Atem Constellation 8k users experience

Hi guys,

The new Atem Constellation 8k is a huge mixer for the buck. We are planning on buying one or two for live events/imag.

That said, there must be some pitfalls, right?

What are your user experiences?

I am considering:
-separate intercom system for loud environments
-separate audio embedders
-external downconversion for confidence monitors

Any tips on work arounds can help others plan their set build.

Ps: my new set will be called 'Vicky', the younger sister of 'Heidi'

Ps: my new set will be called 'Vicky', the younger sister of 'Heidi'

Roy if you ever want to talk about your girls let me know.. You seem to trade in your girls all the time for a newer and younger model.. I'm only 2,5 hour away

Anyway on my Atem Constellation 8K list for gear around the Atem.
- Connecting it to my Clearcom Eclipse Pico 4000. (Easy as it is 4Wire) For full integration to all desk matrix intercom

- Some kind of Madi interface to fo with my A&H SQ5 mixer. Because the SQ5 does not have a Madi capability i have to buy a conversion box to analog.

- Multichannel Audio embedding is a MUST! But i refuse to buy 6 Teranex Mini Audio to 12G SDI embedders. So i guess on the fact that so many people are asking about this advanced audio mixer has no use at all if you can only do a Stereo mix-down. That BMD will step up it's game and will introduce a way of multichannel audio embedding. Otherwise they could have left off that Madi input all together.. Because there is NO use at all being able to 32 channels Madi in.. If it all comes down to a Stereo Submix...

- Some 12G > 3G downconverters like the Decimator 12G-Cross (Already pre-ordered 4 of them) Since BMD has no solution yet that will run within a frame delay.. (Teranex AV is just too slow for this especially if that HD feed need to go to IMAG / LED Screens)

- Would be nice if the MV was also be able to show a single source like PGM or PRV. This would allow you to run your MV's in HD and have a downconverter HD PGM if you do not need 4 MV outputs.

- A specially build rack. that has about 8cm of room on both sides to let the atem breath enough to get the hot air out. ( Think off a Anti vibration rack inside a flightcase. And then those from Penn Elcom with those rubbers instead of Foaming it up.

- More videohub control panels. (Busy with investigating how to re-purpose those units to get them to control the Aux lines of the Atem. Because i don't want to do all that switching in software.

The website mentions this:

However because it’s ethernet, you can plug into your network and control the ATEM remotely, even from overseas! Ethernet allows you to add as many panels as you like all at the same time, or custom solutions using the developer SDK. Many broadcast automation systems use serial control because it's simple and fast. ATEM Constellation 8K includes an RS‑422 connection and the protocol is documented in the instruction manual.

First of all.. UDP ethernet trough the internet.. Naaah.. To many issues with dropouts..
But the 422 thing is rather vague.. This quote is from the Control the Atem section. And they state here RS-422 connection.. Protocol is documented in the manual.. The only protocol mentioned in the manual for the 422 is Visca Output. Are we missing something in the manual or is this a Marketing trick again.

What I would like to know if it is possible at all to use the new Constellation for imag purposes. As far as I can see it has scalers on all inputs that introduce delay. And there is no word from BMD of how fast this switcher is regarding the latency from input to output if you use genlocked sources or free running sources. That is a really important question for our needs.

I'm a bit reluctant to to great announcement that this switcher has scalers on all inputs. For me it was a better workflow to add a scaler on my own if I really need one and know exactly what this does to the latency of this input.


Cheers

Robert

Robert i feel with you.. But the TVS 4K pro seems to do a pretty good job already. Going from there i do have high hopes..

Quoting Greg Bellotte from a chat we had arround NAB>

Scalable inputs, native frame/rate have latency comparable to current switchers. Up or down scaling at output frame rate 1 frame, up or down scaling at different frame rate 2 frames.

Ofc i would like BMD to confirm the actual delay also with genlocked sources.. As we do not know if this is free running, genlocked or whatever..

But overall is something that i say acceptable. An external scaler will not be faster.
I had specs from 2 different companies making 12G scalers and they both say 2 frames.

I would however like to see the status of the scalers.. Like activated, pass trough, converting from.
Because maybe you plugged in an Ursa and you forget to set the output to 12G. And is converting while its not needed.. So a bit of a status screen in the setting menu would be VERY VERY Helpfull.

However because it’s ethernet, you can plug into your network and control the ATEM remotely, even from overseas! Ethernet allows you to add as many panels as you like all at the same time, or custom solutions using the developer SDK. Many broadcast automation systems use serial control because it's simple and fast. ATEM Constellation 8K includes an RS‑422 connection and the protocol is documented in the instruction manual.

The text in bold is interesting. I wonder what's the connection limit on this new model...

The Constellation 8k has 1x32 madi in, but 2x32 madi out
- does that mean it can essentially deembed 16 stereo channels of SDI audio and send to madi?
Because that would be pretty cool.

Some kind of Madi interface to fo with my A&H SQ5 mixer. Because the SQ5 does not have a Madi capability i have to buy a conversion box to analog.

We already have a FerroFish A32 Dante in our rack, the best bang for the buck IMO. It has 64ch MADI in-out, 64ch Dante in-out, and 32ch analog in-out, and an internal router that lets you connect any input to any output in 8ch blocks. We use ours to convert 16 ports of our intercom, 8 in-out general XLR, and 8ch of embed/de-embed to Dante. It would be all to easy to put the Constellation on the MADI ports to get to-from the rest of our Dante system.

The other unit we use is the Direct Out Technologies Andiamo. It's a good general purpose bi-directional MADI to 32ch analog converter. You can choose MADI 1-32 or 33-64 to feed the analog side.

Thanks for your replies!

