Church Streaming Lower Thirds Solution | ProPresenter 7 | ATEM TV Studio | Wirecast | NDI

UPDATE (7/6/20): I purchased a Blackmagic DeckLink Duo 2 PCIe card housed in a Sonnet Echo Express SE I chassis. I send 2 of my 4 available SDI ports on the DeckLink to the ATEM and am able to send a "key" and "fill" signals to the switcher which allows me to send perfectly transparent lower thirds content as well as full screen content at my discretion using the DSK in the ATEM. This is accomplished by making thorough use out of the "Looks" feature in PP7. Here's my more recent video detailing our new rig:

Feel free to reach out personally if you have questions.

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Alright my tech people, I've got a solution and a question for y'all.

Quick gear list: iMac 27" Retina 5k 2017 | ProPresenter 7 | Blackmagic ATEM TV Studio HD Switcher | NDI Output | Wirecast Pro | AJA T-Tap | Decimator MD-HX

Big goals:
1) Have my primary ProPresenter 7 computer handle nearly all of the media and lyrics for both FOH and streaming.
2) Accomplish this by only using using 1 or 2 HDMI inputs on the switcher. Only one would be amazing, 2 is acceptable, 3 stinks.

I'm currently able to send a master output from ProPresenter 7 to the ATEM so that media shown in the Auditorium can also be shown online.

My second available screen connected to the Mac is my stage display.

I'm sending a third output via NDI for the lower third lyrics. These are formatted with a theme that is only applied to that NDI output so whenever the media tech fires the lyric slides as they normally would during a service, a secondary lower third format gets sent via NDI (many other videos exist on how to do this).

From there, the NDI goes to another computer on our network running Wirecast Pro which receives the NDI and then puts it back OUT via an AJA T-TAP Thunderbolt to HDMI/SDI converter.

I feed this signal into the switcher for my lower thirds input. As of right now, this is the ONLY thing that I will use Wirecast for...so it's taking up a whole computer and expensive software to do a relatively simple task. New solution needed!

From there, I assign this input to the Downstream Key (DSK1) in the ATEM and set the fill and key source to that input. This uses a luma key which takes the black background and makes it transparent, effectively separating my lyrics and I'm able to keep the lyrics on top of the videos switching in the background.

I do the same thing for other media images I want to display ONLY for the stream and not in the Auditorium using the media pool connected to DSK2.

Question:
Would a Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor work with ProPresenter as a third output? If so, I'd need to free up one of my two Thunderbolt 3 outputs. So I'd maybe have to buy something like the CalDigit Thunderbolt 3 Mini Dock so send both of my HDMI outs to the front and back screens. Would my computer be able to handle this third output?

Or should I simply buy an NDI to HDMI converter and call it good?

Or is there another solution I'm not thinking of?

[StephenBuck]

Devan, thanks for the video. We started using the Alpha output via NDI from PP7 to our OBS streaming computer. I simply created two scenes in OBS: one with the NDI from PP7 and the output from our ATEM via an UltraStudio HD and one with just the UltaStudio HD input. When I wanted the lower thirds, I would just switch to the scene in OBS with the NDI and it works great. The only issue is it adds some complexity for the tech team.

We then went straight into the ATEM via an additional HDMI output from PP7 using a transparent background. This kind of works, but using this method squashed our drop shadow and outline since the ATEM could only do a luma key with this HDMI input. We then switched to a green background and used a chroma key on the AETM and this worked better than the Luma key, however, it wasn't perfect and still required some tweaking to look good. We also could not have any lower third graphics that any green in them.

After watching this, we are going the Decklink Duo 2 route and just eat up two SDI inputs on our ATEM. This will give us the cleanest look and make it easier for the tech team to operate.

As mentioned, if Blackmagic would add support for NDI on the ATEM, then that could be another easy way to do this without having to purchase the Decklink card while keeping it clean and easy for the tech team to run.

[timothygee]

Thanks, Devan! I really appreciate these tutorials!

[wysland]

Finally, my last suggestion would be to ask Black Magic Design to support NDI in the Software ATEM. I know Newtek is a competitor, but NDI has so much industry support it would make their products so much better.

[wysland]

Alternatively, you could buy an NDI to HDMI/SDI converter (Basically a stand-alone box that would receive the NDI signal from PP) and connect that box directly into the ATEM and do a luminance key just like you're doing now. The beauty of using an alpha key versus a luminance key is that you can add outlines or shadows to the PP lower third template and those would come across via NDI and would make your lower thirds more readable at all times.

