Blackmagic Forum

Hi all,

I wanted to use an ImagePro4K for adjustments before sending to a LED wall processor, and the Constellation's output of 3840x2160p59.94 is not recognized by the Barco. 3840x22160p29.97 works and 1920x1080p59.94 works also tried 50hz with failure as well. The output of Decklink 8Kpro at 3840x2160p59.94 IS recognized by the Barco, so looks like something wrong with the Constellation output? I read something elsewhere about a Shogun not working with the Barco, and apparently the problem was CRC related on the Shogun output. Perhaps there's a similar issue with the Constellation at 3840x2160p59.94?

BC

Does anyone else have the ability to test this? I'd like to figure out why a couple of $10k pieces of gear can't send/receive a signal both claim to. A $500 Decimator 12G cross can take the output of the Constellation, but the Barco can't. Is the Barco being to picky on the input side, or is the Constellation not doing something it should be that the Decimator is ignoring?

I can't comment on the Barco ImagePRO 4K specifically, but there were reports of other compatibility issues with the SDI output from the ATEM Constellation as described in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=132074

It seems that the ATEM Constellation often marks its output as being in the Rec. 2020 color space rather than Rec. 709. And this caused problems when connecting to some other Blackmagic gear (such as the Web Presenter 4K and Video Assist 12G) before firmware updates for those devices.

Not sure that this is necessarily the same problem you are seeing, but there do seem to be some differences in the SDI output from the ATEM Constellation 8K compared to some of Blackmagic's earlier 12G SDI hardware (such as the DeckLink cards, Teranex Mini 12G devices, or ATEM Broadcast Studio 4K).

Thanks for your reply. I can try and look at the Barco menu to see if color space is something I can adjust manually instead of relying on auto. I did try setting the input res manually to see if that would work, but didn't see much else that looked like it would make it acquire the signal. Your suggestion makes sense if it's finding a mismatch.

Also there have been Payload ID issues.. Put the decimator in between and it will work i guess..

Also on the Decimator 12G Cross you can change between REC709 and 2020. Try that and see how your barco likes it.

If that is no issue report to BMD that there Payload ID's on the Constellation are not OK.

I can check it tomorrow as i have an Constellation on my desk and have an Phabrix to test Payload IDs embedded into the SDI signal.

What FW is your Const running ??

Yeah, I'm using the 12G Cross in-between for now, but obviously that's a waste of a Deciamtor I shouldn't have to use. I haven't tried changing color space on the 12G, but I can do that tomorrow. I'm pretty sure its on 709 currently which I think is the default, and I'm definitely going through the scaler.

There definitley seems to be an issue with SDI outputs of the Constellation 8k at some resolutions being incorrectly tagged as Rec 2020 when they are actually Rec 709. This causes the video to display over-saturated (or sometimes not at all) on the end device.

Devices or software that don't recognise the Rec 2020 colour space seem to display the video fine (EG a 3G video monitor) but other devices or software that are Rec 2020 / HDR aware display the video very over-saturated. Maybe the Barco is even more sensitive and not showing any image.

There are reports of this going back a year on the forums but BM have not released a firmware / software update to fix it - it's totally unacceptable this is still an issue on their top of the range vision mixer after it was widely reported a year ago !!

Yes, it can be corrected by placing a Decimator or similar product in the SDI signal chain to strip out the incorrect colour space tagging / metadata, but NOT so easy when there are 20 outputs needed from the Constellation that all have the same issue! THat's A LOT of money and cabling to correct an issue that should not exist!

I'm no software engineer but I'd hope it would be a fairly simple software / firmware fix to correct the incorrect colour range tag being placed on 1080 25p, 24p and 29.97p signals that could be rolled out quite quickly, I simply can't understand why BM has not done so!

BM need to correct the issue ASAP!

Set2screen wrote:There definitley seems to be an issue with SDI outputs of the Constellation 8k at some resolutions being incorrectly tagged as Rec 2020 when they are actually Rec 709. This causes the video to display over-saturated (or sometimes not at all) on the end device.

Devices or software that don't recognise the Rec 2020 colour space seem to display the video fine (EG a 3G video monitor) but other devices or software that are Rec 2020 / HDR aware display the video very over-saturated. Maybe the Barco is even more sensitive and not showing any image.

There are reports of this going back a year on the forums but BM have not released a firmware / software update to fix it - it's totally unacceptable this is still an issue on their top of the range vision mixer after it was widely reported a year ago !!

Yes, it can be corrected by placing a Decimator or similar product in the SDI signal chain to strip out the incorrect colour space tagging / metadata, but NOT so easy when there are 20 outputs needed from the Constellation that all have the same issue! THat's A LOT of money and cabling to correct an issue that should not exist!

I'm no software engineer but I'd hope it would be a fairly simple software / firmware fix to correct the incorrect colour range tag being placed on 1080 25p, 24p and 29.97p signals that could be rolled out quite quickly, I simply can't understand why BM has not done so!

BM need to correct the issue ASAP!

I don’t think BMD has the slightest idea how annoying this problem is. Having bought 3 8Ks over the last year or so this has been a running sore for many of our productions. Yet there doesn’t seem to be any acknowledgement or hurry on the part of BMD to fix this serious problem on their flagship ATEM.

cygnus23 wrote:Hi all,

I wanted to use an ImagePro4K for adjustments before sending to a LED wall processor, and the Constellation's output of 3840x2160p59.94 is not recognized by the Barco. 3840x22160p29.97 works and 1920x1080p59.94 works also tried 50hz with failure as well. The output of Decklink 8Kpro at 3840x2160p59.94 IS recognized by the Barco, so looks like something wrong with the Constellation output? I read something elsewhere about a Shogun not working with the Barco, and apparently the problem was CRC related on the Shogun output. Perhaps there's a similar issue with the Constellation at 3840x2160p59.94?

BC

the limit to 4k/30 points to the barco only having 6G SDI inputs

"I don’t think BMD has the slightest idea how annoying this problem is. Having bought 3 8Ks over the last year or so this has been a running sore for many of our productions. Yet there doesn’t seem to be any acknowledgement or hurry on the part of BMD to fix this serious problem on their flagship ATEM."

What makes it worse is that Blackmagic support has been aware if this issue for some time. I contacted them again last week on this issue and they said they would bring the subject up with the dev team again but could not give ANY guidance on if / when a fix will be available !!!

I'd suggest you contact BM support directly to flag the issue and how it affects you - the more people ask for a fix the quicker it might come!

Raphaël Jacquot wrote:the limit to 4k/30 points to the barco only having 6G SDI inputs

The Barco ImagePRO 4K has 12G SDI inputs as indicated in this specifications page:
https://www.barco.com/en/product/imagepro-4k#specs

And the fact that people have had success running the Constellation 8K's 12G output through a Decimator 12G-CROSS indicates that it is not an SDI bandwidth issue, but more likely a signal format metadata issue similar to what people have experienced when connecting the Constellation 8K output to various other devices (including other Blackmagic devices).

has anyone has any credible information from official BMD sources yet?

Whenever I have to work with the E2, it is always a careful threading process to ensure that i can either:

- send the whole universe to level B.
- secure enough decimators to change everything from level A to B.

not to mention the whole hoo-ha when you use level B on a hyperdeck 4K pro, the colour space gets registered by accident to be rec2020 instead of rec709.

is there nothing that can be done from BMD end to allow for level A signal with right metadata???