@Daniel: I normally don't sell my 'children', my manager sometimes does.
Heidi is on top of her game, so expect quite high transfer rates. BTW she is only 10% BMD, maybe not your type
Control of the auxes using videohub panels would be nice. We also plan on several Elgato Streamdecks and Bitfocus Companion for auxes, macro's, clock and Qlab playout.

@Robert: delay is of serious concern here too. I hope native locked inputs can bypass scalers in future updates. Normally we use two switcher in series (camera switcher -> graphics switcher), which I hope to combine here and win 1 frame back.

@Greg: the FerroFish A32 Dante is very interesting, I'll ask our soundtech to dive into it!

If we insert a camera image and use multiple M/E's (starting in 4, to 3, to 2 and finally to 1), will this cause extra delay? (no DVE enabled)

Can tally's from different M/E's be combined in a tallybox? I'd love to use 2 M/E for recording/streaming and 2 other M/E for IMAG screens.

Tally works only on ME1

[Gary Adams]

Hello everyone. Just to clear some things up. The latency on the Constellation follows the design of all ATEMs. The processing delay is less than 10 lines so any genlocked timed (non scaled) input will pass through the switcher in less than 10 lines. This includes through any ME or keying. Of course, if you use one of the DVEs and Supersources, those images will be an extra frame. The scalers are automatic and will not be used if the resolution and frame rate match the ATEM setting. The frame synchronizers will only add latency when necessary, meaning if the vertical timing of the input is later than the ATEM vertical timing. To be more specific, the vertical of the input source must be ahead of the ATEM plus the processing time (about 10 lines) to take advantage of the quick lane through the switcher. I hope this helps.

Regards, Gary

I would however like to see the status of the scalers.. Like activated, pass trough, converting from.
Because maybe you plugged in an Ursa and you forget to set the output to 12G. And is converting while its not needed.. So a bit of a status screen in the setting menu would be VERY VERY Helpfull.

Yes, this has been registered as a feature request before -- status of genlock per input. Now with the Constellation, the following should be added to the feature request. Is it genlocked or being buffered? Is it scaled or native? Is it being adjusted temporally?

Hello everyone. Just to clear some things up. The latency on the Constellation follows the design of all ATEMs. The processing delay is less than 10 lines so any genlocked timed (non scaled) input will pass through the switcher in less than 10 lines. This includes through any ME or keying. Of course, if you use one of the DVEs and Supersources, those images will be an extra frame. The scalers are automatic and will not be used if the resolution and frame rate match the ATEM setting. The frame synchronizers will only add latency when necessary, meaning if the vertical timing of the input is later than the ATEM vertical timing. To be more specific, the vertical of the input source must be ahead of the ATEM plus the processing time (about 10 lines) to take advantage of the quick lane through the switcher. I hope this helps.

Regards, Gary

Nice - I love the low latency of my Broadcast Studio 4K with the Ursa Broadcasts.
Even though there might be a lot of focus on lack of certain features or requests on this forum (from myself included) this and the other 8K products released at NAB are still pretty friggin cool, Gary.
I hope that doesn't drown in the negativity

Thanks for clarifying Gary! <10 lines of processing time is really fast.
And if needed, maybe I'll try to find a 15 line ref delay.

Thank you Gary for confirming this!! Can you also confirm the timing when scaled? The 1 frame if same framerate 2frames if different framerate? Would be very usefull information for use users and engineers!

[Gary Adams]

I will ask for some form of information. it will most likely be a table and will vary as to what the "From"/"To" rate and resolution is. Probably from one to two frames max, but it will do what it needs to. When sources are not locked, there will always be that varying latency from a few lines to a frame added to the process. Sort of a two dimensional rubber band. .

But the 422 thing is rather vague.. This quote is from the Control the Atem section. And they state here RS-422 connection. Protocol is documented in the manual. The only protocol mentioned in the manual for the 422 is Visca Output. Are we missing something in the manual or is this a Marketing trick again?

I'm pretty sure the RS-422 control mentioned is the GVG100 editor control protocol that was added in ATEM firmware 6.7: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/suppor ... 1cd2e10724

After that firmware update, you could set the ATEM RS-422 port for either VISCA camera control or the GVG 100 control protocol. The GVG 100 protocol can be used to control the ATEM, although it's obviously much more limited than the full ATEM protocol used over Ethernet.

There is no new RS-422 related information in the latest ATEM 8.0 manual (which does include ATEM 8K information in it) and the GVG 100 protocol is the only serial control option mentioned, so I assume that is what is being referred to in the marketing pages.

Hi

If your trying to get MADI to & from a audio console such as the previously mentioned SQ5 you could always get teh Dante car and use a device such as
http://www.rme-audio.de/en/products/digiface_dante.php
or
https://asia-latinamerica-mea.yamaha.co ... tures.html

If your trying to get MADI to & from a audio console such as the previously mentioned SQ5 you could always get teh Dante car and use a device such as
http://www.rme-audio.de/en/products/digiface_dante.php

Yeah add a Digiface Madi to Dante €1299
and add a SQ5 M-Dante-A card € 1184

That is €2483 Ex VAT to add some madi channels.. That is more then the A&H SQ5 costs

That is €2483 Ex VAT to add some madi channels.. That is more then the A&H SQ5 costs

Buy a more expensive mixer...JUSTIFIED!!

Mr. Gary Adams, I'm trying to find some answers please. You stated the Constellation latency for same I/O resolution is 10 lines? May I ask, what is 10 lines in relationship to a frame? The reason I ask, we just installed a Constellation 8K with our existing HD IMAG infrastructure and are seeing about 10-15 frames delay verses our previous HD switcher, a Ross Crossover 16. Any thoughts? Thanks