SRTVMIX produces Smart City Expo streaming with Blackmagic

Черная магия solutions were key to the SRTVMIX ability to remotely produce the Smart City Expo 2021 conference live.

The company produced and streamed the talks with various Chinese cities using a workflow built around an Созвездие АТЕМ 8K mixer, an ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panel device, a HyperDeck Studio 4K Pro recorder and several Teranex Mini converters. These rounds of dialogue allowed the SCEWC to share practices from different locations on smart city management and development through the new digital congress programme.

The Smart City Expo convention, held in Barcelona since 2011, is the leading international event on cities and aims to strengthen cities and disseminate developments in urban innovation worldwide. In addition to the congress held in Barcelona, the organisers of the event have promoted a digital version that includes interviews with experts and leaders in the sector from different cities. For this purpose, the fair organisers decided to set up a studio in the main venue of SCEWC 2021, where the presenter would chat with the interviewees and other speakers in person or via the Internet.

SRTVMIX was responsible for processing the signals from the studio in Barcelona and the speakers located in the Chinese cities. Hu Jiazhang, technical director of the production company, elaborates: “There were 18 video feeds for us to mix including 16 feeds from the Chinese cities and two feeds from Barcelona. Also, because the host in Barcelona spoke English and the speakers in China spoke Mandarin, there was simultaneous interpreting going on. Apart from mixing the video and audio feeds, we also needed to take care of graphics work and the project had to run flawlessly for two days. We chose the ATEM Constellation 8K for its loads of video and audio connections and powerful graphics features as well as reliability.”

Созвездие АТЕМ 8K

The Blackmagic ATEM mixer was the key tool in ensuring the success of the event. Hu points to the 40 12G SDI inputs on the unit, which meant there was no need to worry about the number of signals being received. The technician also stresses that “the built-in standards converter on each input dramatically minimalized the complexity of our system and saved both the cost of external standards converters and time spent on tests.”

Furthermore, the ATEM Constellation 8K’s MADI connections minimised complexity and cost, eliminating the need for external equipment to integrate or isolate audio. “For audio, all we needed to do was get the 18 SDI feeds directly into the ATEM Constellation 8K and connect the MADI out on the switcher to the MADI in on the audio mixer, instead of installing an audio de-embedder for each of the 18 connections,” recalls Hu.

SRTVMIX also took advantage of the ATEM Constellation 8K’s two SuperSource channels: “When a speaker was doing the presentation, we needed to cut between two layouts, with one where the sizes of the speaker box and the presentation slides box were the same and the other layout where the sizes of the boxes were different. We customized the two layouts in the ATEM Software Control ahead of time and assigned them to specific buttons on the ATEM Advanced Control Panel, so we could get the two layouts quickly with just a press of a button. We could have done this with macros too, but with SuperSource the possibility of making mistakes was minimal even when things got hectic, and we were able to add more visual elements to the image so it looked more appealing.”

HyperDeck and DeckLink

SRTVMIX also used a HyperDeck Studio 4K Pro device to record the master copy: “I ordered this recorder as soon as it was available because now more and more clients are asking us to deliver 4K projects in H.265, since it offers high resolution in small sizes. Another feature I like is the built-in speaker and a monitoring jack. However, as a technical director, the headset I wear is mostly for me to talk to camera operators, and in noisy environments, I often use the Blackmagic Audio Monitor 12G for monitoring.”

Another focus of the Smart City Expo production was the implementation of a workstation with three DeckLink 8K Pro capture and playback cards and a streaming software, which is used for low-budget projects or for character generation purposes when using ATEM mixers.

“I got to know Blackmagic Design when I entered the TVC production field where DeckLink cards were really popular. DeckLink’s great functionalities, reliability and affordability have all been inherited by other Blackmagic products, allowing us to better serve our clients with our own advanced live production workflows,” concludes Hu, highlighting the versatility of the Blackmagic solutions.