@permyth

I asked around in the Office Hours Discord and got a few responses.

In response to me outlining my suggestion to go for a powerful Windows computer, one person wrote: 

I'm sure you are right, but I thought I would mention that if you can dodge the dreaded orange dot by not having anything access the microphone then a basic M2 Mac Studio can support 5 4k60 displays natively.  The Studio Ultra support 8 displays natively.

"Four displays with 6K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt and one display with 4K resolution at 60Hz over HDMI"

This doesn't reduce the points of failure though, just the cost.

Another wrote:

Not sure it helps but we regularly output 3-4 4K video outputs to a DeckLink 8K Pro via a Sonnet with QLab from an M1 Mini 16GB. These are at 25-30fps rather than 60 but is considerably cheaper than a Studio. So am sure Izzy could do the same or better. 

A third wrote:

I really like the decklink with Isadora fyi

Best wishes,

Woland

@emtv

I just ran a few tests with my USB3 BM intensity shuttle.

Using a HDMI output from a mac mini (set to 30p and later 60i)
I am able to capture at the specified resolution from Live Capture, and have the HDMI output work as a Monitor feed (I had issues with some of my displays not supporting 60i)
I am able to output my stage to the Device HDMI output.

I can not:
- switch the output between being a Stage Output, and an Input monitor (requires stopping live capture, and toggling the checkbox on Stage Setup. So can be done manually)

The issue of the device being added on newlines, and with the offline suffix, I believe to be an issue that was fixed some time ago. (I remember testing this).
I would recommend updating your version of Isadora. (you list Isadora 3.0.7)

NOTE: your computer spec is very similar to my own, so I don't believe that will be a factor.

@bennnid said:

the problem being that we can't use 1 button for transition A>B and another one to B>A so that, as you never know where the lever is it can lead to misbehavior...

 a video mixer doesn't work in this way. It has a program and a preview level. Program is always online and you choose on the preview level what you want to have as next, then you choose with which effect (cut, fade, wipe,…) you will send it to the program. You cannot change the program directly so you cannot have a to B or B to A. It is always preview to program.

What I send you before is working but not always because some time (and it is a question of time between value and trigger)the last sent value is not 0 or 1 but 0,002 or 0,998.

so you have to add a trigger delay, then you can also use two segments in the Enveloppe generator:

To see the state of the lever you can use the OSC input /atem/transition/bar . it will show you the current value of the bar:

best

Jean-François

@woland Many thanks for quick response! I've submitted a support ticket.

Best wishes, Pazzy

@fred Thanks a lot! That did solve the problem! Thank you so much for your help!

@woland

HI,

I have an Ultrastudio 4K, with Blackmagic Desktop 11.7 in Catalina. Isadora 3.0.7. All is right.

Best

@danielprimo

Please try an older version of the Black Magic software/drivers. We believe something was changed that has stopped 2.6 from seeing the drivers. 

@mark said:

Does this mixer allow you to get video into the Live Capture Settings using the Blackmagic driver? Or????

And in Windows it's the same: the ATEM input is seen as a Webcam in Isadora, and you just set the driver to Windows NOT Blackmagic.

@mark_m ah ok...thanks for the warning

Best,

Thank you. Issue solved. Combo output resolution and camera resetting itself. Thank you for the feedback.

 Currently only using one Ultrastudio MiniMonitor, running the firmware that comes with Desktop Video 11.3, last update 18. July 2019. I wouldn't call the Ultrastudio product line converters because they're proper video interfaces, like the Decklink PCIe cards. And because Blackmagic also builds actual converters (HDMI-to-SDI etc).

I'm pretty much convinced the main problem I'm seeing (Prores files not playing back so reliably; see above) has nothing to do with the Ultrastudio output, given that GLSL shaders play back near-flawlessly.

@woland You could also look at the Blackmagic cleanswitch, it is a bit of a tricky beast as it will work better with reference (or reference SDI input 1). This would give you a clean switching matrix that could be more useful than a simple mixer. I am pretty sure it also uses UDP, if Izzy gets UDP (it's been knocking around on feature requests for a while) then you could control it within Izzy.

I recently acquired a Blackmagic Design Web Presenter for a live streaming project.
It works perfectly as an input device for Isadora. It has two switchable video inputs, HDMI and SDI, with passthroughs for both, and an SDI PGM monitor out as well. Also RCA and XLR audio inputs.
It only outputs 720p, but gives a good, steady signal into Isadora via USB2.

It's rather more expensive than the other Blacmagic Capture devices, but its switchable dual inputs might be useful in certain situations.
Anyhow, it works, and I just wanted to share that with all you Isadorables.

@kurtmeadows in general I would avoid using this method, unless you really need a feature from that pathway (like dual link 444 SDI). Also yes this is limited to a single output. The Blackmagic cards have no processing capability, it will waste a lot of resources to go back and forth from the GPU (where your image is calculated), back to the CPU and out the Blackmagic output.

It seems your need is only monitoring what you output to the projectors, this can be done inside Isadora, or by splitting the output signals, or using a multiview monitor. I would go for adding an extra monitor to you gfx card and asking yourself a split screen preview of everything you need to see. Just use normal HDMI to SDI for your output (even Blackmagic sell these do 50 bucks these days). This way is less cabling and less work for your computer as well as only requiring a single screen for preview monitoring.

Hi, for a future request, is it possible to route all the 6 stages to black Magic thunderbolt to HD-SDI boxes?

I know this means going back to CPU actors but the fluidity of the video card/box is much better than a graphics card.

Thanks