Latest from Tv Technology in Atem-television-studio-pro-hd

URSA Broadcast Captures Hit Chilean Television Series Amor a la Catalán

nick@zazilmediagroup.com — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 16:55:51 +0000

Fremont, CA – October 3, 2019 – Blackmagic Design announced today that Chilean production company, AGTV, incorporated a full Blackmagic Design workflow, including six URSA Broadcast cameras, to produce the hit television series “Amor a la Catalán” for Canal 13, the second oldest television station in Chile.

“Amor a La Catalán” is a romantic comedy series created and directed by acclaimed television director and producer, Vicente Sabatini, and telenovela producer and owner of AGTV, Pablo Ávila. Having premiered this summer on Canal 13 with a second season already in the works, the series tells the story of Fernando, a baker who hides a secret from his family for more than thirty years.

To bring the story to life with a higher production value while still staying on budget, AGTV decided to incorporate a Blackmagic Design workflow, starting with the URSA Broadcast cameras.

“We saw how Canal 13 used Blackmagic Design on ‘Runaways,’ and we wanted to recreate the workflow to achieve the same quality,” said Cesar Norambuena, operations manager at AGTV. “For ‘Amor a la Catalán,’ we had the URSA Broadcasts divided into two groups: unit one consisted of three cameras used as our main cameras in studio, and unit two consisted of two cameras used mostly for outdoor scenes. Our sixth camera functioned as a backup for the crew.”

By using three cameras at once in studio, Norambuena and the crew were often able to shoot scenes in one take, eliminating the need for reshoots to capture different angles or reactions from the actors. Unit two was set up for “grab and go” use, with the cameras’ batteries always charged, allowing the crew to grab them as needed to shoot outdoors.

In order to help maximize efficiency during production, the crew used an ATEM Camera Control Panel for monitoring and adjusting color balance, shutter speed and more, freeing the camera crew to focus on other needs during shooting.

“Our shoots can last up to ten hours, and the URSA Broadcasts have never failed us,” Norambuena noted. “They are very reliable, and our crew has been able to quickly adapt and use them efficiently during long shoots. Many members of our camera crew were used to regular broadcast cameras, so we were able to find a camera that is basically two in one, with traditional broadcast controls but cinematic features.”

Norambuena and the crew took advantage of the URSA Broadcast’s ability to shoot in 4K, as well as its rich colors and crisp images, the ability to use their existing lenses and the extensive support for different codecs.

AGTV also incorporated ATEM Television Studio Pro HD and ATEM Production Studio 4K live production switchers, a HyperDeck Studio Mini recorder as part of both camera units for additional recording, a SmartScope Duo 4K monitor, and an ATEM Talkback Converter 4K, which allowed the camera operators to remain in communication with the director while distancing themselves from the URSA Broadcasts in order to let the action happen uninterrupted.

“Using Blackmagic Design on this production has been an incredible experience. The gear has integrated into our workflow seamlessly and the quality is top notch. We’re excited to start the next season of ‘Amor a La Catalán’ and once again trust Blackmagic Design for an incredible production,” Norambuena concluded.

Press Photography

Product photos of URSA Broadcast, ATEM Camera Control Panel, ATEM Television Studio Pro HD, ATEM Production Studio 4K, HyperDeck Studio Mini, SmartScope Duo 4K and ATEM Talkback Converter 4K, as well as all other Blackmagic Design products, are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/images.

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com.

ATEM Television Studio Pro 4K used by Zodiac Studios on Austin Music Live Streaming Series

nick@zazilmediagroup.com — Mon, 19 Nov 2018 16:15:09 +0000

Fremont, CA - November 19, 2018 - Blackmagic Design today announced that Austin, Texas based full service production studio Zodiac Studios is using an ATEM Television Studio Pro 4K live production switcher and Video Assist 4K monitor/recorders for its ongoing Austin Music Live series. Cofounded by Robert Calder, owner and executive producer at Zodiac Studios, along with Producer and Creator David Christopher, the live streamed series celebrates the rich and diverse local talent that makes Austin the live music capital of the world. Austin Music Live supports and fosters the city’s $2 billion music tourism industry.

Now in its third season, Austin Music Live features a different local music act, including the likes of Texas legend Carolyn Wonderland, and a different venue in each episode. Each performance is captured live and broadcasted via digital platforms such as XUMO, an OTT VOD provider that reaches consumers directly through smart TVs, in addition to YouTube, Facebook Live, Twitter and the Austin Music Live official website. Each live broadcast receives 1,500 to 3,000 views, while VOD content for the series receives 1.5 million views annually on XUMO.

