ATEM Constellation 2 M/E HD not retaining media pool

Hi,

The constellation i2 M/E HD sn't retaining the media pool between power ups - should it? This is the only negative, for my use-case, having just changed from using the ATEM Mini Extreme.

Thanks,
Kevin.

Assuming that the other switcher settings are preserved when using the Save Startup State option, then I'm guessing this is probably the expected behavior.

The ATEM switchers that support loading image sequence clips and audio files into the media pool (for stinger transitions and such) need to have much larger storage capacity for the media pool. And as a result, previous ATEM switchers supporting media clips (mostly switchers with the M/E designation) used volatile memory for their media pool, which meant that the contents of the media pool were not retained across power cycles.

There was a note about this limitation in the FAQ for the Constellation 8K, for example:
https://www.avecom.fi/pdf/atem-constellation-8k-faq.pdf

Q. Is the Media Pool saved on power up?
A. No. The Media Pool is quite large and cannot be saved in non volatile memory. It is recommended that media and settings be saved to a file on the computer and loaded on power up.

As suggested, explicitly saving the settings as an XML file is still an option with these switchers, and this will cause the contents of the media pool to be exported to a folder beside the XML settings file. But you will need to manually Restore the state from the XML file to re-populate the media store (and this can take a minute or two to complete depending on the speed of the network and number of frames in the media pool).

The press release introducing the Constellation HD switchers also includes a note about this XML export workflow, but no mention of a persistent media pool: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/ ... 0220424-01

Customers can even save the full state of the switcher as XML files, plus all media is backed up from the media pool.

Thanks Dave for taking the time to reply, it was really helpful.

I wonder what "Quite Large" means? Add a simple SDCARD to the mix to save / load media from.

Does anyone know how to automate the restoration of a configuration? I have 6 fly kits that are centered on this switch and having the same media across all 6 is a key to usability.

Just Macros, or any other program that uses the ATEM SDK can automate loading media from a computer. I am also looking for a solution to this. If it still works, libqatemcontrol should also be able to do this task for a more cross platform situation. I am considering building a solution to load some stills from storage on an embedded platform. It is unclear to me so far though if it would be worth the development time when I could just deploy a couple hyperdecks for my particular application. I would recommend putting a fanless or other small x86 computer in your rack with a startup script that can load the media when it detects the ATEM has just started up.

Q. Is the Media Pool saved on power up?
A. No. The Media Pool is quite large and cannot be saved in non volatile memory. It is recommended that media and settings be saved to a file on the computer and loaded on power up.

To be honest, this makes no sense at all. If the media pool is not stored in flash memory where is it's content stored then? Only in RAM when you restore it from your computer? So that means the switcher has more RAM than flash memory? Usually it's the other way around.

You would expect the design of the system to be that all media in the media pool is stored in flash memory and only loaded into RAM when you load it into a media player.