ATEM Television Studio - Livestream from Macbook Pro

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/product ... ionstudio/

If I have an older Macbook Pro (3 years old) that only has FW800, an express card slot and displayport, what is the best way to feed video output from the ATEM Television Studio via HDMI or HD-SDI to be able to livestream the program feed? (ingesting into the Macbook Pro)

My question is only addressing how to get the video out from the ATEM Television Studio into the Mac. I understand I may need another device to convert HDMI or HD-SDI to something the Macbook Pro can ingest/recognize, but what?

FW800 is the only way into the MacBook, so it looks like you need one of these - http://www.aja.com/en/products/io-hd/#overview. Frankly, I think a new Thunderbolt-equipped MacBook in conjunction with a BlackMagic Intensity Extreme is going to be cheaper.

Can you get a USB2 Expresscard for your old Macbook Pro. If you can, and you stream via livestream you might be able to use the TVS's H.264 encoder over USB2.

I would hope that more streaming solutions will eventually support the ATEM TVSs H.264 via USB2. On the PC side of the fence you can currently use Livestream procaster (native support for the TVS's H.264) or MXLight.

Macbook Pro HAS usb2.0 port and you can just connet to it with a usb cable and stream h264 (read the TVS manual) using mxlight , or if you wish expresscard/SDI-hdmi solution you have Matrox MXO2 family products and you can go with that... Or wait for Blackmagic to build usb3.0 aware Mac driver for their intensity/shuttle family and buy something like expresscard to usb3.0 card..

So I could potentially livestream the h.264 that the ATEM Television Studio generates through USB 2? Interesting prospect.

Has anyone here ever done that?

Thanks for the suggestions. Appreciated.

Yes. I have livestreamed the H.264 from the TVS using USB2 via the new livestream.com service. Their Livestream For Producers client shows the TVS's H.264 output as a supported device. It worked perfectly.

Now... I streamed from a PC Laptop. Don't know how the Mac will work.

In the PC world you can also use an inexpensive product called MXLight to stream from the H.264. There is no Mac version of MXLight.

I don't know of any other streaming software that directly supports the H.264 stream from the TVS via a MAC.

Ok. Yeah, it looks like its unclear if it works on a Mac, but definitely on a PC.

I'm curious then, can you control the ATEM Television Studio with a mac via ethernet, and have a separate PC running Livestream.com (or equivalent) software to stream from the USB2?

The h.264 stream is independent of anything else the Television Studio is doing right? So you could isolate the USB2 output to a different machine entirely, right?

Or does everything need to be done on one machine?

You can have multiple machines controlling the ATEM - mixture of PC's and Macs. The H.264 output from the TVS is independant of anything else and only needs USB2 connection to work. So that could be a dedicated PC laptop - and your Macbook could still be controlling the ATEM.

As for the h.264 stream, if I livestream it, that doesn't affect the final h.264 file that is created, correct? (granted I set it up correctly within the included software)

So I can stream the video all the while a final h.264 mp4 is simultaneously created ready to go as soon as the event is over?

I didn't save the H.264 locally while I was streaming via Livestream... so I can't confirm if that is possible (I record using my Hyperdeck Studio).

Of course the Livestream software automatically saves it's own MP4 file locally (if you have that configured)... but I think that is a re-encoded version of the source H.264.

Good info. Thanks for helping me understand this better.

An amazing piece of equipment....

I'm streaming via Livestream on a iMac from the TVS and recording the mp4 file simultaneously via Blackmagic Media Express. Sometimes it works well, but sometimes the recording freezes up in Blackmagic Express or my Livestream Provaster freezes and loses the signal.

Anyone else experienced this? Any suggestions?