Hi all,
I hope that some of you can assist me on finding the best solution for my urgent problem.

I have been using the vMix platform for controlling gigant screen during big horse shows in denmark for the last couple of years. It is working perfectly and by using XAML template and some http programming from our score system, we are able to automatically turn overlays on and off, and update rider/horse names and their scores.

Next weekend I am going to do it all again - but this time I have to give the scoring overlay to our national television for live transmission. I have stated that I can bring a chroma-keyed signal on SDI, but this is not good enough - they insist on getting it as a classic FILL and KEY signal.

What can I do...?

Shall I find another CG that can do the job instead (i use BD cards) ?
It is a must that the scoring can be updated by code/programming...

Right now I feel a bit lost... an option could be renting a tricaster/livetext but I still believe that there MUST be better and easier alternatives out there.

I truly look forward to hear from anyone who has been in the same situation and solved the challenge.


Best regards and an enjoyable weekend to you all

/Ulrik

Ha! Serendipity rules :)

Yesterday I was helping a customer with a problem, which made me ask almost the same question. And I know practially nothing about alpha and key+fill.

This customer have studio with a Sony BSR 200 hardware switcher, and a standalone Mac for titles and video inserts. Up until now they have used it only to record, adding titles in post process, and publish for VOD. The mission is to enable them to stream live and simplify titling and video inserts.

The Mac has a BMD Decklink Studio 2 card. Unfortunately we could not test with vMix, because they don't want to install Bootcamp. Instead we used Final Cut Pro to play png files with transparent background and video (.mov with alpha) and output to the Decklink card. We used one single SDI cable from the Decklink card to one of the camera inputs in the Sony switcher. Then we were able to overlay what came from the Mac using the switchers DSK (Down Stream Key) in "Split mode" (not chroma or luma).

So here comes my question. If vMix External is set to the Decklink card, will it output the alpha information in the same way as Final Cut does? So if one choose for example an Input with transparent png set to Overlay2 and include only Overlay2 on the External ouput, will it key nicely on the switcher?

Side question: Am I right in that HDMI does not support alpha this way? (For example using a Decklink Intensity Pro for External output).

EDIT: Now that I think of it "Split" key in the Sony switcher probably means that black becomes transparant. Which would mean that I got it wrong. But please enlight me on whatever you know...