Asking for Supersource lite on ATEM Mini Pro

Hi together,

I tested in the recent days the new AVMATRIX HVS0402U and I liked some features I miss on the ATEM Mini Pro which I now finally bought . I believe that the competitive box has not a more powerful ASIC (Likely from XILINX as well) than the Blackmagic ATEM Pro series is using, so I hope more could be archived with SW/FW updates because the current Multiview in the PRO series also can morph multiple streams into one output.

What they are able to do:
- 2 PIP active over 3rd source. Scale fixed to 3 ratios. (Was nice, but not perfect)
- 2 sources as side by side, they call this POP (Nice for interviews, I know the ATEM videos show how to tweak. This was more straight forward)
- Separate Logo path beside DSK

For using the ATEM in Presentations facing Zoom/Teams/Webex, a more powerful 2 source PIP with media background would be great. I call it 'Supersource Lite' for the moment . Of course we can use Chroma or full screen presentation with lower right presenter view, but it would be great to have the presentation for example at 80% scale on the upper left and the presenter small in the lower right both with a nice background with offset positions which would give everybody a very modern taste. Of course there are other nice setups for the same use-case when using asymmetric scale or masks with 2 sources. I am not talking about 4 or more sources which would go into competition to the new Extreme line and is not my requirement. Just a bit more flexible current.

Does anybody see the same requirement or is this total out-of-scope due to HW constraints?

Thx
Andy

Wont be possible as bmd tends to put as light as possible FPGA in there to get the best bang for the buck.

Also the FPGA is already loaded by the Fairlight audio, Streaming engine, and all vision processing.

Also from a marketing standpoint. They would cut themself in their fingers if they would do that as that is 1 of the MAIN selling points on the Atem Extreme.

Just ditch your Pro and buy an Extreme This is how it works.. You need to keep on buying stuff to get new features.

If I did my research right:
ATEM Mini uses a Xilinx Zynq-7015
ATEM Mini Pro uses a Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ XCZU4CG
ATEM Mini Pro ISO uses a Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ XCZU5EV

Many great PRO/ISO additions so far are ARM Core/MEM consuming like recording/streaming and not so much FPGA logic consuming which is used for the video effects. So their should be some headroom left in FPGA logic to surprises us beside MV (Example: # of Logical Cells in order of listed products 74K, 192K, 256K)

I know marketing and positioning is always one angle. Therefore I am not asking for a full match of the Extreme Supersource/Keyer/DVE functions. More some improvements because emerging competitors might fill gaps and for the market of Teams/Zoom/WebEx home office users my described improvements could trigger the up-sell to a PRO. Those user's will not so much ask for RTMP stream, recording, 8 input sources with plenty of overlays.

If somebody from Blackmagic want to contact me for a private chat, please feel free. Also it would be nice if other user's can share their toughs in the forum.

I think based on BM's model and market share they're on top of this. I would recommend you buy the mini extreme and be done with it.

Considering that with the Extreme you're getting Supersource (only available in 4000.00 and up models previously) I'd be shocked if they cut themselves off at the knees and lowered it anymore.

While a few employees from BM monitor these forums and respond on occasion I don't see many things discussed here end up in future products. I'd contact them directly.

Best,

David

I have contacted Blackmagic directly now as well. They should not let Yolobox or AVMATRIX pass the ATEM Mini Pro in dual PIP function arena.

- Andy

Apples and oranges. One feature doesn't accommodate for the lack of other things. AVMATRIX - I can't even get to their website. That's not good. Yolobox - only 3 inputs for 850.00. I guess it depends on your needs but as a higher end BM user it's a tough pill to swallow when the new Extreme will do Supersource and I paid 4x the price for that capability. BM has put a lot of high end features into sub 1k boxes. Pretty spectacular if you ask me.

Best,

David

I have contacted Blackmagic directly now as well. They should not let Yolobox or AVMATRIX pass the ATEM Mini Pro in dual PIP function arena.

- Andy

I have contacted Blackmagic directly now as well.

I'm sure they will get right on that. Just like they did with...
External TC for the Constellation
Better use of MADI on the Constellation
Passing original source audio to the Aux Outs on the Constellation
Adding Fairlight audio to all of the ATEMs
Making the TC work on the original ATEM 2ME


oh wait...

if you want SS then buy a model that includes it

I have an ATEM 1 M/E production studio 4k
I have an ATEM 1 M/E broadcast pannel
I have SONY XDCAM cameras.
I bought my expensive gear with years and years of hard work.

Is really annoying see days after day people who bought an Atem mini, a couple of cheap consumer cameras (or dlsr) and compete with you with stupidity low prices

And now is really annoying read people who bought the cheapest family atem switch in the market and ask features that not even your $4000 Atem have (and which you will never occur to ask)

Don't push your lucky, be grateful with the wide range of possibilities that you have for the price that you paid.
Put your feet on the ground, look where you are standing, and maybe in a couple of years of elbow grease, you can save money and buy and ATEM 2 M/E and get supersource.

The streaming and recording is defenitly NOT done in the ARM side of the FPGA..

The full H264 encoding is done in the FPGA part..

The Extreme operates on a Dual FPGA set. There are 2 cooling bodies inside on the PCB.

Older atems can even have up to 6 or 7 FPGA's on the board.. Like my Atem 4ME 12G..

Anyway stop asking for stuff that will never be implemented on lower tier products.. Just buy the new model and support BMD in creating new products..

Guys, I am very surprised about the responses. I understand that everybody who invested in $$$ gear days ago for 4k or required features in this point of time and now sees that prices are going down might be not happy. You can imagine that I had also personal situations where I spend money and 1/2 later cheaper and more powerful gear was available. It happens

But for me its pretty clear that the market, available silicon and competitive gear has changed. Therefore we should not ignore potential capabilities and at least ask . Therefore I am not asking for the cheapest ATEM mini and only PRO upwards with likely the Silicon headroom. And also not asking for unrealistic 4 input Supersources view+plenty of up-/downstream keyer, just a 2 PIP/Upstream Key capability.

@xtreemtec: Nice inside about the Extreme. Did you open it? Nevertheless, H264 encoding is only more for the Extreme ISO going from 4 to 8 channels. For the Pro and regular Extreme effort should be the same. Would you agree?

Yes i opened it up while writing the post as i needed to be sure about what i post.

Most likely the 8 inputs are all handled by 1 FPGA and the second FPGA is running with shared memory acces to do the Mutliviewer, and all fancy stuff like the DVE's and Supersource handling..

But that is only known to BMD software engineers..

The single FPGA's in the Pro / ISO do not have that much headroom left to handle full scaling capabilities for multiple sources.. And that is why you wont see a feature like that onto the cheaper Pro / Iso ..

And probably due to Marketing / financial reasons they neither wont as it will kill off about every sale of the bigger atems...