HDMI issues on LED screen

Hi, I am experiencing a recurring issue on gigs I’m playing with a show I am running as MD/designer. We are playing in a lot of venues which now have large LED matrix video screens at the back of the stage. On paper this is great for us, because we run a lot of live video projection alongside the tracks and the musicians onstage. But in practise, it never works unless I run VGA directly into the screen.

I figured I would ask here for some advice. I’ll explain the basic setup of my system and the connections, and maybe someone can give me some pointers.

I’m running the show on a MacBook Pro — but in BootCamp mode, on Windows 10. Tracks are in Steinberg Nuendo, but firing MIDI cues in ArKaos GrandVJ for video output. The MacBook has a Thunderbolt 2 (MiniDisplayport) output, so I have Startech adaptors for Thunderbolt to VGA and Thunderbolt to HDMI.

The venues typically run their video from QLab on an iMac. They go into HDMI Input 1 on an ATEM Mini Pro, and the ATEM Mini Pro then sends HDMI out to the LED video screen. When I want to project my video onto their screen with my show, they want me to send an HDMI cable into Input 2 on the ATEM Mini Pro, then they can simply switch from their in-house graphics to my video feed when we are about to come on and play our show.

However, I can never get this to work. I have sent HDMI out to this setup dozens of times, always with the same result. A totally black screen. And a totally black screen on my MacBook too! I can’t even see what I am controlling until I unplug the HDMI adaptor from the MacBook’s Thunderbolt port. I have tried using different cables and different adaptors. I have tried running via an HDMI splitter (to try and resolve HDCP handshake issues), and I have tried used VGA from my MacBook and a VGA-HDMI adaptor (a powered Kramer one) to shorten the length of the HDMI cable run as much as possible. None of these things have helped.

Does anybody else have any other suggestions I could try, or any simple issues I may have missed? I am more of a musician and producer than a video person. So I am still learning on this side of things! I would greatly appreciate any advice or any tips the community here can offer!

Many thanks,
Kit Marsden

It could be any number of things. I’ve definitely had the black screen problem myself. My issue came up whenever I tried to output 30p. 24, 25, 50, 60 were fine. Try changing the framerate or maybe using a different adapter.

Good Luck

If You want stable output, use scaler. We have Datavideo dac70 and DecimatorDesign MD-Cross v2, both are superb.
Also, keep HDMI runs as short as possible. Do not use any splitter before scaler.

Check Doug Johnson Production YT channel, there is very good information in context.

Hi, thanks for the responses! I had a few more shows using this setup a couple of weeks ago, and managed to speak with one of the venue techs who installs these systems – he said similar things to some of the advice on here (especially with regards to keeping the HDMI cable runs as short as possible), and also said I should try the setup at home using a 'known working' HDMI device (ie. a TV) where I can then set the output on Windows to 720p or 1080p at 60hz (apparently those are the settings which these boxes like).

So I have done that using the TV in my studio, and set the display output for the second screen over HDMI accordingly in the Windows settings – hopefully when I setup at the next venue I go to which has a video wall and an ATEM Mini Pro, Windows will remember the settings I applied for HDMI output and the ATEM Mini Pro will be happy!

I have also got hold of a Kramer Devices VGA to HDMI scaler, and also got this working successfuly using the HDMI input on the TV in my studio. Hopefully this will allow me to get the HDMI cable I'm using to under 2m in length as I can get length over VGA and then convert to HDMI using the Kramer box close to the ATEM Mini Pro.

I shall try to let you all know how I get on with this next time I'm out on the road (I should probably save the URL for this forum to my phone as well!) and hopefully there will be fewer issues next time. I'll try to check out that YouTube recommendation too when I get a few days free at home, to get some more background on the topic (as I mentioned before, I'm more of an audio or lighting person than video/projection – so I can definitely stand to learn more on the topic generally!).

Thanks again for all your help so far!