- Posts: 2
- Joined: Fri Sep 27, 2019 8:17 pm
- Real Name: Anthony Thompson
We are building out a custom tally and CCU system for our studios, in which we have a current total of seven BMD URSA Mini 4Ks. We are feeding each of them tally from our two GV Kula switchers via a whole host of SKAARHOJ devices to translate the GPO from the switcher to the tally signals the BMD cameras expect on the SDI Return.
Basically, everything works great, if you don't need to feed tally to a prompter hood, which accepts tally via an optosensor. Since the URSA Mini 4K doesn't have any external source of tally that wouldn't trigger an optosensor when tally is not active, we decided to come up with a clever (to us) solution of putting an Arduino with the BMD 3G Shield in line with each camera. This device takes in the full return feed with tally and control data embedded, reads the tally information, enables an LED when program tally is set, and sends that tally data to the camera. The control data is set in the Arduino Sketch to just be passed through from shield input to the output.
If we connect the SDI Return directly to the camera, tally is passed and control data will shade the camera til the cows come home. Once the Shield is put in the signal chain between the return feed and the camera, tally continues to be passed without a problem, but control data will STOP being passed after 5-10 minutes. So, control data will initially be passed, but eventually will just stop being passed to the camera.
Hopefully I've made this whole thing super confusing and hard to follow. Has anyone else run into this issue and have any clues as to where the control data is being dropped or ignored?
Basically, everything works great, if you don't need to feed tally to a prompter hood, which accepts tally via an optosensor. Since the URSA Mini 4K doesn't have any external source of tally that wouldn't trigger an optosensor when tally is not active, we decided to come up with a clever (to us) solution of putting an Arduino with the BMD 3G Shield in line with each camera. This device takes in the full return feed with tally and control data embedded, reads the tally information, enables an LED when program tally is set, and sends that tally data to the camera. The control data is set in the Arduino Sketch to just be passed through from shield input to the output.
If we connect the SDI Return directly to the camera, tally is passed and control data will shade the camera til the cows come home. Once the Shield is put in the signal chain between the return feed and the camera, tally continues to be passed without a problem, but control data will STOP being passed after 5-10 minutes. So, control data will initially be passed, but eventually will just stop being passed to the camera.
Hopefully I've made this whole thing super confusing and hard to follow. Has anyone else run into this issue and have any clues as to where the control data is being dropped or ignored?