Blackmagic Forum

My HDMI3 input is coming from a MacBook Pro (BigSur) via a USB-C to HDMI cable. I mirror my external monitor and feed it back through Atem Mini. The ideas was to use picture-in-picture and just the convenience of hardware buttons to enhance my webcam meetings.


Unfortunately, the HDMI input from my mac is terrible.





1. The default colour profile is too dark. There is a youtube video that explains settings a different colour profile. which I can't link to in this forum. It helped a bit.
2. The picture is blurry and almost unusable (compare attachments). I tried setting different resolutions, including setting the externals to be "Best for BMD HDMI", but there is no real improvement. I tried a different USB-C to HDMI connection. I tried different HDMI channels on the Atem.

I know that the setup may be unusual. Mirroring my external screen (via macOS display settings), pushing it through Atem Mini to push it back to the webcam cam feed of BMD is weird but shouldn't it just add lag and not being blurry?

Any ideas on how the situation can be improved?

How are you capturing the webcam input and what are your webcam settings? You should be able to get a sharp picture into your computer but conferencing software like Zoom will greatly reduce the resolution of your webcam to save bandwidth since 99% of the images people are sending are just their own faces which if anything look a little better when they're blurry

Only when you use the screen sharing feature will an app like Zoom increase the resolution so that you can see the fine detail of a computer display more clearly. Zoom has no idea that you're trying to share your screen if you send it through an ATEM just like it was a webcam.

I understand that video conferencing platforms might employ some bandwidth reduction techniques.


The output I captured here is a screen I captured from QuickTime Player showing me the input from the BMD Webcam. There is NO Zoom, skype, whatever involved at this point.

Did you ever figure this out or find a work around? I use my MacBook Pro screen for videos I'm recording straight to the Atem. So no streaming. I have this exact problem. Everything looks great except for the blurry MacBook Pro [usbc - hdmi] on the Atem hdmi input 1. Thanks!

Did you ever figure this out?