Blackmagic Design Announces ATEM Camera Control

NAB 2014 --- Blackmagic Design today announced ATEM Camera Control, a new update that adds support for controlling cameras from their ATEM production switcher via the program feed to the camera. This update will be free of charge to ATEM customers when available in May 2014.

ATEM Camera Control will be demonstrated on the Blackmagic Design NAB 2014 booth at #SL219.

Until now the ability to control cameras from the live production switcher was only available to extremely high end broadcasters who had the costly infrastructure that allowed this feature. With the new ATEM Camera Control software update, ATEM live production switchers can now control cameras via a new open standard protocol sent to the camera via the return program feed.

This new ATEM Camera Control is currently compatible with a software updated version of the new Blackmagic Studio Camera. The Blackmagic Studio camera features both optical fiber and regular SDI program return feeds to the camera and the commands from the switcher are broadcast to all cameras via this program return feed.

The Blackmagic Studio Camera can be controlled via a regular CCU style of control, however to allow even greater creativity, the Blackmagic Studio Camera has a fully featured DaVinci Resolve primary color corrector built in featuring the same YRGB style grading that is found on DaVinci Resolve.

This means the switcher operator has incredible control over the cameras and not only can settings like focus and iris be remotely set with extreme accuracy, but the operator has full lift, gamma and gain controls in full YRGB colorspace just like a full color corrector. Now any colorist that are familiar with DaVinci Resolve color grading can use their creative skills on live production work.

This new ATEM Camera Control with color correction will allow customers to not only get perfect matching between cameras on live production, but operators can also take into account changing light conditions, which is common on outdoor events. Then when customers need to generate creative looks, such as for music videos, they can push the correction further for exciting looks all in real time.

The stylish control panel in the ATEM Software Control allows normal operation of the ATEM live production switcher, but then at any time the user can select the camera tab and then see the controls for each camera. They get a familiar CCU style of interface with easy control of black and iris settings on the camera as well as focus. When controlling a camera, this camera is automatically output using one of the switchers aux. outputs so the operator can use this aux. output to local monitoring.

When more refined and creative looks are desired, the user can then push a button and the CCU style interface will expand out to a fully featured primary color corrector interface, that allows color grading using an interface very familiar to any DaVinci Resolve colorist. Every setting creatively is the same as DaVinci Resolve as the processing is the same. With the color corrector built into the camera, customers get much greater creative control because the color corrector gets full bit depth and colorspace direct from the cameras sensor.

“When we designed the Blackmagic Studio Camera we really wanted to take advantage of the design and allow amazing features like camera control from the ATEM switcher and we wanted to build in an amazing color corrector, right inside the camera itself!”, said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design, “This new SDI based protocol allows full control without any need to run additional cables. Just a single thin optical fiber or SDI cable is required and we think some amazing creative styles will now be possible for live production, where in the past this kind of color grading was only possible during post production. Its very exciting, and of course we are developing this as an open standard with details in the ATEM switcher instruction manual”

• Color control for up to 20 cameras.
• Familiar Da Vinci YRGB style live color grading including lift, gamma and gain control.
• CCU style operation for the most commonly used operations of iris and pedestal levels.
• Remote gain settings.
• Remote shutter speed settings.
• Coarse setting for iris.
• Remote white balance selection.
• Remote focus.
• Remote iris.
• Aux switching for camera preview allowing automatic local monitoring for grading.
• Clear "On Air" indication in user interface reduces the possibility of mistakes
• Lock function stops accidental changes.

ATEM Camera Control will be available May for all ATEM live production switcher customers free of charge for download from the Blackmagic Design web site. To use this software with the new Blackmagic Studio Camera, the Blackmagic Studio Camera will also require a software update that will be available free of charge.

Product photos of the ATEM Camera Control, and all other Blackmagic Design products, are available at www.blackmagic-design.com/press/images

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