Live Lower-Thirds with ProPresenter

Hello,

I have a (hopefully) quick question that I would appreciate any input on. Our group is in the process of getting our new BlackMagic gear set up. Our main components are...

3 - BMD Studio Camera 4K
1 - Smart Videohub CleanSwitch 12x12
1 - ATEM TV Studio Pro 4K Switcher
1 - HyperDeck Studio Pro 2

Our setup already leverages ProPresenter5 running on OSX to display live visuals to our audience. Our goal is to use another copy of ProPresenter5 (or 6) on another Macintosh to overlay live lower-thirds text from ProPresenter through the Alpha Keyer Module as a linear key to the switcher. However, looking at RenewedVision's website, it seems that there are only a handful of supported devices, none of which we have. My question is: are we required to purchase one of the listed devices such as the UltraStudio HD Mini, or are there other alternatives? I have seen a lot of talk about the UltraStudio Mini Monitor, but I'm not sure that it does quite what we want it to.

Again, any input is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

- Matt

We use the Mini recorder via Thunderbolt to capture into a Mac Mini for streaming and it works fine. To do the lower thirds you will need to export two screens from your Mac. One will be the full color image of the third, the other will be the grey scale alpha channel from the alpha key module. Connect these into a couple of camera inputs, I use 7 & 8 on our switcher, and in the DSK assign 7 as source and 8 as alpha.

I use a combo of obs studio with my decklink duo pro 2 and a program called stream control.

Hey Matt,

This is more of a Renewed Vision question (I would check out the ProPresenter's User Group on FB or contact their support if it's a super difficult question as they have the best customer service from experience).

However, since I've obviously done both of that, I know the answer. With the Ultrastudio Mini Monitor you can do a luma key (a single SDI channel) and the ATEM can use the same signal for both key and fill, but you won't be able to do shadows or anything with grey or black in it.

The Alpha Key module needs a BMD device that supports dual-link SDI (A and B channels for key and fill) so the Mini Monitor will not work.

Harry Parker is slightly correct in that that's how the channels work, but ProPresenter is an EXTREMELY powerful piece of software and the Alpha Module actually handles direct SDI output of both channels key and fill. This also means you are not capturing a screen, but rather a direct SDI feed (so that no mice can interrupt your output)


There is another way to do it using a Sonnet Echo Express SEI (which is how we do it) so we can slot in our own Decklink Card via Thunderbolt 2 or 3 (get the correct model for your mac). This means from ProPresenter we can do a 12G 4K60 FPS key with the DeckLink 4K Extreme 12G or Decklink 8K Pro, both of which support dual-link SDI. The other option is the Ultrastudio Extreme 3 or the HD Mini.


Ian

We use an off-the-shelf Windows ASUS laptop, PowerPoint and the SimpleSupers.com app. This gives us key and fill using the display outputs converted to SDI in to our ATEM. Very cost effective for us.