To capture each show, the team brings a mobile production trailer to the selected venue and runs cables to all camera positions within. Each of the five cameras is equipped with a Video Assist 4K, affording camera operators a clear view of what they are shooting while also allowing them to ISO record on each camera. Everything captured by the cameras is relayed back to the production trailer where the ATEM Television Studio Pro 4K is stationed. From the production trailer, Calder creates a compelling viewing experience using the ATEM Television Studio Pro 4K.

“With the ATEM Television Studio Pro 4K, there’s no delay in the stream when switching cameras, which is really critical for pulling off a polished live streaming event. In addition, its multi format input, with re sync and low latency conversion on each input, is incredibly convenient because it allows me to integrate any type of camera in the production with ease. Its media pool can also hold up to 20 small videos for mixed effects and overlays. You used to need a separate computer for that, so it’s a huge plus that cuts down on the amount of equipment we need to bring out with us,” said Calder.

Since Austin Music Live is a mobile production, the team needs a solution that’s both cost effective and portable. “We’re working with limited staff and limited budget, so I’m juggling five different jobs that we’d ordinarily have five different people for,” Calder added. “We need a switcher that has enough fire power to control all our cameras while still being small enough to fit into our mobile production trailer. The ATEM Television Studio Pro 4K lets me communicate with our camera operators via built in talkback and quickly switch from the five different cameras to get the angles we want. This lets us control how we want remote viewers to experience the performances; we want them to feel like they’re right there alongside the live audience.”

“Due to latency requirements, we currently broadcast live and record in 720/1080p, but the ATEM Television Studio Pro 4K’s 12G-SDI and 4K capabilities give us the option to make the switch when it makes sense for us in the future. Knowing that we won’t have to invest in additional equipment brings us peace of mind from a budget standpoint,” Calder said.

“Austin Music Live is our way of helping preserve the local music scene here in Austin. We want everyone, regardless of geographic location, to be able to experience its thriving and robust music scene. With the implementation of the ATEM Television Studio Pro 4K, we’ve achieved a world class, yet intuitive production workflow at a price point that works for us. For me, it’s just a very user friendly, easy to use product; we plan to purchase another unit in the near future,” Calder concluded.

Zodiac Studios plans on using the ATEM Television Studio Pro 4K along with two of Blackmagic Design’s URSA Broadcast cameras on live productions for the Austin Spurs’ 2018/2019 season as their official broadcast partner. The URSA Broadcast was selected for its superior image quality, B4 broadcast mount and small physical footprint.

Press Photography

Product photos of the ATEM Television Studio Pro 4K, Video Assist 4K, URSA Broadcast and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/images

About Blackmagic Design

Internationally AcclaimedBlackmagic Design Wins 7 Good Design Australia Awards

nick@zazilmediagroup.com — Fri, 01 Jun 2018 13:42:25 +0000

Fremont, CA - May 31, 2018 - Blackmagic Design has swept the prestigious 2018 Good Design Australia Awards with 7 different awards for design innovation. This year’s awards brings the total number of Australian design awards to 30 and international design awards to over 50. Melbourne, Australia based Blackmagic Design is recognized around the world as a leader and innovator for its professional film, broadcast television, commercial production, corporate video, A/V and web video products.

This year’s best in class design and engineering excellence awards were given to Blackmagic Design for its URSA Broadcast camera, ATEM Television Studio Pro HD video production switcher, ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panel, DaVinci Resolve 14 editing and color correction software, DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel, and Video Assist on-set monitor and recorder.

In addition to the Good Design Australia Awards, Blackmagic Design has been honored to receive more than 50 international awards for innovation in design and engineering. These include numerous Red Dot Awards, International Design Excellence Awards, Hollywood Post Alliance Awards and many more. The hard work that goes into designing great products at Blackmagic Design is driven by an innovative spirit and mission to bring incredibly high end video production quality and technology to everyone.

“Years ago, video was expensive and hard to produce. Now, with the Internet, smartphones, tablets and other devices, video is everywhere,” said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. “Our goal is to enable the largest number of people to be more creative and help them tell their stories with video. Whether it’s for a high end broadcast professional, Hollywood feature filmmakers or a young web broadcaster, we think very carefully about how people are going to use our products and then design them to be faster and easier to use than anything else out there. Good products don’t need to be complex or expensive. They need to perform exceptionally well, they need to be affordable and they need to be easy to use.”

This years winning products include the new URSA Broadcast Camera which is designed to work both in the studio and out in the field. The most exciting thing about URSA Broadcast is that it doesn’t compromise on anything. Customers get high end Ultra HD broadcast camera features and quality, along with an incredible touch and swipe graphical interface that makes it fast, intuitive and easy to use, all for less than the cost of common DSLR camera. That means it’s appealing for both high end broadcast customers and young filmmakers.

