Blackmagic Forum

In looking around on the Blackmagic Design site under products, I no long find the more expensive Fiber Optic converter, the one that had analog audto inputs. I don't remember the model number. The reason I was looking for it is that if I'm going to use a 200 meter fiber from my field camera to my switcher, I need some easy way to communicate with my camera man. I currently use a clearcom setup with all of my other cameras and stats person. I was hoping I could figure out a way to use the convertor so that I might not have to run 200 meters of audio cable. I have a complete set of Blackmagic mini converters for all four of my cameras but embedded audio isn't what I'm needing. Any thoughts?

If the other converter won't work for intercom maybe Black Magic Design should consider making a converter that will step HD-SDI or 4K to fiber and back but add the ability to insert intercom and live audio from camera and intercom return to camera from director on one single mode duplex fiber?

I took a gander over at ebay and found one. It's Blackmagic Design ATEM Camera Converter, 28 miles #SWRCONV. I wonder if this can do the trick? Whew, it's kinda expensive.

Hi Bob,

well 2 of the Camera Converters will communicate end to end if you like. How you deal with another headset for a single cameraman or interfacing into your clear com will have to be figured out.

you could use embedded audio over your existing mini converters, using a camera mic channel to talk to control room, and a channel on PGM return for CamOP to hear director. Kind of a thrash but it works.

Or add extra SDI-to-Audio and Audio-to-SDI units on each end of your fiber converters (2 of each required). This is more to the purpose that BMD sort of built their internal talkback around. We built a box like this in the past, works great. Ended up with 2 mics, 2 IFB and 2ch RTS added to the normal 2 fiber camera/monitor setup. This added audio uses SDI channels 13-16, so anything originally on SDI channels 1-12 from the camera or PGM passes thru without modification. The RTS has converters/power units on each end so you just plug one end into RTS, the other end gets a belt pack-its as easy as using a piece of XLR.

Honestly, for a single camera (esp if its a one off show) I'd just run the audio cable. It will work, reliably I might add, and it is the cheapest option by far.



Looking forward, if you do a lot of events of this nature, I would look into something like some of the gear we have built. Systems that handle multiple video paths each way, and either separate audio gear and/or IP infrastructure running on 4 or 6 fiber strands. This way you can drop the fiber box in one location perhaps very far from your control room and use shorter cable runs to spread out cameras/comms/etc. We have a system with 8x 3G-SDI (4in4out) and 5 IP networks and Dante audio supporting up to 256x256 audio if we ever need that much . 4 fibers (thats just 2 duplex cables). It's all off the shelf gear, with some imagination tying everything together.

Lots of options.