Blackmagic Forum

Is it: Adjust, Transition, Enhance, Monitor?

Just wondering, the only other meaning I could find was from 2011 supposedly from a BM representative, that it meant Atum, the Egyptian god of completion. But I would think that if that were so, someone would have bothered to google it and at least spell it right.

It's a small thing but I'm sure others are also curious.

It came from Echolab whom they bought out in 2010:

A mere three months after it “officially” closed its doors and ceased operations, production switcher provider Echolab has sold its technology and other assets to Blackmagic Design for an undisclosed sum. The liquidation sale was completed earlier this month, and Echolab’s latest model switcher, the compact Atem, will be among Blackmagic’s product displays in booth 7.B25 at the IBC conference next month in Amsterdam.

Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

"In a statement, Blackmagic Design CEO Grant Perry said the features and functionality of the Atem switcher are what attracted him to buy the company. Upconversion on all inputs, multilayer SuperSource input, Stinger transitions and built in multiview monitoring are what attracted him to buy the company. SuperSource is a separate multilayer engine with four channels of 2-D picture-in-picture DVE and four keyers that offer the same power as adding an extra M/E switcher to the Atem input. The SuperSource feature can be employed at any time during a live production and connects into the switcher as an input.

The Atem can be fully automated with macros and also includes support for VDCP controlled servers and robotic cameras, all from the switcher’s control panel. Operators can use the built-in joystick for controlling cameras and then recall macros for productions with a limited crew.

Blackmagic Design has been steadily growing its business with new products and strategic company acquisitions. In September 2009 the company bought da Vinci Systems, a company known for high-end color-correction systems. The Atem switcher will be added to Blackmagic Design’s comprehensive product portfolio, which now includes video editing products, color correctors, video converters, routers, waveform monitors and film restoration software." https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/black ... tcher-line

I remember being really impressed by an Echolab mixer (possibly Atem) years ago when I had to use one on a freelance job, particularly the macros compared to the much more basic, but ubiquitous Grass Valley GVG 100.

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Thanks for giving some background on where it came from. Does anyone know what it means? First initials of the engineers that developed it? Andy, Tom, Ed and Mike?

Found it, now what to do with the next 1927 hours.

"Hi Tangier,

I checked with the ATEM product manager and ATEM is just a family name of switcher products. ATEM is based on the name of the Egyptian god, Atum.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design"

https://forums.creativecow.net/docs/for ... 86&pview=t

Good Luck

If U want to see old ECHOLAB ATEM , i have one for sell here :

http://video.pytkin.sk/#atem

Roman, you never cease to amaze me! No wonder you are so knowledgeable about ATEMs, you got the first one! If I had some extra cash, I would be tempted... we seem to both have a similar background in broadcasting.

Very cool piece of trivia... I never knew that ATEM was originally derived from the Egyptian word “atum”... nice!!

Denny Smith wrote:Roman, you never cease to amaze me! No wonder you are so knowledgeable about ATEMs, you got the first one!

Yes IM working with ATEMs about 10 years .. Cool think is that Old Echolab Atem have scaller on all inputs .. BMD took this feature 6-7 years back to ATEMs

You and Daniel seem to be the resident ATEM “experts” here, thanks for sharing your knowledge.

Yes they just have released ATEMs in the last several years with scalers on the inputs. However, the issues with input signal scalers on video switchers is the amount of video signal delay they can create. I think perhaps BMD was trying to find a solution to reduce the delay issue.
Cheers

Deny : Sure .. Echolab had document , where eveything was described :

http://www.pytkin.sk/atem/Atem_DelayManagement.pdf

Thanks, I understand what causes video frame delay, but this is a nice review and I like the chart, showing the delay caused by various conversions. Thanks
Cheers

Roman Pytkin Pekarek wrote:Deny : Sure .. Echolab had document , where eveything was described :

http://www.pytkin.sk/atem/Atem_DelayManagement.pdf

I wish BMD would make a detailed documentation that applies to the current atems.. The issue is that it completely changed from the Old Echolab to the new Atems. I pulled some old Echolab frames open.. And there architecture are a lot different from the 1/2 FPGA solutions BMD uses..
Which makes it a lot different in terms of delay etc.. The currect Atems are way faster..

my company was Echolab heavy for many years and still uses their ATEM from time to time. It did have a lot of great functionality for the time, along with the multi resolution formatting that BM dropped so quickly. But everyone noticed the latency.

Howard Roll wrote:Found it, now what to do with the next 1927 hours.

"Hi Tangier,

I checked with the ATEM product manager and ATEM is just a family name of switcher products. ATEM is based on the name of the Egyptian god, Atum.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design"

https://forums.creativecow.net/docs/for ... 86&pview=t

Good Luck

This may be where the name came from but the fact that you usually see it in all caps would indicated that it's not a name but an acronym. Also, why not spell it correctly? Like other companies that adopt mythological names for their products. This answer just seems too trite and off the cuff, as if they got this question all the time, and nobody knew the answer, so they threw something out there with the patina of plausibility.

Gene Kochanowsky wrote:This may be where the name came from but the fact that you usually see it in all caps would indicated that it's not a name but an acronym. Also, why not spell it correctly? Like other companies that adopt mythological names for their products. This answer just seems too trite and off the cuff, as if they got this question all the time, and nobody knew the answer, so they threw something out there with the patina of plausibility.

