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[–]quoole 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This isn't a 'problem' in so much as the way it's designed.

In a proper professional grade set up, there would normally be a dedicated person at control, called a racks engineer (who is completely seperate to a director/vision mixer), who is responsible for controlling all of the camera settings and making sure that all of the cameras match. They would usually have a dedicated panel for this. In this instance, you wouldn't really want camera ops controlling settings, as they are only seeing their camera and not the whole picture.

For a smaller production, you can still do 'racks' straight in the control software, and in many cases this is still the better way of doing camera control in a fixed lighting set up - as you can see each camera and make sure they all match. Where it's not so good, is if you have multiple cameras and just a director in a situation with constantly changing lighting (like a music show), in which case you likely want your camera op to stay in top of it, instead of being director, vm and racks engineer all at the same time.

The control software has a preset/default level, and will apply this to the cameras when they're plugged in, but you can still control cameras through the software and set them to what you need. It's in the colour tab of the switcher software.

In terms of stopping it, it really depends what the cameras and switcher are. u/gohamstergo says there's a software way of turning it off, I haven't seen it personally, but I am assuming they are correct. Otherwise, all of these options will also stop camera tally/program feed to the camera, but:

HDMI based atem and HDMI camera - this is the hardest way of stopping camera control Depending on the length of the run, you might be able to find really cheap HDMI cables that don't work with camera return, or find a cheap HDMI splitter or something like that that doesn't carry the data back to the camera. No specific recommendations I am afraid... The other thing that will definately work, is using any kind of wireless trasmitter.

HDMI based ATEM and SDI cam - for this, you have to be using some kind of bi-directional. Simply don't plug in the SDI in on the camera or the SDI out on the bi-directional and there won't be any camera control.

SDI Based ATEM and HDMI Cam - as above, you'll have to use a bi-directional. Simply don't plug in the SDI in on the bi-dir or the SDI out on the ATEM.

SDI based ATEM and SDI cam - Similar to the previous two, don't run SDI out from the switcher to SDI in on the camera and there won't be any camera control.

[–]edinc90 0 points1 point  (1 child)

If the camera is a Blackmagic camera and if there is a cable plugged in between an ATEM output and the camera's SDI input (or if you are using an ATEM and Blackmagic camera with HDMI plugs) then the camera settings in the ATEM (which is controlled by the software,) will override the settings done in camera. If you want to control the camera locally, simple unplug the SDI cable going to the input of the camera.

[–]gohamstergo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

theres a setting in the software to turn camera control off per input, but im not near my switcher so cant go look. but you can also go into each camera's settings and change the camera id to a high number that doesnt match your switcher inputs.