Super interesting about the unused pads! I wonder if that means a fourth ATEM Mini is coming soon or if they scrapped whatever plans there were for that instead!
At this point I can't imagine them launching a *fourth* product with this same form factor. Everyone is asking for either different audio input jacks or a second HDMI output, all of which would require a wider face plate.
Ahh, I didn’t think about that. It’ll probably take more processing than is available in one of these as well. I wonder why they released the ISO so fast after the Pro? Is that following their normal release pattern?
Hi Ryan, I recevied my brand new atem yesterday and took it to a gig today only to notice the fan was rubbing of something and making noise. I followed your video and was able to open it and pop the fan properly into its holders. All good now and saved the day. Thanks
I LOVED this, When I was a kid my Mom brought home Radios for me to take apart, they were TUBE radios, that says how old I am. It was great fun. Later when I went to Tech school I knew what was in all the components, resistors, caps, inductors and tubes. Great Fun! Thanks!
About the other chips on the board, left to right, 15:44: U16 under the 4 caps is probably 4 channel A/D converter. The next 4 chips, U4, U5, U7, U8 are probably HDMI input chips with input 1 using a different chip, U4, than inputs 2-4. Input 1 can be switched directly to the HDMI output as I recall. U9 is the HDMI output chip is next and slightly smaller Under the USB-C connector are two chips which probably a USB controller, U11, and either a serial buffer chip or perhaps a USB3.0 power management chip U3. Under the Ethernet connector is probably an Ethernet controller chip, U12. Not sure where the Ethernet transformers are. Perhaps integrated into the RJ-45 connector?
@ The Ethernet Jack is indeed a magjack that houses the LEDs and the coupling transformer. The USB could be native to the FPGA because it also houses an ARM Cortex The input 1 to HDMI switching could be from the internal bypass mode too. But they are definitely HDMI Rx chips. Interestingly the modern FPGAs by Intel (Xilinx) support AI vision on the EDGE (Device itself) through intel's open vino toolkit. A development board costs $5K. I wish I could turn this into an experimentation platform for vision. It's so neatly done. Thanks Robert for the insights.
you know what i'm so glad you did this. There's this thing that occasionally happens when i press one of the 4 inputs, it either doesn't fully switch or switches twice (like two presses). Now i know the contact points, and where exactly to push to avoid such. Thank you!
This would certainly have been quite interesting!! It was certainly a missed opportunity once he got that far in the tear down. A bit of rubbing alcohol to clean it up, then just apply new thermal compound on re-assembly.
It's a Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ which is an ARM based MPSoC. Basically a bog-standard set of ARM cores with an FPGA built into the chip for custom logic. An FPGA is basically a sea of transistors that lets you design any sort of logic you may want. You can build your own specially optimized "CPU" or "GPU" in a large FPGA. BMD will be using that FPGA bit to do all the video processing in hardware with their own custom design.
@@ConnorEhrgood They are absolute kings of FPGA stuff these days. When the Quad HDMI Recorder came out I took a look at the IC. Way more capable than the equivalent in the more expensive AJA KONA HDMI and much more flexibly programmed too. Impressive work.
Hi! Can comfirm that the Atem mini (non pro) has the same top board. Thanks video! I got stuck on the fifth screw behind the lable. Would have broken my case if not for you! 😄
Great! To makes nerds even happier In tear downs, try to get FCC numbers on boards if there are any (then you often can lookup ton of info about the board for free). And closeup on main chips like FPGA/SoC/CPU and maybe memories.
Thanks man! I know, I'm still quite a novice at this side of things. It was technically my first tear down. I'll probably open it up in a bit again to do a few more tests. Eventually I'll get it!
hi-tech on life I’m a bit clumsy so so typically avoid it. Always worried there’s some flat cable between boards you missed and you’ll get hard to repair damage. Very cool finding that they seemed to have built for many buttons originally. Would be cool to know if how similar the different units are, if they run the same FPGA or if the cooler models needed a “bigger” more expensive one. I did a vintage lens tear down some years ago to remove fungus and what not. When done I had a one screw over after reassembling :)
Opening it up shouldn't void any warranty regardless what the manufacturer says based on the Magnuson-Moss Act, however if you mess anything up while opening or closing the unit then of course that will void your claim as long as it's directly associated to the issue you're claiming.
