Connectivity

Hi, 

certainly a basic question but I never tried this… 

I have an FR5 with ultriscapes  and SDPE blade in Acuity mode… (no Ultricore BCS)

I was wondering if I would be able to use the GPIO sub D connector of one of the sdpe blades to connect external GPI (contact closure) and so trigger tally's indicator on to ultriscape in parallel with the Tally's of the Acuity. 

basically I would like to light up a specific « tally box » on an ultriscape when a 3rd party gpi is triggered. And of course I want to keep the Tally configuration of Ultrix Acuity consistent. 

if not possible using SDPE GPI/O connector what could be the solution?

thanks for your help !

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Boris salhaji
EIC
France Télévisions
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UP 

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Boris salhaji
EIC
France Télévisions
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Hello Boris,

The Ultriscape UMD's use TSL protocol based messages to send tally state to a UMD object.

I do not  know of a way to send TSL based messages from an Acuity SDPE based on a GPI input triggers.

You could create a custom control on the switcher that would send a RossTalk label message to the Ultriscape based on a GPI- this requires a separate UMD (label) object and the custom control would have to send different colour codes for GPI on and GPI off

These RossTalk UMD labels are independent of video source.and do not use the TSL messaging

The RossTalk label format looks like this:

TXTLABEL ID:501; TEXT:CAM1; BGCLR:0xFF,0x00,0x00; TXTCLR:0xFF,0xFF,0xFF

This will generate a RED background with white text

In the layout editor create a "remote" UMD label and specify the same ID used in your RossTalk expression - here I used 501

This is not ideal, since you simply want a GPI (to SDPE) to also trigger a tally for a given source 

The challenge is that the Acuity is continuously sending tally updates to the Ultriscape (even when tally is not active), so even if you cuold send a TSL formateed message to Ultriscape for a particular source, the Acuity would "step on" the tally state from the GPI and the two tally sources would "fight" to control the tally state of the Ultriscape UMD - the GPI might turn on the UMD tally, but the Ultriscape tally would tally it off moments later.

This is where you need a tally management soluton that could create two logical vision mixers  - one being the Acuity over IP and the other being GPI based.  (Acuity SDPE GPI's would not be able to be used with a tally management soluton)

The Ross tally management solutoin is Ultricore Tally which runs on BCS paired with a GPI I/O interface such as the TXI-48 io OpenGear GPI-8941

Tally management solutions typically have a dedicated GPI interface - this can be used to create a virtual vision mixer which can generate tally for a given source.  This can then be "OR'd" with the Acuity IP based tally, oir sent exclusively to a specific MV head or individual PIP.

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David Russell
Ross Video
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Hello Boris,

Ultriscape has two different styles of UMD objects

The standard UMD object which is associated with a video PIP - these are driven via TSL protocol messages.

The 2nd type is the Remote RossTalk driven label object

 

I am not aware of a way to send TSL based messages from the switcher based on a GPI

You could create a custom control controlled by a GPI which would send a RossTalk command to Ultrix to control a RossTalk label object.

 

Tally on (RED BG with white text)

TXTLABEL ID:501; TEXT:CAM-1; BGCLR:0xFF,0x00,0x00; TXTCLR:0xFF,0xFF,0xFF

 

Tally off (black BG with white text)

TXTLABEL ID:501; TEXT:CAM-1; BGCLR:0x00,0x00,0x00; TXTCLR:0xFF,0xFF,0xFF

 

Then create a remote UMD with the ID matching the ID in your RossTalk string

 

 

 

 

 

This is  not the ideal solution - I believe that effectively what you are asking for is tally from two different vision mixers.

 

You can't simply have two vision mixers send tally state to the Ultrix.  That is because for a given TSL ID (source or PIP destination)  there can only be one sender - if you had two mixers sending the same ID, they would "step on each other" causing one mixer to turn on a tally, then moments later the other mixer to turn off the tally.

 

In your scenario, the first vision mixer is the Acuity via a network connection and the second is a GPI based vision mixer. Once you have more than on vision mixer, you really need to consider a tally management solution.

 

With a tally management solution, you will have the ability two define where the tally comes from for a given object such as a PIP UMD or GPO for camera tally

 

You could for example specify a PIP to tally from Mixer-1 (IP), Mixer-2 (GPI) or you could "OR" them so that if a source is on either mixer, it would be tallied.

 

Ross's tally management solution is based on Ultricore Tally which is an option for BCS - this would be the controller - to this, you would need to add a GPI I/O device such as the TXI-48, TXP-16, or the OpenGear GPI-8941

 

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David Russell
Ross Video
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Thanks so much David, 

Yes I know BCS and Ultricore Tally… we have a system tuning with this. 

but for another setup we don't want to connect 2 switchers to the ultrix and the ultriscape. 

to be more more specific, in this other setup, I have a master control room which send me  a trigger ( GPI) when we are On air. So instead of having a basic on air light I would like to display it in Ultriscape. So that's why I was wondering if using the GPIO of the SDPE blade would work. Thanks for the answer involving Ross talk command.

so now I wonder if it would also work if I use a third party tool making the bridge between GPI Ethernet and TSL or rosstalk. I'm considering OG card 8941 or Skaarhoj GPI Ethernet 

Will it work? How to configure a new incom connexion to those modules ? 

best regards 

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Boris salhaji
EIC
France Télévisions
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 11-13-2025 11:11
From: David Russell
Subject: Triggering tally's

Hello Boris,

Ultriscape has two different styles of UMD objects

The standard UMD object which is associated with a video PIP - these are driven via TSL protocol messages.

The 2nd type is the Remote RossTalk driven label object

 

I am not aware of a way to send TSL based messages from the switcher based on a GPI

You could create a custom control controlled by a GPI which would send a RossTalk command to Ultrix to control a RossTalk label object.

 

Tally on (RED BG with white text)

TXTLABEL ID:501; TEXT:CAM-1; BGCLR:0xFF,0x00,0x00; TXTCLR:0xFF,0xFF,0xFF

 

Tally off (black BG with white text)

TXTLABEL ID:501; TEXT:CAM-1; BGCLR:0x00,0x00,0x00; TXTCLR:0xFF,0xFF,0xFF

 

Then create a remote UMD with the ID matching the ID in your RossTalk string

 

 

 

 

 

This is  not the ideal solution - I believe that effectively what you are asking for is tally from two different vision mixers.

 

You can't simply have two vision mixers send tally state to the Ultrix.  That is because for a given TSL ID (source or PIP destination)  there can only be one sender - if you had two mixers sending the same ID, they would "step on each other" causing one mixer to turn on a tally, then moments later the other mixer to turn off the tally.

 

In your scenario, the first vision mixer is the Acuity via a network connection and the second is a GPI based vision mixer. Once you have more than on vision mixer, you really need to consider a tally management solution.

 

With a tally management solution, you will have the ability two define where the tally comes from for a given object such as a PIP UMD or GPO for camera tally

 

You could for example specify a PIP to tally from Mixer-1 (IP), Mixer-2 (GPI) or you could "OR" them so that if a source is on either mixer, it would be tallied.

 

Ross's tally management solution is based on Ultricore Tally which is an option for BCS - this would be the controller - to this, you would need to add a GPI I/O device such as the TXI-48, TXP-16, or the OpenGear GPI-8941

 

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David Russell
Ross Video
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