Production Switchers

Does anyone know how the switcher allocates DVE resources once you hit the limit (8)? I was recently on a show (with a Black Plus 12G, v12 software) and pushing the limits of the DVE's, but didn't have time to figure out exactly how/where it decides to steal resources from. A quick observation seamed to be that it prioritized ME's over miniME's, but I don't know if that's the default or it was purely order of operation.

As far as I can tell there isn't a way to set a priority, except (as expected) it will prioritize anything that is flagged as on-air (which helped me immeasurably). I didn't push it far enough to find out what happens when you try to use more than 8 DVE's all being tallied as on-air, however.

I know the Vision series (and I think the Acuity) will warn you if you try to recall a memory or activate a DVE resource when there isn't any left and you can choose what to do. I also know the Carbonite is not in the same family/level of switchers, but it would be nice to know at least how it's choosing to allocate. Apologies if this is buried somewhere in the manual and I missed it; I scanned through it but didn't see anything.

Hi Garrett

The DVE Allocation does respect the Order of ME followed by MiniME.  So yes if you try to setup an effect it will allocate from a MiniME first then go looking to MEs.  Also Highest to lowest followed for priority first as well.

In All Cases you will not steal from an ON AIR resource....unless that is what you are effecting -- IE on ME 1 you go from a 2 Box to a 3 Box Memory and the Memory is set to PGM or EFF Dissolve then it will use the same DVEs to perform the effect.

Also there is no way for the system to go beyond 8 DVE....IE say you have ME 1 with a 4 Box and MiniME 3 with a 2 BOX and both of these are "ON AIR" (thinking 3 ME switcher here) then you go to ME 2 to recall a 3 Box...It will recall 2 of the 3 Boxes and drop that third Key.  Thus it makes best effort to recall as much as possible.  Now you would have the ability to figure out how to get ME 1 or the MiniME off air so that you would be able to press the recall again on ME 2 for it to get the resources required.....In All Cases this going to work by never "breaking" ON AIR.

Also in DashBoard there is a Status Menu.  It has the DVE allocation on it so you can see where they are all being used.