Blackmagic March update and Ursa Broadcast

Well, great.

No news on the talkback issue, nothing about the PTZ or IP port on the Camera Fiber Converter being enabled.
I am so disappointed.

Knut

I feel your pain.

But i have a gut feeling that we (broadcast owners) have to wait till NAB.. There is something cooking at BMD.. Not sure when the finally release those hard needed fixes and features that are really necessary to call it a Broadcast Camera and Broadcast chain.

I’ll second that Daniel... the past two years BM has done their broadcast updates in February, but no update in February this year. I can only assume at this point they will come at NAB... I’m very excited to see what’s next in the ATEM switchers especially after the Fairlight and other additions in the Tv Pro 4K. And getting talkback addressed with the fiber chain for the URSA Broadcast (of which we have 3) is most certainly a top request.

The intercom issues are preventing a lot of new sales in my country. As they say it is not a broadcast ready camera chain when i still need to add a second line for intercom and al sorts of features don't work.

Issues that are persistent now:
- Volume of the intercom is too low. (But i guess this is a Hardware issue not able to drive enough current to the headsets) Problem is there for the intercom connection on the camera, but also on the Studio Fiber Converter.

- Sidetone on the camera's = 100% level and not adjustable. So if you open your mic and you have your headset on full volume due to the fact you are not able to hear that director on the Atem side.. You will deafen yourself because your mic = 100% back to your ears.
A simple Sidetone Adjustment slider in the camera will fix this issue for the Camera direct interfaced intercom on the minijack.
For the Studio Fiber backend they could do a thing like push and hold the return button while rotating the Iris dail to adjust sidetone.

- DB25 external intercom to Broadcast is often not working at all. This is a BUG which should be solved with a FW fix..

- If no return video present, External Intercom and Tally will not work due to the fact that there is no video to embed this to. Why not generate a SDI black signal or color bar when there is no external signal present. (This is what the SDI Arduino shield does if no input signal is present.)

- I have seen reports about return video sources not working or some resolution / framerate combi's for Return video.. You ask yourself WHY? Again FW fix should solve this.

- Ethernet port is not working on the Fiber back. If it would work, you could run an IP based intercom system like GreenGo to fix that intercom issue.

- Atem Talkback Studio Converter 4K _ 4 & 8 channel version. Does not allow to kill the Intercom overwrite on channel 15/16. So if you have a Atem 2ME/4ME, TVS HD, HD pro, 4k Pro (So any modern Atem except the Production Studio and Production 1ME) you can not use the build in intercom feature with the Atem Talkback Studio converters.. Because they do not allow to have intercom from the Atem. So users with Studio cameras, Ursas with a Miniconvert SDI optical etc that want to use fiber. Can only do this with the talkback converter. OR build there own fiber receiver with 4,6,8 Miniconverters Sdi optical. But i guess many users just want 1 ready made product that can be racked and put power on and done.

I hope BMD will address a few of those issues soon with a FW update. Because The Ursa Broadcast and the Studio Fiber converter products are out now for a year. And not a lot has changed since release of these.

And that’s just the camera! Most of the buttons on the Fiber CCU are inoperable. And the camera control panel may as well be considered in Beta since half the features don’t work there either. It does what I need it to for my concerts for sure and is far superior to options before it. But it’s been on the market for 7 months now.

The panel has a lot of "feature" buttons.
But hey it's MUCH better then the Software panel for realtime work!
But yes there are a lot of improvements i would like to see there too.. Got mine 3 months now. Second one is underway.

Same problem here.
Our system is all Blackmagic products, except the intercom system (Altair) and the camera intercom level is very low and the camera operators can´t hear anything.
We are waiting for a FW that fix this error in Camera Fiber converter that seems is where the problem is.
The Camera control panel have some very important problems, like you can´t modify the shutter speed (variable speeds), NDs and some other things.