Blackmagic Forum

Hi.
We have a strange behavior of the embedded timecode from our Atem 2me 4K switcher.
We are feeding a ltc timecode to our switcher and if I send the program out (1080i50) it to our recorder (Atomos Samurai Blade) the embedded timecode are displayed correctly.
If the same signal are going thru a Black Magic Audio to SDI embedder the timecode on the Blade starts to change rapidly (looks like its more than one timecode) and every time you start a recording the TC starts randomly on one of up to three timecodes. I had to start recording and if it was the wrong TC stop and start all over again until it started with the right TC. I have no idea where the other two timecodes comes from. I have tested two embedder, one using analog audio and the other aes/ebu both give me the same problem. It must be the embedding process that messing with TC and since we are using 2 embedders to be able to embed 12 channels of audio, each embedder make another timecode giving me a total of 3.

Have anybody experienced the same problem.

I did not find this one yet in my OBV.. I will hook up an audio embedder next week to a sdi tester.. Very curious what it does. Keep you posted.

Update:
After some testing with a new Atomos Shogun Studio I have found that whatever makes the problem for Atomos Samurai Blade doesn't affect the Shogun Studio. The timecode works as it should without any problems at all with the Studio recorder. I will try to see if the Blade are on the latest firmware and update it if needed to see if it solves the problem. But still there must be a difference between the signal coming directly from the switcher and the signal after the embedder.

On my Broadcast 2M/E the embedded timecode does not reliably work with the 12G hyperdecks. BMD was able to reproduce the issue, hopefully one day they will fix it.

We recently ran into the same issue, with daisy chained BMD Audio to SDI miniconverter devices fed from an ATEM and recorded onto a few different Hyperdeck versions. I have used external LTC sources to embed TC for ages thru different ATEM models - with great success - but after adding the embedders, it do add several TC's simultaneously, that seems to confuse the Hyperdecks.

Anyone that have come to a solution or (as always) a workaround?

I will continue try working this out, but I think it's a "standard" ancillary data problem found in various gear and affecting audio, even standard channels 1+2 (and 3+4).

/D

Update:

I've successfully replaced the BMD Audio to SDI units to Aja HD10AMA ones. That solved our problem, but a real FW update solution from BMD would ofc be much, much better in the long term.