Blackmagic Forum

Hi All,

I work for a local municipality that recently upgraded to a 3 camera PTZ switcher setup with a lot of blackmagic products. We are using an ATEM Television Studio 4k switcher, and a HyperDeck Studio 4K. We record meetings on Tuesdays, but they are broadcast on the local cable channels on Friday nights when no one is in the studio.

With our previous setup we had used a Leghtronix Nexus to schedule playback of the meetings at our scheduled time. It had a very simple calendar type interface so I would just schedule our meeting to play later in the week. The local cable provider has a device in the control room that we send the video playback into. They essentially 'open' that feed at our scheduled time, and the Nexus would start playback at that time. To clarify, there was no trigger when it was opened, they were just both set seperately for the same time.

The issue is that the old system was all analog inputs. I would like to be able to use the full capability of our 4k devices instead of down grading to an analog signal. Do either of our BlackMagic Devices have the ability to schedule playback that goes out through an SDI or HDMI?

If I can provide any clarity please let me know.

I'm not familiar with the Nexus, but could you perhaps use it to just control the HyperDeck through RS-232? And take the SDI/HDMI directly out of the HyperDeck?

So the Nexus is a server that has time based playout scheduling? It would probably be pretty simple to create a macro in Companion that would do this. The host PC would ideally be linked to an ntp timeserver. With a little effort the entire setup could be managed remotely.

Good Luck

Blair Christensen wrote:I'm not familiar with the Nexus, but could you perhaps use it to just control the HyperDeck through RS-232? And take the SDI/HDMI directly out of the HyperDeck?

I think something like this might work, my concern though is that the Nexus is probably pushing around 25 years old at this time and I'm hesitant to make the setup dependant on such an old system. I have had some issues with it in the past, and I'm not sure how much longer I can get Leightrnix to service it.

Howard Roll wrote:So the Nexus is a server that has time based playout scheduling? It would probably be pretty simple to create a macro in Companion that would do this. The host PC would ideally be linked to an ntp timeserver. With a little effort the entire setup could be managed remotely.

Good Luck

Yes the Nexus is an old server that just plays back at a scheduled time. So I would go into the scheduling software, select the file, and say I want it to play @ 7 pm on Wednesday or whenever they want it to go.

I had a feeling a macro would be necessary but I was not aware of Companion as an option to do this so I will look into how difficult that would be. I've never written a macro before. If the host PC is connected to the internet, I woudl think that should be enough to pull the correct time, no?

Yes remotely managed is definteily what I am looking for as I am only onsite at the municipality a couple time a week.

Thank you for your help and I'll let you know how creating a macro works!

You might be looking for something like on the air video from softron - https://softron.tv/products/play/ontheair-video