Multiview units support SNMP control?

I believe the RS422 control is only supported on the MultiView 16 (not the MultiView 4) and it can only be used to control the routing of sources (which video input is displayed in which multi-view window).

The configuration settings of the MultiView 16 and 4 (including the overlays like labels and audio meters) should be controllable over Ethernet via the MultiView Setup Utility software. The Setup Utility can be connected over Ethernet to multiple units, but you would have to use the left and right arrows to go between each one, open the settings section and change the overlay option for each unit separately.

There is also a text-based Ethernet control protocol for the MultiView 16 and 4 that may be more suitable for automation. The protocol works over TCP port 9990. For example, to turn the label overlays off via Ethernet, you could try sending the following command to the MultiView.
CONFIGURATION: ↵
Display labels: False ↵
↵

Assuming this works, you would need some kind of script that sent the same command to all of your multiview units if you wanted to change the setting across all of them in one go.

More details on the Ethernet protocol can be found in the Developer Information section toward the back of the MultiView manual.

I use a Skaarhoj controller to control 2 of our Multiview 16 units via ethernet. Should be pretty easy to do with their software configuration. You just have to put in the IP of every unit. Borders, labels and audio meters are all togglable options but they are listed as "Pro" features so you have to contact Skaarhoj to get them to unlock it. I've inquired about it but they haven't gotten back to me yet. I usually just use the controller to solo different sources.

Well, the multiview units support just a TCP socket on port 9990, no SNMP.

That's fine, I found a workaround.

Take a look at the following piece of code in Python. It's very simple, it's just the begining.

Code: Select all

import socket
import time


HOST = '10.30.200.183'  # The server's hostname or IP address
PORT = 9990        # The port used by the server





with socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM) as s:
    s.connect((HOST, PORT))
   
    while True:
        s.sendall(b'CONFIGURATION:\nSolo enabled: true\n\n')
        data = s.recv(9990)
        print('Received', repr(data),'\n')

        s.sendall(b'Video Output Routing:\n4 0\n\n')
        data = s.recv(9990)
        print('Received', repr(data),'\n\n\n')
        time.sleep(7)

     
        s.sendall(b'Video Output Routing:\n4 1\n\n')
        data = s.recv(9990)
        print('Received', repr(data),'\n\n\n')
        time.sleep(7)


        s.sendall(b'Video Output Routing:\n4 2\n\n')
        data = s.recv(9990)
        print('Received', repr(data),'\n\n\n')
        time.sleep(7)


        s.sendall(b'Video Output Routing:\n4 3\n\n')
        data = s.recv(9990)
        print('Received', repr(data),'\n\n\n')
        time.sleep(7)

        s.sendall(b'CONFIGURATION:\nSolo enabled: false\n\n')
        data = s.recv(9990)
        print('Received', repr(data),'\n')
        time.sleep(14)