Live Switching with A1s and SD Projectors

[Aaron J. Yates]

I've been hired to film a high school graduation this month. We'll be using two XH-A1s for the recording and simultaneous broadcast of the cameras to two projectors located in the stadium. We'll be using a Datavideo SE-800 live switcher being fed by BNC cables from the A1s.

We would like to film the program in high definition, but I don't know if the switcher itself can handle the HD signal, then export it to the two SD projectors. Does anyone have any experience with this sort of setup?

Thanks.

[Brian Ford]

I dont think the datavideo will handle HD... but you should be able to have the camera set to record in 1080i to tape and have it feed a down-converted SD signal out the component outputs which you could use to feed the video switcher.

what you might run into though is a couple frame delay between the live audio and the video which appears on the screens..

[Melqui Rodriguez]

Aaron -
we use 3 HX-A1's for live switching, but we use a lower end mixer than yours (a Roland V8) but usually If I want a line cut of the live event I use an upscaler to go from s-video to component is is OK, but not GREAT. But the best workflow that I have found is to broacast live, and tape the event to later edit and put out as DVD or what ever final delivery format is required.

Ohh, and yes you can record at 60i/fps and still send a bnc signal to your mixer. The delay will not be bad, but you will still be able to notice it.

[David Stembridge]

Hi Melqui, can you detail a little more the settings you use? We have been using SD cameras (XL1s) and have upgraded to XHA1s cams. Our switcher is SD; but has only svideo and RCA inputs/outputs. At first I was thinking I could just use an adaptor to run the SD signal out of the BNC connectors; but it looks a little more sophisticated than that. I have been running into my MBP using a analog to digital converter - out of my SD switcher.

Originally Posted by Melqui Rodriguez

...we use 3 HX-A1's for live switching, but we use a lower end mixer than yours (a Roland V8) but usually If I want a line cut of the live event I use an upscaler to go from s-video to component is is OK, but not GREAT. But the best workflow that I have found is to broacast live, and tape the event to later edit and put out as DVD or what ever final delivery format is required.