Timecode live event w/ ATEM Television Studio Pro HD

Hello,

I am wondering if their is a video or perhaps a diagram or someone who can help me with my conundrum. We are running four Sony FS7's to the ATEM Television Studio Pro HD Switcher via SDI. For Audio we are running 4 Wireless Mics to a Tascam Mixer/Recorder and then taking the out from the Tascam to the ATEM Television Studio Pro HD Switcher via XLR.

From the Switcher we are then feeding to a Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Studio Mini Ultra HD Broadcast Deck to record the live switched program. Currently our Timecode is being fed from our Tascam Mixer to all of our cameras, so that is our Master TimeCode. How do we sync Timecode with every thing? I can't figure out how to feed the Studio Pro Time Code and then feed time code to the HyperDeck Studio Mini Ultra HD Broadcast Deck. Any suggestions or help would be appreciated.

Neither the ATEM Television Studio HD nor the HyperDeck Studio Mini have a timecode input so you will have to embed this timecode separately.

The Teranex Mini HDMI to SDI and Audio to SDI models are capable of embedding timecode (probably the Audio to SDI would make the most sense in this case since the ATEM HD only has SDI program outputs). So you could feed the ATEM program output into the Teranex Mini Audio to SDI along with timecode from the mixer, and then feed the SDI out from Audio to SDI converter into the HyperDeck Mini.

One other possibility, if you are not using the ATEM talkback feature, might be to record LTC timecode as an audio track. I believe the ATEM talkback feature adds talkback audio to channels 15 and 16 of the ATEM program outputs. So if you fed LTC timecode from the mixer into the ATEM microphone input, then this could be recorded as audio tracks 15/16 on the HyperDeck Mini.

If you went this route, you would likely need some kind of pad on the timecode signal to bring it down to mic level (LTC timecode is usually line level). And you would need to make sure that talkback is enabled on the program output you are using. You'd also have to make sure the HyperDeck Mini is set to record 16 channels of audio (the HyperDeck wouldn't actually show the incoming timecode on its screen, in this case it would just treat it as an audio track).

Depending on which video editing software you are using, syncing clips via a timecode audio track can also be more complicated than syncing via timecode embedded in the video clips. I think Avid and Resolve support this kind of workflow directly, but I'm not sure Premiere or Final Cut can do it without a plug-in. So really using a Teranex Mini to embed the timecode is probably a better option in most cases.

I have 2 HyperDeck Studio Mini. In the Timecode Settings I see External Timecode. What that means ? A possibility to put external Timecode in the REF IN ?