Internal vs External DMEs
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In the past, I've been fortunate to operate 8000s with 8 internal DMEs. The board I am on now is 1-4 internal / 5-8 external. Occasionally, I run into little quirks that I'm not used to with this setup.
I was trying to set up a vertical monitor feed in an M/E. The goal was to tie DME5 to Key 1 and DME6 to Key 2. The board won't allow me to assign more than one external DME to a single M/E without using the combiner through a single key bus.
Is there a reason for this that I'm missing, or is it a result of using the external frame? Since DME wipes (which we use for boxes) take up DMEs 1-4 on the internal, I'd like to build the "extra" stuff on the externals.
(I've edited this post in case anyone saw it beforehand.)
I've discovered the issue is that in SDI mode, the board is not allowing more than one DME path per M/E on the external frame. If I switch it over to "dedicated", I can regain the second path. However, this board was wired up where the external DMEs are fed only through AUX busses, and I lose video when I change the type. I would have to seriously patch around that to get video back into the DMEs.
Thanks for the help, Bob!
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The hardware on the switcher normally restricts you to 2 DME paths out of a single M/E (unless you use the combiner)...so if you are using any internal DME's on that same M/E (such as for transitions), you will only get one more path - regardless of whether that new path is to an external or internal DME.
If your external DME's are set up as SDI, then you can bypass the keyer buses and use AUX bus feeds instead - thus you will not be tying up M/E paths to these other channels.
Menu page 7337.6 is where you assign the external DME type. It also lets you get around the 2-DME-per-M/E limit and use up to 3 external SDI DME channels per M/E. 7337.7 is where you can assign AUX buses to the external DME channels so that recalling sources is stored as part of the DME effect instead of the M/E effect.
Bob Ennis