Blackmagic Forum

Looking at the connection diagram, I only see SDI out for me's 1 and 2. So that means If I wanted the out for me's 3 and 4, I would have to send those through an aux output, correct? Anybody have any insight?

Apparently hardware is the same as previous top 12G 2ME ATEM model, so yes the only way to get mix 3 and mix 4 out, is through AUXes.
Maybe in future they’ll release expanded model with more dedicated outputs.


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Pavel Lavrov wrote:Maybe in future they’ll release expanded model with more dedicated outputs.

what I'm expecting at some point is one with more DVEs

I will test this middle to end next week. I do have the 2ME broadcast 4K in my obv.. But we have a 2 day job next monday. So holding off a few days before upgrading. First run the job then upgrade.

Correct, I upgraded mine already and it adds ME 3/4 key masks and pgm/pvw as options to the aux output options. Wish I had more DVEs, but oh well.

Will Blackmagic ever improve the lack of DVE's? It's the one thing that really makes this mixer a drawback from me. A vision mixer should be flexible so you can build effects up easily - but only having one DVE per ME does limit things a lot! Each KEY channel at the very least should have it's own independent DVE that you can adjust so you can do 4 picture in pictures over a background all on one DVE. I'm assuming this hasn't been added in the new version?
Am i right in thinking as well you can route one ME into another - so you could create the above by taking the output of one ME into the other and build it up over 4 MEs?

I blame tricaster for changing what ME seems to mean.

A 4 ME switcher with only 6 auxes is really strange. I run out of auxes regularly on a 2ME. I wish they would do what the big switchers do and just give us a freely assignable set of outputs. Put 16 BNCs on it and let us select any crosspoint exit to any connection.

advisiontv wrote:Will Blackmagic ever improve the lack of DVE's? It's the one thing that really makes this mixer a drawback from me. A vision mixer should be flexible so you can build effects up easily - but only having one DVE per ME does limit things a lot! Each KEY channel at the very least should have it's own independent DVE that you can adjust so you can do 4 picture in pictures over a background all on one DVE. I'm assuming this hasn't been added in the new version?
Am i right in thinking as well you can route one ME into another - so you could create the above by taking the output of one ME into the other and build it up over 4 MEs?

They have the SuperSource feature for putting 4 PiP over a background, which I use every day. We don't have one DVE per ME though, you get one PERIOD, which sucks terribly IMO.

Tom_Bassford wrote:I blame tricaster for changing what ME seems to mean.

A 4 ME switcher with only 6 auxes is really strange. I run out of auxes regularly on a 2ME. I wish they would do what the big switchers do and just give us a freely assignable set of outputs. Put 16 BNCs on it and let us select any crosspoint exit to any connection.

Agreed, hopefully something like this will come if they refresh the hardware of the 4ME.

Thanks all. Maybe I gave a bad example - but on other vision mixers, I quite often use the dve's not just for PIPs - so I'm not sure the Supersource is a solution as it all comes in on just one button. Quite often I use DVE's to resize an input independent of something else that's going on so would love to see them built in to each keyer so I could do things like lumakey a graphic like a clock and then shift it a little to reposition it within another graphic that might fly in together. Flexibility is the key. If I have an idea of what I want to achieve, it's nice to have lots of ways of doing things, rather than instantly knowing its not possible and then saying no to the client!

You're right that it's not quite the same, and I would much rather have individual DVEs.

How many DVEs does the 4ME have? is it one per ME or just one?

If there is one per ME then you can use the tricaster workflow where you burn ME banks to precomp looks.

Tom_Bassford wrote:How many DVEs does the 4ME have? is it one per ME or just one?

If there is one per ME then you can use the tricaster workflow where you burn ME banks to precomp looks.

Just one, which makes the extra MEs not that useful, unless you need to park multiple chroma key shots.

meh - who designs this stuff?

Tom_Bassford wrote:meh - who designs this stuff?

people who don't use this stuff...

I suspect they managed to optimize the VHDL code and cram more stuff on the same hardware and call it a 4ME...
now, if they want to make one with more DVEs they'll have to design some new hardware I'm afraid

New hardware would not be a bad thing.

Make it 3u give it 32 inputs, and 16 fully assignable outputs.

4ME banks
8 aux buses
8 freely assignable DVEs (they could rush into the 90s and make these 3d DVEs if they wanted)
16 keyers
No stupid front panel buttons / screen
A proper Macros implementation with ability to do source replace on the MEs and ideally some kind of scripting language with logical operators.

A modular control interface would be great, it would also be nice if you could use the router control panels as AUX bus controllers.

I would hope that someday ATEM macros should be able to be entered/edited/recalled from the hardware panel without the need for a computer. A TD has enough on his plate during show without the need to use/find space for a laptop.

MORE DVEs - YES!!!

I dont mind the front panel toys, nice confidence monitor (well for presence of video anyway) is never a bad thing

And I agree, using SmartControl panels to switch Aux buss outputs has been on my wish list since day 1

I'd be good with less or same number of DVEs, but a move toward 3D DVEs on these units. They kind of fake that look while they demo Supersource with the background art, kinda misleading.

Agreed on the output module. Just make the outputs. We're smart enough to put the right output on the proper spigot.

uummm, same number of DVE's would be ONE - yes ONE dve for the entire switcher....less DVE would be ZERO

3d DVE/warp would be good too

Oops, you are correct sir. Zero would be bad. In my mind, I was treating BMD like all other vendors where the Keyer WAS the DVE or there is a DVE per ME. But...no, not so with our purveyors of orange and dark gray. <g> I'll have to ensure I write things after I've been fully caffeinated.

As much as I would like more DVE, I would rather something like an animation engine, so you can do more animated scene changes, eg resize windows smoothly, change screen layouts smoothly in supersource using keyframes.

That is what I would like to see.

MambaFiber.com wrote:I would hope that someday ATEM macros should be able to be entered/edited/recalled from the hardware panel without the need for a computer. A TD has enough on his plate during show without the need to use/find space for a laptop.

The new control panel does that..

Jack Fairley wrote:Just one, which makes the extra MEs not that useful, unless you need to park multiple chroma key shots.

Which it lloks like it was done for.. I guess they did take a good look at the Tricaster and replicated those functions to accomidate for Greenscreen studio work. (This in comination with that they bought Ultramatte. And probabbly used code and technologies from UltraMatte into the new Atem 4me software update to accomodate for a usefull greenscreen mixing application.

I'm pretty happy with the 4 keyers. On the 2me we ran out of keyers several times.. So getting 4 instead of 2 keyers is a very nice and welcome addition.
Some more DVE's and AUX outputs would be awesome.. But let's not forget that we talking about a 5000 dollar switcher not a 50.000 dollar Grassvalley or Sony mixer..