Tom for President..
TO BE clear!! I'm not here to RANT on BMD. I love what they do to the broadcast industry.. The low pricing of there products to be different and put stress on the broadcast market because you don't need a GV Kayak or Sony mixer of 20K anymore to do a well suited live production.!!
But i want to point a few things out that bothers me., were if improved would be that Touch to "complete" the product to make it more usefull for the broadcast industry.
What Tom says is true.. A lot of features are annouced that never make it into the product.. Which is sometimes a real pitty and you get more beware to buy gear until proven it really works.. (WebPresenter, BMD USB 3 products)
Not having DNxHD on the Hyperdeck Mini is why i did not buy it yet.. Just because it could be that somewere along the line they find out it won't work so skip that feature.. Then i have a hyperdeck mini that i can't use.. (YES i'm a Windows person that does not deal with ProRes files)
Often the little things, the details are what it makes it to a good product..
For instance a list of things that i think hmmm Why not??
- BMD General > Everything that has a LCD Make a menu option to check/show what firmware version is in there.. Especially for the Atems were you sometimes have multiple laptops with different software versions on it.. While the Atem control panel is not backwards or forwards compatible.. So having 2 laptops with different versions running will get you to up / downgrade the videomixer...
- VA5" > Record 2 different resolutions on card.. You only can see and play the last resolution you recorded.. (this way you can't use the VA as a test generator with different resolutions) While those files are still on the card..
- VA5" > When playback.. why not have a playlist were you can select which file you want to play?
- Atems > Since 1,5 years there would be a Sony Visca output on the 422 port of the atems.. But nobody ever reported that they got it to work.. Only people that say it does not work.
- Atems > Great you guys added the Audio mixer for embedded audio in SDI a few years back, And Yes i really do like it!.. But still up today with the new video mixers there is no compesation to delay the audio that 1 frame the video needs for processing in the atem.. For the more pro productions you always have to do a re-processing at the end to get a lipsync audio..
- Atem 4K > Great that you guys have CCU. Great that i can run in 4K mode with Ursa's or other cameras.. But if i want to do shading control and ADD data of my own by the 3G Arduino shield.. The problem is that in 4K mode the CCU data is only available in 4K. The downconverted port does not include CCU / Tally data.. So if i want to add a product with 3G sdi shield i have to buy a Teranex 12G to do a 12G to 3G downconversion.. As this is the only product that does downconverting and leave the CCU data active in the output.. That is a 1200 dollar sollution for something that could be included in the software of the atem...
- Micro Studio Cam > Since 2 years (NAB 2015) 1 of the selling points of this camera is that it has a 422 port for PTZ control of a remote head.. Up to today the port is useless as there is no way of controlling it.
- Videohubs > No support for presets / salvo's??!! So you can only do 1 switch at a time...
- Teranex mini > SDI to HDMI Auto 4K downconvert option based on EDID of the screen connected.. Why not give an extra option just to switch on the downconvert.. It does have troubles with EDID more often then i would like.. Rebooting everything helps.. Or Send an HD feed to the teranex first.. The screen pops on in HD mode.. Then send 4K to it.. And it will stay in HD mode and go downconvert from there..
It works.. But you have to know how to overcome it when it does not work.
- Ursa > The delay on the output SDI with 3 frames is just too much for live work. With the delay of the atem included you talking about 4 frames delay.. Add the projector / ledwall delay to this and you will get a total delay of 7 to 10 frames Which is between 140ms and 200 ms delay.. Which is for a live situation WAY to much.. While the Studio 4K reported on the forum has around 1 frame delay.. So maybe there is a way to speed up / or create a low latency mode for the Ursa were you can't record but have 1frame delay on the sdi output or something..
- All products with Talkback.. mini jack and Apple Earbuds are NOT broadcast suited at all!! Great it has 3,5mm trs minijack plugs.. But at least put a driver behind it that is able to drive 200 Ohm headsets then.. So we can make an adapter cable to use it with the Broadcast standard headsets of Peltor, Clearcom, Clark Technic, etc.. Where 4/5 pin XLR is the standard in broadcast.. And not aviation headsets..
- The Decimator MD-HX thing.. I think that the most called phrases on the BMD forum is "Buy a Decimator MD-HX" "Decimator MD-Cross" "Little Red Box" This $240 box is a versatile live saver!!
This product is 4 or 5 years old now.. And Still one of the best sold converters on the market.. Why is there not a Teranex mini variant that could do the same? Not everyone want to put a Teranex AV or Teranex 12G on there gear to solve a simple cross conversion with internal resolution scaler..
I'm sure i forgot a few things that crossed my ways as broadcast engineer were i thoughed "if only you get that right" it would be much MUCH more usefull for the broadcast industry..
They did good things too!!
- The 3G A vs B standard.. We had to wait a long time for it.. But currently almost every gear supports A and B..
- Adding buttons to the TVS HD to switch from the front
- The 4K and 6 / 12G revolution!!!
- Ursa mini Pro added buttons and 4 card slots so you can also use "normal" SD shape cards instead of the rather expensive C-Fast..
- Free Editing software Resolve that is 4K capable !!
- Micro converters that don't heat up with a Semtech chipset
To conclude.!! Yes i really like BMD and there products.. I consider myself Pro BMD (having a 4K OBV filled with BMD gear) But i would like to pay a little bit more to have the products finnished instead of bringing new gear every year and leave the old gear to rot away and not service or update the software anymore.. While the economical life of BMD gear is 2 to 3 years as the waranty will not cover more.. And repairs beyond that point are difficult / impossible.. I would like to see that there would be put a bit more effort in getting release features in the software and add / think a bit more in what does a device need to really get used in Broadcast..
I repeat i would rather pay a bit more to get functions and problems sorted like i posted above..
And maybe,, just maybe get a few guys in this forum sign a NDA and consult them when you are planning new products.. Consult them we are planning this and these are the features we want to implement.. Are you seeing issues or missing features..
Myself as an electronic engineer and also a broadcast guy have a lot of knowlage about how things should work or what features are critical to have.. Often i see products get released and see the issues that makes it less usable in broadcast because of missing features.
Because my background in Hardware & software engineering i know that sometimes features won't get stable enough to release.. And i really think that the software and hardware engineers at BMD are working there tows off to squeeze the hardware to it's limits to get new features in While being under pressure of release dates (NAB, ISE, IBC) and under pressure of budgetted hours for 1 project.. They are already busy with the products that will be released next year.. But also finnishing software , hardware issues of products to be anouced yet..
So great job on you guys!! You have accomplised a lot over the last few years!!