Production Switchers

We have a Vision switcher and we use VDCP to cue and roll clips on a Imagine Nexio for our newscasts. We have 2 channels on the Nexio ganged with fill+key video for our stingers - "Breaking News", "Live Now", etc. We are looking at upgrading to a Carbonite Black+.

Does anyone know how hard it is to get a Carbonite and Nexio talking to eachother? We have a few dozen custom controls on the Vision that cue specific stingers, roll them, and cut video underneath. We need the Carbonite to do the same and it would be a plus if we could use our existing video server.

Carbonite does not support VDCP. It supports AMP Protocol over IP but not sure that the Nexio supports this protocol.
#Carbonite

Do you have a list of video servers that support AMP? We would consider purchasing a new server to continue to have this functionality with the Carbonite.

I also saw some posts on this forum that talk about using Dashboard to control video servers. Could a custom control on the Carbonite tell Dashboard to send a VDCP command to cue a specific clip and roll it?
#Carbonite

Yes you could make a custom panel that does this -- Its not really that hard as you run a listener on the DashBoard that you would then assign GPI triggers in Buttons those would then send what ever you have configured as the commands. I don't know that we have had the opportunity to test this with Nexio. So not sure if the VDCP in DashBoard will work with Nexio. Also Dashboard is IP only so if your Nexio will only accept commands in VDCP over a Serial port then you would also need an IP-Serial converter like a MOXA or Comtrol Device master.

As for Video Servers that have AMP -- There are many many servers that have AMP. Now for just doing Clips and transitions in this manner you could look at the Abekas Tria 2 channel. That would allow you to have all of the wipes on it and run it as a Single Channel of Video+Alpha. It has a couple different options for Hours of Storage or you replace the SSD drives with larger drives at a later date / Swap the Drive based on show needs. However it's Hours of content so for Wipes and Animations pretty sure you would have plenty of storage.
#Carbonite

Thank you for your help Les!

Is the VDCP in DashBoard different from the VDCP in Acuity?
#Carbonite

That is a loaded question :) VDCP by "device" can be very different in the way it behaves. If you were using that VDCP with say a BlackStorm Video server then they would appear to be the same -- additionally if you tried it with an Abekas Tria or Mira it would also probably just work. With Vision and Acuity there are numerous drivers for each interface because it always required some tweaking in the way in which the device liked to interpret the VDCP commands.
#Carbonite