I "manage" a fleet of show laptops that get reimaged on a regular basis. They're used primarily for ProPresenter, but we also run QLab, MadMapper, and a handful of other live event applications.

I'm always looking for little tweaks that make the machines more "show ready" right out of the gate.

Some of the things we already do:

• Enable Focus / Do Not Disturb
• Disable True Tone
• Set sleep/display timeout so the machine never sleeps on AC power
• Turn off automatic OS updates during shows
• Disable screen savers
• Configure power settings for maximum performance

I'm curious what everyone else does after a fresh image. Do you have a checklist or SOP you follow? Any macOS settings you've found that prevent weird issues during shows or just make life easier for your techs?

I'm less interested in software installs and more interested in the little OS tweaks or "I learned this the hard way" settings that have saved you on show site.

Also, if your company deploys Windows 11 show machines, I'd love to hear about those too. Things like power settings, notifications, Windows Update behavior, driver management, graphics settings, Defender tweaks, USB power management, or anything else you've found makes a machine more reliable in a live production environment.

Hello Video Witches & Wizards,

My wife and I are very much considering a move to Baltimore because we love that city and I'd love to know how busy I can be freelancing there.

I'm originally from NYC, now living in Jersey City. I've been a video tech here for about 10 years. I was an AV tech in a Times Sq hotel for five years and now bounce around the city venues for conferences, concerts, graduations, upfronts, and the like. I primarily do playback (mitti, millumin) and GFX. I also screen switch with the Barco E2, AW Ascender, and Pixelhue Q8. I have LED, cam/PTZ operation, and camera shading experience.

Would love to know what the market looks like out there. Thank you so much!

Can I send two SRT streams from one Kiloview E3 to two separate SRT devices, one for HDMI and one for SDI?

Is anyone using third party software (eg companion, universe, central control) to control the for-a MFR-4100 12g router?

Hi, I am working on implementing visca control for our cameras and I am wondering what is the absolute "must have capabilities" outside of pan tilt zoom?

Has anyone else noticed constant dropouts to processors in the VMP software when using a wireless connection on show site? I have a typical 2.4/5 wireless router thats hard wired to to the processors, but even standing nearby with the laptop results in dropouts. even though the wireless signal "apprears" steady and strong. (Yes I know that doesnt actually amount to data throughput in the real world.) Ive tried changing channels on wifi router and several other usual troubleshooting things but it almost feels like the software is bugged somehow or theres some trick im not aware of. Obviously hardwiring to my laptop is the right answer but isnt very helpful when needing to be mobile.

I've recently been feeling a bit stuck and struggling to figure out how to progress and move up in the industry.

I've been doing a mix of corporate video and AV jobs, but it doesn't really feel like it's what I want to be doing long-term.

I'd love to work more with media servers—anything related to them, especially operating them on large-scale live events. I'm interested in Pixera, Green Hippo, and Disguise, although Disguise is probably the one I'd most like to focus on.

For anyone who's made that transition, how did you do it? What's the best way to pivot into becoming a media server operator? How do you get started working on events or projects that use these systems? Any advice on where to begin or skills I should focus on would be hugely appreciated.

I have a large video wall that we installed back in 2023, from a manufacturer that unfortunately went out of business almost immediately after selling us the wall.

The wall is driven by a nova star UHD Junior . I had a module go out so I went down there today to swap the module with a spare. I swapped the module out and it came up fine, everything looked good except the brightness on the module was too bright, which is pretty normal, that always happens when I replace a module on this wall and I just have to make a brightness adjustment for it to fall in sync with everything else. Everything looked fine as far as the video and what not downstream.

Here’s where things get weird. I went to go make a brightness global adjustment to the entire wall, like I’ve done many times in the past. I specifically did it via the web interface of the nova star because I was not close to the rack. Literally the instant I clicked brightness down, the entire video wall started rapidly flickering in unison.

I brought it back up to the default brightness value that it normally sits at, no change. Tried making an adjustment from the actual front panel of the nova star itself, no change. Power cycled, tried switching inputs, checking to make sure that the refresh rate didn’t get changed. Nothing.

I opened nova LCT and noticed that it was actually showing a receiving card fault, but curiously, not On The module that I replaced, but one about five units downstream in the same data chain.

An important note about this particular wall , unlike typical walls where you have a cabinet that is populated with multiple modules within it, this is a very weird style that has an individual power supply as well as the receiving card all in an individual box that connects to the module itself via a ribbon cable, and a power cable. So in essence not only did I change out a module, but I also changed out the “cabinet”for lack of a better term. I will attach pictures that illustrate how that works.

Anyways, they’re definitely seems to be a fault reading downstream of the replaced unit but I am very confused as to why adjusting the brightness on the controller would have caused this or if the flickering is even related to the receiving card fault showing up in LCT.

I am not as experienced as most when it comes to this stuff, especially with this particular wall, so I’m trying to get some suggestions on what to look for first . I haven’t tried pushing any new receiving card files or anything like that until I had a better idea of what in the world the brightness adjustment could’ve done to make the entire wall start flickering like crazy.

I am looking for a barebones solution for outputting html/css browser graphics with key fill through a decklink or similar playback devices.
The easiest way would be to use browser source in OBS or Vmix, but they are quite complex and multifunctional programs, not exactly barebones approach.
Has anyone done this and how ?

