Question/request: Reassign PVW/PGM in switchers

Hi guys,
We're planning on purchasing an ATEM 4 M/E Broadcast Studio switcher for our venue. Our control room has two multiview displays as well as a preview and program display already.
I'd like to be able to modify the multiview to not show preview and program. If both MV outputs were displaying 9 images, or able to display aux outputs/whatever in the large frames where PVW/PGM usually are, that would be ideal for our application. I haven't seen anything in the manual about reconfiguring the layout of the multiview, is this something that can be done right now?

Thanks!
Evan Palumbo

Yeah - this is a massive oversight.
It is obviously possible as third party software can change the source to the large windows - but they should be assignable as any other window in the ATEM GUI

Yeah - this is a massive oversight.
It is obviously possible as third party software can change the source to the large windows - but they should be assignable as any other window in the ATEM GUI

I've never seen anybody be able to do this. Please enlighten us on which software that can make this possible...

Yeah - this is a massive oversight.
It is obviously possible as third party software can change the source to the large windows - but they should be assignable as any other window in the ATEM GUI

I've never seen anybody be able to do this. Please enlighten us on which software that can make this possible...

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=70149&p=392516&hilit=multiview#p391650

According to Daniel it's possible. I don't remember ever seeing an example though.

In an earlier version of my GVG Controller I use to also be able to change the labels but that feature seems to have been taken out of the later ATEM firmware
Baz

Baz, can you change the Preview source on the TVS HD?
Just asking because I have provided an interface via Windows PowerShell, using the API, that allows you to do this

$mv=$atem.GetMultiViews()
$mv[0].SetWindowInput(0,4) #10011 is default value for preview

But it ignores this command (no error returned). Works fine for reading the value and I can set the source for windows 2-9 just fine.

I'll try it on a 2 ME model next week.

I've never seen anybody be able to do this. Please enlighten us on which software that can make this possible...

There was several posts relating to this on the atemuser forum, ( unfortunately, offline currently)
via the 3rd party scripting of justmacros.
powershell and maybe Casper's findings in the skarrhoj libraries. They all found ways of doing this.

My understanding is that it is not possible to assign the source of the large preview and program multiview windows with the official ATEM API. The documentation for the SetWindowInput method (which is used to assign multiview window input sources) in the ATEM API says the following:

IBMDSwitcherMultiView::SetWindowInput method
The SetWindowInput method routes an input source to the specified window. Note that the inputs for windows 0 and 1 are reserved for the Preview and Program outputs, and so cannot be set using this method. Calling this method with a window index of 0 or 1 will do nothing and will return S_FALSE.

There is a chance that it is possible to assign these windows with the Skaarhoj ATEM library (which is a reverse engineering of the ATEM protocol and does not use the official ATEM API). If you look at the documentation for the Skaarhoj ATEM library (http://skaarhoj.com/fileadmin/BMDPROTOCOL.html), under the Multi Viewer Input command, it says the following:

CMvI Multi Viewer Input
By setting video source for Window Index 0 and 1, it is possible to change what is shown as Preview and Program. This is NOT possible with the ATEM Software Control (and maybe not with the official API either) so be careful not to leave an ATEM switcher with an untypical configuration for these windows!

I've never actually used the Skaarhoj library, so I'm not sure whether or not this works with all of the ATEM switcher models, or if this still works with the latest ATEM firmware.

That did work in the past.. But i think it was a bug / loophole that they fixed now in a firmware update to prevent this from happening.. Which is a bummer.. Becuase sometimes that was a really good way to get things done.. Espaecially on a 2ME i did route a Aux ouput to 1 of the PGM / PRV windows that was not in use..

Not tested this last few months.. So it could be gone now..

thanks