Blackmagic Forum

Hi,

My church is looking at replacing some older mix of Hitachi broadcast and older Ursa Broadcast cameras with The Ursa Mini Pro4.6K all around. We DO NOT have an ATEM switcher. Is it possible to use the BMD CCU in conjunction with the Arduino shield so we can get tally to all 6 cameras or will it all have to be done through Arduino?

You cannot use the BMD CCU panel without an ATEM - at all. The panel is simply an interface to the actual CCU which is generated in the ATEM.

Neither does the Ursa Mini Pro 4.6k support Tally via any other way than SDI as far as I know.

If you plan on using BM cams with a BM CCU panel then why not just get the switcher and be done. It would cost you as much to hack a solution together. For pre hacked solutions check out https://www.skaarhoj.com.

Good Luck

I think Jeremy is asking about the fiber chain CCU, not the camera control panel.

If that's the case, then yes- you can get tally via GPIO pins on the studio fiber converter (most other manufacturers call this the CCU).

If you're not using a studio fiber converter then you can get tally via SDI using the BMD SDI Arduino shield.

If you're wanting color/image control as well that's where you'd need an ATEM or you can write tons of software for the SDI shield (which is what Skaarhoj has done for their SDI RCP)

jrr0083 wrote:We DO NOT have an ATEM switcher. Is it possible to use the BMD CCU in conjunction with the Arduino shield so we can get tally to all 6 cameras or will it all have to be done through Arduino?

YES>> viewtopic.php?f=4&t=70657#p394566

Howard Roll wrote:If you plan on using BM cams with a BM CCU panel then why not just get the switcher and be done. It would cost you as much to hack a solution together.
Good Luck

Because I'm not willing to trade in my Ross Carbonite Black+ switcher for an ATEM

Xtreemtec wrote:

jrr0083 wrote:We DO NOT have an ATEM switcher. Is it possible to use the BMD CCU in conjunction with the Arduino shield so we can get tally to all 6 cameras or will it all have to be done through Arduino?

This is what I was looking at but it doesn't answer my question fully. Building our own RCP's is not the greatest solution (but workable if no other solution works). I was trying to see if we put an ATEM switcher inline with our existing Ross and DA'd all the camera signals into both switchers. The ATEM would only exist to embed camera control down SDI. The ATEM would get a PGM video feed as an input from Ultrix to have a signal to embed on, but not doing any actual switching. We would feed 2 cameras tally through GPIO with the Dsub25 connector on the back like we currently do with our Hitachi broadcast cameras. The other 4 would would need tally over SDI. My concern is that by only feeding the ATEM a program feed to be sent down camera returns there would be no tally information embedded from my Carbonite to make that work