4 up / Quad SDI Router/switcher

[Matthew Dorris]

Hey All--

Looking for recommendations on a switcher/router for SDI signals. Would love to have 6-8 inputs, and be able to route out to 8-10 outputs, as well as have the functionality of a side by side or quad/four up out to one monitor.

Typically I get two log signals that I need to route through LUT boxes, back in to the switcher, and then out to director's and video village monitors. Would be nice to have dedicated outs for VV1, VV2, Director's A, and Director's B. Often the sound guys are pulling a feed off of my cart to for reference.

I'd also love to be able to, on my main monitor on cart, use the router to view log/rec side by side, and more importantly, view a previously recorded shot side by side or quad with the current image from the camera.

Thanks in advance, and hope this topic hasn't been answered a million times--I did some searching but couldn't find an answer.

-Matt

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

To piggyback on Matthew's post, I am in search of a solution that can feed a UHD monitor over HDMI2/DP1.3/3G-SDIx2 able to show 1080 x4 in quadrants. Would want support for multiple input types including SDI, HDMI, DVI-DL, DP 1.2 (1.3 even better!), SuperMHL, TB2.

BTW, I really hope the manufacturers realize that 10bit support is the minimum, and 12bit if they want my money.

FWIW, BMD's current ATEM h/w for UHD has some of the capabilities you want and, perhaps, they will have a new device at NAB that can hit all the marks…

Also suggest you see what Matrox and Laird might be introducing, BMD makes amazing gear but their engineering doesn't always keep up, particularly s/w drivers.

Cheers - #19

 

[Matthew Dorris]

Thanks Blair. Should be interesting to see what NAB yields. I was looking at the ATEM but it seems like it has one out and needs the computer interface for the Quad view. Would be nice to just have a master control panel, so I could punch the Cart monitor button and choose a source (Log, Log corrected with LUT, or Quad view), punch the Video Village button and choose their source, and punch 1-4 quad buttons and choose their sources.

 

[Jason Osterday]

Matthew consider a combination of these three items:

BMD Smarthub 12x12
AJA FS2
Decimator DMON 4S (or 6S if you need more than 4 cameras on screen)

This gives you a 12 in / 12 out router (Smarthub), a dual in / dual out up/down/cross converter (FS2) for sound or changing framerates etc, and a Quad box (DMON-4S). If you need something more affordable than the FS2 you can always go with BMD's down converters that are $300/ea but you'll need two of them. They only do simple HD to Analog as well but significantly cheaper than the FS2.

 

[Matthew Dorris]

Thanks Jason--that DMON 4S is a great solution--I'm going to investigate if they make an all SDI version.

I'm not 100% clear on the purpose of the FS2--is that in case I'm getting 4k and need to monitor 1080?

Thanks,
Matt

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

I think Jason is just assuming, rightly so in my world, that you will need various up/down/cross conversions on different shows. If you are supplying a soup-to-nuts rental package with all bases covered - good on ya' - then you might get by with it. FWIW, I am a firm believer in coming on set with as much flexibility as possible in my hardware configurations and have used the original AJA i/o HD (silver lunchbox ;-) on sets since the first month it shipped ('07 IIRC) to support multi-format interoperability.

From a cheapskate perspective (my usual angle , you could just order a DMON 4S first and see if you can get most of what you want with a much smaller footprint…

Cheers - #19

 

[Jason Osterday]

Decimator also makes the MD-Quad which is all SDI but 2-3X the price and does not support the SDI>HDMI options. I forgot the DMON outputs HDMI for its quad feed. You can easily convert that to SDI if needed to save vs the Quad SDI box that they make with a simple Atomos HDMI to SDI converter.

The FS series boxes are great jack of all trades for vid assist because they take (almost) anything in and spit nearly anything out besides BMD's own 6Gb and 12Gb variants. Very handy when you get a camera that is being fussy or you need to up/down convert a strange signal from something for a different department. As a DIT I don't always have it nearby but as vid assist it is always in my rack in some capacity.

If you want similar functionality you can go with the Decimator MD-HX which is a really great box for an incredible price point. It does up/down/cross as well as DA (1 in 4 out) conversions plus HDMI to SDI and vice versa. However it does not support any analog formats and is only good for one INPUT signal at a time. You could always grab a second box though for far less than the cost of an FS2 (which handles 2 in and multi format out.

 

[Matthew Dorris]

Thanks Jason and Blair.

Was also looking at the http://decimator.com/Products/MultiViewers/DMON-6S MultiViewer/DMON-6S.html which beats the price point of the Quad MD but seems to have the functionality I need, and two more inputs to boot. Might be overkill but cheaper than the quad that has SDI.