The original Echolab Atem website and documentation did not use all caps, but just capitalized the initial letter:
http://danfaucher.com/danfauchercom-201 ... eview.html

The all caps ATEM convention seemed to come about when Blackmagic introduced their own models after acquiring Echolab:
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0110411-09

Dave Del Vecchio wrote:

Gene Kochanowsky wrote:This may be where the name came from but the fact that you usually see it in all caps would indicated that it's not a name but an acronym. Also, why not spell it correctly? Like other companies that adopt mythological names for their products. This answer just seems too trite and off the cuff, as if they got this question all the time, and nobody knew the answer, so they threw something out there with the patina of plausibility.

The original Echolab Atem website and documentation did not use all caps, but just capitalized the initial letter:
http://danfaucher.com/danfauchercom-201 ... eview.html

The all caps ATEM convention seemed to come about when Blackmagic introduced their own models after acquiring Echolab:
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0110411-09

Why spell it wrong?

Dave Del Vecchio wrote:The original Echolab Atem website and documentation did not use all caps, but just capitalized the initial letter:
http://danfaucher.com/danfauchercom-201 ... eview.html

The all caps ATEM convention seemed to come about when Blackmagic introduced their own models after acquiring Echolab:
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0110411-09

It depend :

Anderson, Turner, Everett, and Marsh, respected hardware engineers by day, Prog Rock noodlers by night.

A TEMporary name that became permanent.

Atem doesn’t sound like Autumn.

BM is given to hyperbolic yeah marketing, lot’s of world’s firsts, lots of these guys!!!!!! I think the idea is that the word ATEM must be shouted to be grammatically correct, hence the capitalization.

Good Luck

Never really thought about the origin of the ATEM name before. Looking at the picture of the manual, can see the original name was capital A with lowercase "tem" (using the Echolab logo as the e). Also, in addition to the Egyptian God Atum (sometimes spelled Atem), on the website names.org, they had the following to say:

According to a user from Tennessee, U.S., the name Atem is of Egyptian origin and means "Gift of god".
According to a user from Illinois, U.S., the name Atem is of Egyptian origin and means "Bringer of light, complete, made/to make whole, unity"

Thanks for all the information. But not really much the wiser. Maybe somebody was at the original product meeting where the name was decided and could chime in on this.

So for now, my best guess would be Atem as in the Egyptian god of perfection. Which would be Ecolab's way of saying in a word that the product was perfect.

Which would beg the next question, why would BM use all caps?

Which would beg the next question, why would BM use all caps?

I don't think Blackmagic was the first to use all caps. Just found an article from 2010, the year after the Atem was introduced, and they were announcing Harris becoming the exclusive reseller for the Atem and the image shows ATEM now in all caps. At the time, Harris had a collection of products that they aligned together known as the Harris ONE solution which the Atem became a part of, so I'm thinking Harris was the one that had each of the products branded into all caps to make them look similar. So, I'm thinking it was a Harris marketing thing, instead of a Echolab branding thing.

Here's one of the articles announcing the agreement that features a photo with the ATEM in all caps: https://www.kitplus.com/news/Harris_Corporation_and_Echolab_Announce_Agreement_Making_Harris_the_Exclusive_Reseller_of_Atem_Production_Switchers/503.html

Also, cool for some more history, found 2 YouTube videos from IBC 2009 where Nigel Spratling (who was Echolab's CEO at the time, and is, of course, now a VP at Ross) talking about the brand new ATEM:
Video 1:
Video 2:

So if that is the case ATEM is just a brand name of no particular origin.

Correct, you got it in one!
Cheers

If you look throughout the history of video switchers, the names have never really have any particular meaning (other than maybe trying to have a cool-sounding name). I mean, today, you've got Acuity, Carbonite, Kahuna, Kula, Hanabi, ATEM, Tricaster, etc. Sony's got the XVS & MVS line. Most others just use an assortment of letters and numbers for their models. None of them really seem to have any real meanings behind their names.

I have discovered the meaning, or reason, by usage ... if you create a title that looks like an acronym, and capitalise all letters, everyone thinks it is the name of the type of device rather than simply the model name. So, everyone refers to it as "the ATEM" instead of "the switcher". Despite my resolute determination to always call ours "the switcher" EVERYONE else calls it the ATEM with quite a few referring to it as the "A" "T" "E" "M" (my response, "Oh! You mean the "S" "W" "I" "T" "C" "H" "E" "R"!"). Best advertising strategy ever!

Roknrol wrote:I have discovered the meaning, or reason, by usage ... if you create a title that looks like an acronym, and capitalise all letters, everyone thinks it is the name of the type of device rather than simply the model name. So, everyone refers to it as "the ATEM" instead of "the switcher". Despite my resolute determination to always call ours "the switcher" EVERYONE else calls it the ATEM with quite a few referring to it as the "A" "T" "E" "M" (my response, "Oh! You mean the "S" "W" "I" "T" "C" "H" "E" "R"!"). Best advertising strategy ever!

"Jonaton, are you going to the Xerox Room? Great could you Xerox this spreadsheet for me please?"

It's, really cool when the branding becomes so strong it turns into an "act of doing."

I'm suggesting that Automatic Televisual Effects Manager might be a suitable post-marketing backwardly compatible Acronym.