[rick-angiemcgill]

How many display outputs do you have on your iMac not including your NDI out? if you can add a HDMI port maybe with a Thunderbolt 3 to dual HDMI adapter if your iMac will support an additional display port. If so you can go from your ProPresenter computer to the Blackmagic ATEM via the HDMI to SDI converter. Good luck

[MaceJams]

My current project was a muti-venue + stream venue for our church service. Our main sanctuary is exclusive look to our livestream AND our other venues as well. What I did was utilize OBS Studio, OBS Ninja, Display Capture (which im %1000 looking into the looks thing and maybe just taking an NDI out from the same rig. not sure if you can do NDI through the same computer or if you would get the crazy raindbow throwup ahha) and utilizing monitors. I have an HDM Splitter than runs our stage display that also is running our livestream lyrics. It's high up so it works out well. in OBS you can Color Key ANY Color. Black is easiest and what I use but we could technically do any color with white text. I say this, because i actually like a faint rounded gray box within the text. it really makes the lyrics stand out for older folks and looks nice IMO.

All to say, your setup totally works. but i would 1 look into OBS (which does take NDI as well) and OBS NInja which is an open source browser that has like a milisecond delay. If you launch that tell it to share your screen of whatever you want, and then take that broswer source you will be able to show full screen previews lyrics and whatever you want without having to do tons of switchers.

my challenge was training on all of this! It would be fun to chat about this if youd want! Connect with me :)

[renod]

You can use the media and slide layers to route different videos to live and broadcast.

[TimothyFish]

We are using a PC for ProPresenter, so we don't have the three display limit that Mac has. But our streaming machine is a Mac, so I use the two HDMI output to feed the linear key on the ATEM. I use OBS to grab the NDI from ProPresenter and feed those ports. That also provides a way to send video that isn't in ProPresenter.

[joshuasapulich]

I noticed that you ended up purchasing a deck link. But I think you could of gotten away with one HDMI feed using the BM Luma Key.

Your Lower thirds is pretty self explanatory with the DSK. Then to send a full graphic to the stream, you would set ProPresenter to change the look for the media slide to send full screen to the BM switcher. (Add an action to the media slide that allows the “Media” layer to be visible on that feed.) On the switcher, you would just need to switch to the ProPresenter HDMI feed (you wouldn’t even need to turn off the DSK)

[rrmg]

Yes... Not sure if you already purchased but blackmagic design ultrastudio 4k mini does work

[wysland]

When you create your NDI screen in PP you can turn on the alpha key then key the NDI over the ATEM video inside Wirecast. That's the set up I run, but instead of Wirecast, I'm using OBS Studio.

[smukie]

I want to add what you are trying to do as well, I have wanted this for a while now. Our current solution is to use the wipe function over the dve keys. We use a box to have the lyrics over video.

[devanbumstead]

Hey guys, thanks for the ideas. But everything you’ve suggested I also suggested in the video and/or comments section. I’m exploring alternate options if there are any.

That being said, my PP to NDI to Wirecast to ATEM (Luna key) did work well, it’s just overkill.

[ixcancel]

Great video Devan. We manage to do it. Thanks. God Bless You.

[Rhemani]

Currently we are using a Matrox TripleHead2Go. Pro7 goes into triplehead making a 3840 x 1920 screen. In the screen settings on Pro, the main screen will take the first half, and the second screen will take the second half, making each screen 1920 x 1080. Two outputs come from the triple head. One goes to main screen, the other goes to the atem switcher for lower thirds.

[callmekev]

Hey Devan,
Were you not able to overlay your lower thirds layer in wire cast? In the setup I just created my workflow is a lower thirds layer being sent NDI from PP7 to OBS. I have the alpha key enabled on the NDI screen output. In OBS I just turn on the NDI input from PP7.
Your output from wire cast, to the ATEM, then back to wire cast seemed makes sense if couldn't overlay in wire cast.
I know this was before you had your decklink, just curious about your choice of work flow at the time. I'm poking around to see if there are better ways to do what I'm doing.

[bennikln]

How you create a Stage Theme with the Chords ?

[joeriley]

@Devan Bumstead - I see you mentioned switching to the “Alpha Key” so it sends a key and fill signal to your ATEM. Would like to see an updated video if you have time. I am trying to set it up now and can’t seem to get it working. You mentioned something about the looks, what did you have to change? Did you have to do anything different with your images? I can see the key and fill but they don’t display properly on the program view. Videos don’t get shown correctly.

[mjohnson]

So how do you do the lower thirds for the worship songs but also stream the videos that you may play like our announcement videos to the live stream as well after worship? We are going to be getting a Blackmagic ATEM TV Studio HD Switcher just like what you have. We currently have a PC running ProPresenter 6 but may upgrade it to ProPresenter 7 once we get all our equipment in for Live Stream.

[vladislavhusnutdinov]

Hi. How did you do words and chords for musicians and words for audience at the same time? Does that words for stage and audience changes together?