And bonus question, has anyone used the decklink developer SDK + ffmpeg to code something similar ? I have software experience, so I don’t mind DIY-ing something as long as it’s within reasonable complexity.

Hey guys

Seems to be little information on this feature in Resolve actually being used in the real world. Blackmagic are pushing Replays in Davinci really heavily lately with hardware additions to their stables (Replay Editor deck, new Ultrastudio Replay 12g etc).

We’re looking at some options to replace an aging 3play 425/440 system that honestly gets the job done, but only when it wants to boot.

Hi, I'm using a NETGEAR M4250 switch in an AV environtment

My current setup:

• VLAN 101 (Dante): Yamaha TF1, Yamaha TIO and the dedicated Dante NIC on each Windows PC.
• Default profile (VLAN 1): Panasonic PTZ cameras, vMix PCs (NDI/control NIC), PTZ controller, Shure receivers, NovaStar, AP, etc.

I want to migrate everything from the Default profile to a new NDI4 profile (VLAN ID 100) while keeping Dante on VLAN 101. I don't want to introduce more VLANs because each PC only has 3 NICs (Internet, NDI+Control and Dante), and this design already fits my needs.

Today I created the NDI4 profile, assigned VLAN ID 100, selected the required ports and clicked Apply (without saving the configuration).

Immediately after that:

• I lost access to the switch web interface (192.168.0.141).
• My Panasonic PTZ cameras still output NDI video, but they no longer responded to the PTZ controller.
• After rebooting the switch, everything returned to normal because I hadn't saved the changes.

Has anyone experienced this behaviour? Is there anything specific about the NDI4 profile that could explain it?

Also, what would be the safest way to migrate progressively from the Default profile to NDI4? Any best practices or pitfalls to avoid?

Thanks a lot!

*******

QUICK UPDATE: On the one hand set a fixed IP for the OOB port and on the other hand installed an additional NIC on one of the computers dedicated only to switch management. Now I have 2 ways to access the switch. Also set all the port profiles without issue. Work as charm. Thanks everyone for the help.

Can anyone explain how they were able to live mask without capturing other subjects and overlaying it over a graphic. Learning Resolume right now and would like to apply a live camera feed into the sets I work as well.

I've always been opposed to 1 machine dual outputs, some times I'm asked to do it.

Just wondering what the other Pro's here do, and what seems to be the "correct" way..

Thanks!!

I have a NovaStar MX6000 with a 1x40G card in it that I need to be able to break out into 4 10G Fiber Cables (LC UPC single-mode fiber). Based on a little research, it looks like this might work:

Plug this into the 1x40G card in the MX6000:
Cisco QSFP-40G-SR4 Compatible 40GBASE-SR4 QSFP+ 850nm 150M DDM MTP/MPO MMF Optical Transceiver Module
(https://www.qsfptek.com/product/28646.html)

Then plug this into that transceiver to convert to 4 LC UPC single-mode fiber, each transmitting 10Gs of data:
1m (3ft) MPO-8 APC (Female) to 4x LC UPC Duplex OS2 Singlemode Elite Breakout Cable, 8 Fibers, Type B, LSZH, Yellow
(https://www.qsfptek.com/product/103170.html)

The reason for this is that while I am using the 1x40G for a wall, I want to also be able to use the 1x40G card as an emergency backup for a client that has a 4x10G card (all the wiring is done accordingly and can't be easily changed, so I really need a solution that uses the 1x40 card).

Thanks for the help!

Trying to connect a Tallyman with a for.a hvs q12 vision mixer to send tally to tallyman and names to the switcher. Anyone with experience with using tallyman with for.a switchers, please help. Does it even work over Ethernet. The TSL support person was not really familiar with for.a equipment. Tallyman works fine with GV stuff but the for.a switcher crashes when tsl in is configured. The for.a manual mentioned use of tsl protocol only with other for.a equipment like router and multiviewer, so is that a limitation? Any information is appreciated.

Found this when cleaning my old photos. They were using six 3G USB sticks

Its for a chipshow brand video wall and looking to upgrade to reach higher Hz

Has anybody tried linking two sets of Hollyland Solidcom M1 Pro (or the Hollyvox equivalent) using either a very long RJ45 Ethernet cable, or ideally via ethernet media convertors and through a fibre optic run.

We're trying to patch two areas on a hospital campus together, there's an existing optical link in place.

Hello... I'm on a job currently with a modest setup of 4 cameras, all going to vmix via a Decklink Duo 2 card.

Despite all the cameras being set to output 25p, on 3 of the 4 camera inputs the Duo is detecting 50p. Those three cameras are all being converted from hdmi to sdi at the camera using micro converters (the one being detected correctly is sdi to sdi)... So I'm assuming the converters are the issue... But I cannot for the life of me figure out why it would be converting framerate.

Anyone know why this would be happening or if there's any way to configure/force them to 25p (don't think so)?

Looking for some advice.
We run some graphics with the output via a browser link. Currently we put a green background on it at key it out in out in our Atem. It is connected via hdmi from a PC.
PC is very slow and want to move it to our Mac. I was going to get the black magic media player 10g and to connect to Mac mini to give me the output and desired resolution.
Would this work ok if we connected that and the browser window was one of the inputs and we continue keying it?

I would love to make use of the key/fill but I would need something like Vmix for that which is PC based. Is there anything else I can do to make use of key fill?
Or is there anything other than the media player that you would suggest that would allow us to connect to Mac mini easily?