Tricaster Mini SDI Audio Out Master/Aux settings

[rantala.vesa]

Hi, I'm writing here just to get verification and clarification to this.. problem.

We have 2x Mini SDI. First is about two years old. Second under year.

From the 1st I can route Mix3 audio to Aux1, and the physical audio output plays that aux1.
From the 2nd no matter how I try to route the audio, only master comes out of the cables.

Both machines have identical physical connections.

Is this something Newtek has changed software-side in these past years or am I missing something?

[SBowie]

At one time it was possible to route any audio source to any analog output. Sadly, this level of flexibility confused some number of customers. In particular, some ran into issues when someone changed the software configuration and they no longer got what they were expecting on the secondary analog output. Eventually, the decision was made to comply with repeated requests to make the analog output assignments static, and all later software versions enforce this.

[rantala.vesa]

So basically Newtek gave in to amateurs and shunned professionals. :/

I wonder if there is a way to install older version of the software to get all the pro-features back?

[kanep]

You can still do what you want, just route audio accordingly. All audio mixes have all capacities, the difference between Master and AUX is just a name.

Master will always be the analog output, so assign channels as needed to that.

The two SDI outputs can be assigned any mix, so make them AUX1/AUX2 and assign audio routes as required.

You can also create multiple audio mixer configuration (up to 9 using the fly out menu on the left side), if you need audio routes changed through show, you can use these to adjusts all aspects of the audio mixer setup.

[rantala.vesa]

My setup needs to have independent outputs as:

SDI1 = PGM + Master audio
SDI2 = Me4 + Aux1 audio
Audio out = Aux2 audio

So if Audio out is always master, then that connection is useless to me.

[kanep]

The mixes are just names, they have no bearing on what audio you can put in them. You can reorganize the outputs like this to get exactly what is needed. Just reconfigure Master and AUX2 mapping the reverse of what they currently are.

SDI1 = PGM video + AUX2 audio
SDI2 = ME4 video + AUX1 audio
Audio output = Master audio

Three outputs of audio, all will different audio mixes. In fact, this leaves MIX3 available to be independent as an NDI output with it's audio mix. Previously it was tied to the analog output, which was a limitation in some cases. Now I can setup all four MIX output exactly as I want, and not have to worry about it effecting the analog output. Personally, I prefer this method, I like the independent output of the analog audio, versus having to share it with MIX3.

[rantala.vesa]

Interesting. I think this will do as a workaround untill we remodel our setup entirely next year.

This goes off topic but..
All this hassle is to do with us having to get Teams-meetings in and out of streams.
Mostly we use customers accounts so it's been easier to get a laptop, login and go to the meeting, get that signal into sdi input and route the audio and video into the physical location + route the video and audio from the physical location back to the laptop using external gear that tricks the laptop to think that sdi-feed is a webcam with mic.
I know tricaster has something built in we might be able to use, and ndi should allow us to do this too somehow, but we've had no time to look into this after the covid made all our customers to demand teams-integration into their livestreams.

[SBowie]

At the simplest level, on any TriCaster with NDI support all you need to do to insert Teams into your program is join the meeting on a laptop, maximize the window, run Scan Converter on that system, and select the meeting window's NDI output as an input on TriCaster.

[rantala.vesa]

Quickly back to topic:

If i record (encode to h264) doesn't that always take master audio? Or am I able to choose that one too?

[SBowie]

Software versions vary, but in most if not all current products you can select which audio mix to capture with either of the encoders in the Output Configuration panel.