Blackmagic Design also received awards for its ATEM Television Studio HD video production switcher and ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panel. The switcher lets customers connect multiple cameras at the same time so they can create an edited television or web program from a live event as it’s happening. Customers typically control the switcher using software on a laptop computer, or they can use the ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panel. The hardware control panel lets customers work much more quickly so they can cut between cameras, add transitions, graphics, effects and titles, all in realtime while the production is happening. The combination of these two products brings incredibly powerful broadcast quality video switching and program creation technology to anyone. These products appeal to everyone because high end broadcast customers still get the features they need while young web broadcasters get an intuitive system that’s reasonably priced.

DaVinci Resolve, Blackmagic Design’s professional video editing, color correction and audio post production software, also won this year’s award for best Digital Design App and Software. DaVinci Resolve is used to color and finish more high end Hollywood feature films, television shows and commercials than any other software. Over the last few years, Blackmagic Design has brought this powerful software to an entirely new generation of users by adding innovative new features that aren’t available anywhere else and by also redesigning the entire user experience. The free version is now the world’s most widely used professional video editing software and is perfect for anyone making web videos, independent films, corporate, wedding videos and more. The paid DaVinci Resolve 14 Studio, which is only $299, is used by professionals working in film and television.

Customers that want to work even faster, can add a DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel. The DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel also won this year’s Digital Design Interface award because of the way it seamlessly integrates with the software to provide an even better user experience. Customers using the panel have the ability to adjust multiple color and image parameters simultaneously, which is something that cannot be done with a standard mouse. This revolutionizes the way customers use DaVinci Resolve because it allows then to both work faster and also create unique looks and color combinations that are impossible to create when clicking one button at a time with a mouse.

Whether it’s a camera, professional software, a hardware control panel, or any other accessory, Blackmagic Design has become synonymous with quality and innovation. CEO Grant Petty has taken the time to listen to customers, build an incredible team with world class engineers and designers, and deliver exceptional products. In fact, the recently announced upcoming Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K may be the company’s most revolutionary product to date. Its incredible design packs the latest high end digital film technology into a professional handheld camera that costs about the same price as a high end smartphone.

About Good Design Australia

The annual Good Design Awards are Australia’s most prestigious design awards. The Awards celebrate the best new products and services on the market, excellence in architectural design, digital and communication design and reward emerging areas of design including business model innovation, social impact and design entrepreneurship.

Good Design Australia is an international design organization with a proud history that dates back to 1958. Good Design Australia remains committed to promoting the importance of design to business, industry, government and the general public and the critical role it plays in creating a better, safer and more prosperous world.

The winners of Australia's Good Design Awards were announced at the Sydney Opera House on May 17th at the 60th Annual Good Design Awards Ceremony.

Press Photography

Product photos of the URSA Broadcast, ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panel, ATEM Television Pro HD, DaVinci Resolve 14, DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel, Video Assist and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/images.

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic ATEM Foundation for Hood College Broadcast Studio

Michael Balderston — Thu, 08 Feb 2018 15:00:00 +0000

FREMONT, CALIF.—Hood College in Fredercik, Md., has built a new Communications Arts Video Production Studio and Control Room and has placed Blackmagic Design gear at its center. The school installed an ATEM Television Studio Pro HD system for live switching and camera control; it also put in the Blackmagic Web Presenter for streaming content, Blackmagic Studio Cameras and the HyperDeck Studio Mini.

Jeff Welsh, Hood College’s instructional technologist, described the ATEM unit as the heart and brain of the new broadcast control room. Three Blackmagic Studio Cameras are fed into the ATEM for multi-shot capability and from there are recorded to two HyperDeck Studio Mini broadcast decks and then transferred to an editing computer. Then, the Blackmagic Web Presenter can take multiple input signal types and feed them to a computer as video and audio input sources.

The new studio at Hood College will serve the school’s students majoring in communication arts, who will use the studio to produce campus news programming and other campus information.

Review: Blackmagic Design ATEM Television Studio Pro HD

chuck.gloman@desales.edu (Chuck Gloman) — Mon, 04 Dec 2017 09:30:00 +0000

Production switchers have evolved from their predecessors in that it no longer takes great engineering skill to set up and operate the unit. Blackmagic Design has released the ATEM Television Studio Pro HD live production switcher, which looks and functions much like switchers in the old days, but with eight inputs that mix HDMI, SDI, SD and HD resolution inputs. Consumers and professionals now have a switcher that does it all on location or in the studio.

