BleedThrough

Hello everyone,

I have been running the production booth at our church for a couple of years. I came into the booth under a worship paster that had already been running equipment for some time. We use Propresenter 6 along with ATEM switcher and Furman PL-8C.

When we display names banners live we were having an issue certain colors going transparent and allowing the live feed behind it to bleed through. The Worship paster told me it had to do with PP and that we would have to by an expensive module to fix the issue. I was able to create a mask for the DSK1 key that would fix the issue in the short run. That has been a couple of years ago and now he has resigned with no fix to the issue.

I am no redoubling my efforts to fix this problem so we can better name banners displaying that are not just big rectangles. I would also like to have some kind of background for the Worship music so the white word do not blend in when there is white in the live feed.

I have tried different combos will the fill source and key source on both the upstream and downstream keys. I feel like I grasping at straws. I have tried searching for information but have found nothing that helps as of yet. Both fill and key source is set to computer 2 which is where all the graphics for the name banners and music are in PP.


Any help would be great, maybe an Idiots guide somewhere?

Thor

A few questions:

1. What video output device are you using on the computer running ProPresenter?
2. Are you using the ProPresenter AlphaModule with external keying to output separate fill and key signals into the ATEM? https://support.renewedvision.com/hc/en ... resenter-6
3. What settings are you using on the keyer configured on the ATEM?

Thanks for the response,

1. The computer with the Propresenter is an iMac. It has a Thunderbolt to Html to the Producer Switch. It also has a RJ45 going to the switch board.

2. No, we are not, our funds are a little low so a thousand dollar software module is a bit out of reach at the moment. I'm trying to find a way around having to get it.

3. If I understand the question correctly, the upstream is set to black and the downstream settings are all set to the source computer.

Unfortunately, you are probably going to need something that can output separate key and fill signals using two video signals into the ATEM if you want clean keying of overlays on the switcher. The key signal is similar to an alpha channel that indicates to the switcher exactly which portions of the fill signal (overlay graphics) should be transparent and which should be opaque.

Without separate key and fill signals, you are mostly keying based on color or brightness, which requires constructing the overlays very carefully to avoid problems like edge artifacts or transparency issues, similar to what you are seeing. And it tends to be very hard to achieve certain affects like clean curved edges or partial transparency without a dedicated key signal (alpha channel).

You can read more about different keying approaches and the limitations of single-channel chroma and luma keying (as opposed to separate key and fill signals) in this document:
https://www.renewedvision.com/downloads ... rticle.pdf

For ProPresenter 6, the way to achieve this is using the AlphaModule with video hardware that can output the two signals needed. ProPresenter 7 eliminated the add-on modules and incorporated this functionality into the app directly, so upgrading to the latest version is another way to get this functionality:
https://support.renewedvision.com/hc/en ... oPresenter

There are also some other graphics and character generation software applications that are capable of outputting these kinds of signals that may be less expensive (for example, OBS and CasparCG are both free and capable of outputting key/fill signals with suitable hardware). But this would obviously be a significant change in your workflow.

Thank you so much. This info is really going to help me out. I will present this to the staff after testing. We have a third computer that was used as a slave for a center projector, however thos would drop off of slave or even cause a delay on the main PP to the other projectors. I believe I can use this computer for one of the sources and see what we can do with that.

Thanks.

To continue, since it has been 2 months. I was successful to use another computer as the second source. After presenting this and the other options the leadership wants to upgrade to PP7 so I need to find another source.

I did some research and all of it is a little confusing to be honest but I found something that said to use the "Blackmagic Design BMD-BDLKULSDMINHD UltraStudio HD Mini with Thunderbolt 3 Capture & Playback Solution with 3G-SDI&HDMI" which runs less the 500. PP7 tutorials say to use a DeckLink duo and then an external case. This, of course, runs over 1k.

Would the UltraStudio serve the purpose?

Provided you have a computer with a Thunderbolt 3 port to connect it to, the UltraStudio HD Mini should work fine. Just keep in mind that the UltraStudio HD Mini is not compatible with standard USB-C ports or Thunderbolt 2 ports with an adapter.

From a hardware perspective, you just need a DeckLink or UltraStudio device that supports external keying (fill and key output) over 2 SDI ports. There are quite a few Blackmagic devices that are capable of this. Any of the devices listed in the Alpha Keyer section on this ProPresenter support page should work:
https://support.renewedvision.com/hc/en ... ic-devices