Atomos Sumo Live Switching

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digitalinnovations

Well-known member
Has anyone read or heard if the 19" Sumo from Atomos will offer 2 x 4K Live Switching? On the website (https://www.atomos.com/sumo) and on the videos I can find posted from NAB 2017 they say "4 x HD Live Switching" but that is about all and that may very well be all that is known. I was just curious if anyone who happened to be at NAB or heard from other's if this may be a possibility. I believe there are some other recorders out there that offer an option of "4 x HD streams or 2 x 4K streams" when Live Switching.

The Sumo seems like a via option for Live Switching as the screen is much larger than some of the other options and therefore possibly more user friendly; as in I don't have to worry about my chubby, little fingers hitting the wrong touchscreen area and messing up my Live Switch...of course you could "fix it in post" but that kind of negates the point, no?

All this stuff may not have been sorted out yet but thought I would ask.
 
digitalinnovations said:
Has anyone read or heard if the 19" Sumo from Atomos will offer 2 x 4K Live Switching? On the website (https://www.atomos.com/sumo) and on the videos I can find posted from NAB 2017 they say "4 x HD Live Switching" but that is about all and that may very well be all that is known. I was just curious if anyone who happened to be at NAB or heard from other's if this may be a possibility. I believe there are some other recorders out there that offer an option of "4 x HD streams or 2 x 4K streams" when Live Switching.

The Sumo seems like a via option for Live Switching as the screen is much larger than some of the other options and therefore possibly more user friendly; as in I don't have to worry about my chubby, little fingers hitting the wrong touchscreen area and messing up my Live Switch...of course you could "fix it in post" but that kind of negates the point, no?

All this stuff may not have been sorted out yet but thought I would ask.
Click to expand...

My understanding is it will only support live switching of HD sources since you can fit 4 HD sources in a single UHD stream perfectly. Don't quote me on that but that does make sense from a technical perspective and I was pretty sure I watched a video from NAB where the rep from Atomos did state that it switches 4 HD sources. Typically if a product did support a feature the company would promote the daylights out of that feature. If the website doesn't bang people over the head with marketing that says switch 2 4k streams then it is likely it does not.
 
I agree with Thomas, it is a 4x HD stream or a single 4K stream system. I myself keep forgetting that UHD is four times the size and bandwidth of HD, not twice! Someday it will sink in.
 
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My understanding is that you can live switch 4 4k sources (shown as HD quarter images) but a maximum of one 4k source is recorded at a time.
 
I guess a guy can dream...

I thought that one of the CD recorders offered the 4 x HD -or- 2 x 4K so that is what made me hopeful that the Sumo would offer something similar. I realize (if I am correct) that some of you would say "So order the CD recorder" but it's a much smaller screen so it's a bit trickier (or could be) in operating a live switch and tougher judging focus, etc. Plus, I think the price point was similar or even higher for the CD.
 
4x HD and 2x 4K are possibilities. It all depends on what the Sumo can support on its 12G SDI input. You can pump two 4K images through as single 12G. Whether the Sumo follows those protocols - I do not know. I saw it at NAB. It has very milky blacks - poor contrast, even if they call it "HDR". I would never use it for color grading like they propose. It's just not meant to be a quality reference display.
 
The Convergent Design Apollo (or an Odyssey running the Apollo option, same difference) can accept 4xHD signals, record each individually and record a live-switch between them (so 5 simultaneous recordings). In 4K, Apollo can record 2x4K signals simultaneously, but it cannot perform a live-switch between them. More to the point, it can live-switch the view and output that live-switch as an HD signal, but the Live-switch itself is not recorded and is only available as the HD output.

Convergent Design announced the Element series of recorder/switchers at NAB, and I believe at least one of them can do what you seek.
 
One year later, the multicam function on the Sumo has just gone active. Firmware update 9.1 available on the Atomos site.
 
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