View Full Version : Building a portable broadcast setup based on the BMD TVS


Damian Heffernan
April 29th, 2013, 07:11 AM
Thought I'd share in case anyone is interested. I've just started to build a portable outside broadcast, multi camera studio type thing based around the Blackmagic TV studio. The intention is to use it to film stuff and either live stream it to the web, upload later to youtube or burn dvd's/blurays, but avoid editing. This setup will allow me to do all that.
Building a portable broadcast Television studio using the Blackmagic design ATEM TV Studio. - YouTube
I've bought some gear and tested it out (works really well and is super easy to operate) and started to put the pieces together in a case.

Petter Flink
May 1st, 2013, 04:08 AM
Very nice. Please keep us updated on the progress.

Thanks for sharing.

Damian Heffernan
May 1st, 2013, 08:02 AM
will do.

Got some more bits including the monitors. Went together fine but I'm having real trouble getting a signal into the television studio from the hdmi to sdi adapters.

Damian Heffernan
May 3rd, 2013, 08:44 PM
First field test complete and successful. I'm still writing up the blog post about part 2 of the build and the adventures with getting one of the cameras to work. More soon.

Seth Bloombaum
May 3rd, 2013, 09:33 PM
What HDMI to SDI converters are you using between cameras and switcher?

Oops, never mind, I see the BM converters in one of the pix above.

Damian Heffernan
May 11th, 2013, 06:48 AM
What HDMI to SDI converters are you using between cameras and switcher?

Oops, never mind, I see the BM converters in one of the pix above.

Yes using the battery hdmi to sdi blackmagic ones. I had no end of trouble trying to get one of my cameras to work with it but I think it was just too old. It was an old mini dv hd camera which had a full sized hdmi port unlike the newer mini ones. It worked if i plugged it straight into the monitors but i read somewhere that's because the monitors are more forgiving. I couldn't get it to work at all with the converter.

Damian Heffernan
May 11th, 2013, 06:50 AM
Thought I'd put up a shot of the back and the cables and connectors as some people are asking. Simple to plug it all together.

Damian Heffernan
May 31st, 2013, 09:10 AM
The system ran like a dream in the first test run:
Blackmagic ATEM Television studio setting up film Futsal - YouTube

Robert Bale
June 2nd, 2013, 06:43 AM
Hey Damian , yes got to love the ATEM studio.

Warren Kawamoto
June 4th, 2013, 01:29 AM
How much of a delay is there between what the camera sees and what you see on the program monitor?

Damian Heffernan
June 4th, 2013, 09:25 AM
no delay at all. All the cameras are a live feed and so real time. If I record footage using the blackmagic software there's a delay of about a second from what I'm seeing on the monitor to what's on the computer screen being recorded or streamed. Is that what you mean?