Blackmagic Forum

Does anyone know the best way to connect a BM Studio Converter (connected to BM Studio Cam 6k Pro) to a ClearCom intercom base unit with XLR inputs?
Are there any premade RJ45 to XLR female cables that will work well?
I don't have an ATEM switcher (we use Tricasters) and I'm trying to use the intercom over the Cat7 cable connecting the camera to the control room.

Is the Clear Com basestation 2 wire or 4 wire? 4 wire is a straight adapter cable, 2 wire requires a hardware interface as 2W com carries 30 volts and duplex audio.

Good Luck

Howard Roll wrote:Is the Clear Com basestation 2 wire or 4 wire? 4 wire is a straight adapter cable, 2 wire requires a hardware interface as 2W com carries 30 volts and duplex audio.

Good Luck

Thanks for the reply. The ClearCom is two wire/XLR only. I tried an adapter cable (RJ45 to XLR male and female) from Hollyland, but after some setup adjustments on the ClearCom I can only get one way comm at best. I figured a hardware interface was probably needed but hoped a simple cable adapter would work.

I also have an RTS OMS intercom base that has 4 AIO RJ45 jacks. I'm assuming that will work with the Studio Converters, but they need to be activated with an upgraded firmware license for significant cost. I will do the upgrade if I can verify that this will allow it to work with the Studio Converters. Any thoughts on that?

The RJ-45 Talkback on the Studio Converter is a 4 Wire Interface and requires the same exact interface from an intercom system. It is balanced analog audio. Without seeing the schematics for the intercom I wouldn’t expect it to work with a direct RJ-45. Audio outs must be connected to audio ins. I hope this helps.

Gary

Gary Adams wrote:The RJ-45 Talkback on the Studio Converter is a 4 Wire Interface and requires the same exact interface from an intercom system. It is balanced analog audio. Without seeing the schematics for the intercom I wouldn’t expect it to work with a direct RJ-45. Audio outs must be connected to audio ins. I hope this helps.

Gary

Hi Gary,
I'm trying to get the last piece of my new studio config working. It's the ability to use our RTS OMS OMNEO intercom base to properly connect and work with our Studio Converters and Studio Cam 6k Pro's. I'm currently using a direct connection from the AIO ports on the intercom to the Talkback jacks on the SC's using standard Cat6 cables. Should I be using some kind of adapter cables with a special pin configuration?
Thanks,
Russ

The pinout of out RJ-45 are in the manual. Basically if you cut the end of an Ethernet cable the four twisted pairs are the balanced audio lines. Inputs to outputs. It’s pretty simple. There are some RJ-45 to XLR adapters out there. I haven’t used any myself. They might have the wrong sex connector but should work. Sometimes overlooked. Return 1 is usually from an ATEM but if it is not, make sure there are 16 channels of audio present. I hope this helps.

Gary

Gary Adams wrote:The pinout of out RJ-45 are in the manual. Basically if you cut the end of an Ethernet cable the four twisted pairs are the balanced audio lines. Inputs to outputs. It’s pretty simple. There are some RJ-45 to XLR adapters out there. I haven’t used any myself. They might have the wrong sex connector but should work. Sometimes overlooked. Return 1 is usually from an ATEM but if it is not, make sure there are 16 channels of audio present. I hope this helps.

Gary

Thanks for the quick reply. The AIO (analog) ports on the RTS Intercom base are RJ45. I was hoping a standard Cat6 cable would suffice - connecting the RJ45 Talkback port on the Studio Converter to the RJ45 AIO port on the intercom. But I think a modified pin configuration on the cable is probably needed. If so, I was hoping there might be an off-the-shelf adapter cable.

The AIO ports on that base only carry one channel of audio - the additional pins are used for data, which may not play nicely with the studio converters. Furthermore, both the Studio Converter and the OMS are expecting audio in on pins 4/5 (with audio out on pins 3/6) - so you're going to have to make a custom cable to connect the two devices.

The OMS pinouts are available in the manual here - https://products.rtsintercoms.com/binar ... 820_EN.pdf - page 20.

Studio converter talkback pinouts are in the Studio Camera manual, page 114.

It looks like their pinout for audio In/Out is the same for our audio In/Out so it wouldn't be a direct connect. And a Network crossover cable doesn't work either. The easiest way to interconnect would be to get two RJ-45 to XLR adapters. One would be XLR Male and the other XLR Female. There are 4 XLRs on each and you only need to use the ones on 3/6 and 4/5. Then you could simply connect the two together. Obviously make sure you double check your work. I didn't spend a lot of time looking at the RTS AIO, so make sure to double check my work. I hope this helps.

Gary

The AIO connectors have RS485 on 1, 2, 7, 8, and audio on 3-6. I don’t think you want audio going into the serial channels or serial data into the audio channels, so terminate 3-6 on the Omneo side and run the IO into the channels you want to use on the other side. If you take your time it might take 3 minutes to make the proper adapter.

Good Luck

codedeltajames wrote:The AIO ports on that base only carry one channel of audio - the additional pins are used for data, which may not play nicely with the studio converters. Furthermore, both the Studio Converter and the OMS are expecting audio in on pins 4/5 (with audio out on pins 3/6) - so you're going to have to make a custom cable to connect the two devices.

The OMS pinouts are available in the manual here - https://products.rtsintercoms.com/binar ... 820_EN.pdf - page 20.

Studio converter talkback pinouts are in the Studio Camera manual, page 114.

Thank you very much for your response to this. I have been looking at the pinout schematics in both manuals but hadn't come to that conclusion yet. It looks like I'll be trying my hand at making an adapter cable to connect the appropriate ins and outs on both devices.

Howard Roll wrote:The AIO connectors have RS485 on 1, 2, 7, 8, and audio on 3-6. I don’t think you want audio going into the serial channels or serial data into the audio channels, so terminate 3-6 on the Omneo side and run the IO into the channels you want to use on the other side. If you take your time it might take 3 minutes to make the proper adapter.

Good Luck

Thank you for the info. I was wondering if you could elaborate on the actual making of the adapter. Should it be a modified ethernet cable or something else? And what exactly do you mean by "terminate 3-6 on the Omneo side". I'm very new to making this kind of thing. I can splice and solder and know some basic electrical and electronic concepts, but I don't have experience with 4-wire intercoms and making them work with other equipment in this way. Any extra info would be greatly appreciated!

Can you dig it? This is the wiring. If you use the Production channels of the converter then the cable can be plugged in either way, utilizing the engineering channel, the ends are specific to each device. As far as creating the cable there's nothing more to it than terminating an RJ-45, cut, strip, crimp.

Good Luck

Howard Roll wrote:Can you dig it? This is the wiring. If you use the Production channels of the converter, then the cable can be plugged in either way. If you are wanting to utilize the engineering channel, the ends will be specific to each device. As far as creating the cable there's nothing more to it than terminating an RJ-45, cut, strip, crimp.

Good Luck

Edited for clarity (I hope you don't mind Howard!)

Further to this helpful diagram provided by Howard, to clarify, orange and green should be a twisted pair. Blue and red should be another. Assuming you create the cable by re-terminating only one end of a pre-terminated cable, you will automatically fulfil this requirement. Note that the colours in the diagram do not necessarily correlate to the colours of the wires!

It may also be advisable to label the cable clearly, so no-one accidentally tries to use it for any other application!