FEATURES

Straight out of the box, the ATEM Television Studio Pro HD is something to marvel. No longer are black burst, sync or video cables of identical length needed to mix (or time) between video sources. Having installed a video switcher in our university about eight years ago, it took the better part of several days to time all of the inputs and add additional HD component converter boxes so our three high-definition cameras would all function with a switcher that only came with one HD input.

Weighing in at about 9 pounds, the ATEM Television Studio Pro HD is ready to use right from the box (if you supply an AC cable). The rear panel has a DC input if you desire portability on location. The system has four HDMI inputs (switcher keys one through four) and four HD/SDI BNC connections (switcher keys five through eight), which allows you to mix SD and HD inputs. I would like to dwell on this feature for a moment and savor it—you may mix input sources into the switcher without reprogramming, re-timing, or getting additional components. Right out of the box this switcher seems to work in any situation. In my mind, that’s a great leap forward.

An HDMI or a SDI/BNC output (multi-view) displays all camera sources as well as your preview and program on one monitor divided into quadrants. Two XLR inputs ingesting analog audio are to the right of a quarter-inch headphone and quarter-inch microphone jacks. In addition, ports include RS-422, Ethernet and a USB 2.

The switcher also supports NTSC, PAL, 720p 1080i and 1080p with multiple frame rates from 23.98 to 59.94 (I’m still amazed by this). An auxiliary output is assignable and allows you to send an additional program output (or input) to another source other than your multi-view monitor like a projector or large screen display.

The front panel of the ATEM Television Studio Pro HD looks deceivingly complicated, but everything is clearly labeled. Eight preview and program buttons are assigned to each of your video inputs, with cut, mix, wipe and dip transitions. Thirty-six wipe patterns are accessible by simply pressing the corresponding buttons and the Digital Video Effects Processor (DVE) helps with additional built-in transitions.

The upstream keyer features chroma key blue or green, a luminance key, a linear key and 18 pattern keys. The downstream keyer makes adding bugs, logos or titles effortless.

Ten audio channels may be controlled with the built-in audio mixer and 20 graphic files may be stored in the Media Player. The slider allows smooth transitions between inputs and a track ball helps make intricate positioning a breeze. Lastly, a small t3-inch LCD monitor displays the program output directly on the switcher itself.

IN USE

As mentioned earlier, our university recently transitioned into a full 1080p TV studio with a traditional (expensive) switcher and20-inch LCD monitors for each of our three Hitachi 6000 cable and 1080p 48-inch preview and program monitors. Disconnecting the fiber optic cable from each camera and using an SDI cable to go from the camera to the ATEM Television Studio Pro HD, we had three functioning cameras in less than a minute on inputs five, six, and seven—no fuss.

Four additional cameras could be added via the HDMI connections. Since we have only one Blackmagic URSA 4.6K Mini camera, it resided in input one and the three remaining HDMI ports worked with our DSLRs. An HDMI cable from the multi-view output displayed all of the cameras as well as preview and program on one of our Sony Bravia monitors. Again, I didn’t need to worry that the Blackmagic Design, Hitachi 1080p cameras, or DSLRs were of different types—they all played extremely well together.

Our students immediately flocked to this new addition in our control room. The many buttons, red and green colored lights, and multiple transition types were a wow factor for them. Also, seeing the multiview display was an improvement rather than trying to watch six different monitors spread across the room. I haven’t seen this much of a reaction since we transitioned from CRT monitors to flat screen.

One feature I did not have a chance to use is the software control of the switcher for PC and Mac. An included SD card contains this vital information.

I can see this unit being relegated to our sporting events where live remote broadcast is necessary. Taking one of our portable Mac or PCs along will aid our students’ ability with a much higher end result because of live switching rather than editing all of the footage after the event with almost no turnaround time.

With very little set-up time and all cameras talking to each other (with audio), you just need something to actually switch. If we had more Blackmagic Design cameras, there are multiple other features this type of set-up could do.

SUMMARY

The perfect, inexpensive switcher for studio or remote location that allows mixing multiple sources and formats without an issue.

FAST FACTS

Application

The ATEM Television Studio Pro HD functions as an AC or DC switcher, audio mixer and DVE. All you need are the cameras.

Key Features

Multi-format input, AC/DC operation, built in LCD screen, multi-view output, HDMI and SDI inputs, audio mixer, microphone input, DVE, upstream and downstream keyer, rack or desktop mountable and media player.

Price

$2,295.00

Contact

Blackmagic Design
408.954.0500
info-usa@blackmagicdesign.com
www.blackmagicdesign.com

Chuck Gloman is an Associate Professor and Chair of the TV/Film Department at DeSales University. He may be reached chuck.gloman@desales.edu.