Especially not with professional gear, you may even be required to open up and clean some things, like in stage lighting for example. You don't want dust build-up in your expensive gear, and even more so for stuff you use at events and the like. This is clearly not designed for user service though, that's why they hide the screws. It would be interresting to see if they can claim void of warranty both for opening the unit and for not opening it to clear out dust and grime :P
The real interesting missing part is the ribbon connector to the left of the CPU next to the JTAG(?) serial console. It is the virtical rectangle with solder dots top and bottom and then a column of very fine pads. This type of connector is typically used when you want a parallel data bus between a CPU and a device like an LCD screen or camera.
That's what I was thinking on the chips. I bet they just put more in to create this new ATEM Mini Pro ISO. Unfortunately on the pictures I already closed it up so that's not going to happen. Maybe on the next thing I tear apart!
Main board chips that is labeled SKhynix are memory modules. So in theory they can add additional ones on the board if they need to for future iterations ... I thinking that the ISO has more memory than the plain PRO in order to be able to perform the ISO part of the product.
That’s what I was thinking since the ISO came out. I filmed it right before it was announced and wasn’t able to release until shortly after. I wonder how long they can stretch this form factor.
Please note that you DO NOT NEED to remove the strain relief nut from the power port to open the case (and clean the fan, for example). Mine was extremely tight and I'm afraid you could damage somthing if you try to remove the nut.
this video is really really interesting. thank you. somethimes i have a little problem with press 1 button. i dont' know if i can fix it... but thank you
You don’t want to hit accidentally the power switch will in the middle of a stream. All atem do not have a power switch. Just use a power distribution you can easily switch off when done.
Thanks for the video, did you have a chance to take Hi-Res pictures of the boards? I am particularly looking for an analog output audio bus so I could try and make a headphone out with a small amplifier.
Good engineering, to provide extra contacts for additional buttons should additional features be desired later, they can easily roll out a Pro Plus model without having to re-spinning the board for the extra buttons, just add the LEDs to the BOM and update the software, modify tooling for the plastics which may be done with an insert and update tampo print for front label. Slick layout and so glad you did this as I was curious about the innards. Shame you didn't do a close up of the chips so we could see part numbers and scrape off the silicone heat paste. Easy to add back afterwards if you're a PC builder like me and have a tube of artic silver.
I know! I need to do a good closeup of everything. Maybe the next time I get a new switcher. I want to see what model (if any) they come out with next. Then I hope to pull the trigger and buy it. We’ll have to see! Thanks for the comment and insight!
Thanks, When a connector stops working I now know that I can safely open it and remember the middle screw so I don’t break the case then I can re-solder ( that is, by the way, pronounced solder not sodder for Americans who are still trying to master the english language) Thanks for taking the risk for us all.
How do you know how some thing work if you don't pull it a part live & learn, I'm in my 60s but if i was 10 years old I would pull that a part a week or two after owning it.My Atem mini is still in one piece thanks for the inside view.
Def unpopulated Ram U27 & U28 and some sort of xilinx FPGA ?or possibly arm based proc? I also see a Uart interface and possible JTAG? could be fun to hack !
Thx for the teardown. If you plan on doing more of these in the future you might want to have a look at what Dave Jones from EEVBlog does. You did a great job of explaining the mechanical side e.g. how to take it apart. But I was missing things on the electronic side. I understand that you do not have the knowledge to do in depth reviews of the circuits like Dave does but if you get what‘s important for viewers who know about electronics you may make your videos way more interesting for them. Things like high res photos of the boards, rubbing of the thermal compound to read the part number and in general pointing out part numbers of the bigger chips would be great. The next step would be to search for those part numbers to identify the purpose of a certain chip but I think this only makes sense if you yourself would want to learn about electronics or the inner workings of the specific product. If not I happily search for the part number myself. None the less thanks for the video. And to add some info: The silvery tape on the bottom isn‘t a thermal pad. The metal cans on the bottom part are for shielding and the tape serves the same purpose. It‘s shielding tape that covers the gaps where it‘s impossible to use the metal cans to shield high frequency circuits.
Hey Bastian! Thanks for the advice. I am definitely still a novice at most of this stuff. I have the audio production side of it, but yeah, the technical side not so much. I'll keep those in mind for the future! AND I'll check out Dave's info! Thanks again!
Thinking about the unpopulated ribbon connector. Could it be a bus to a small display? There is a gold connector J13 in the lower right corner. Could J13 be a power connector? How about a ATEM mini rackmount. A low cost 2U unit with the mini on the right and 3.5" monitor on the left in a zero depth (1" deep) enclosure powered with USB-C. With cables out the back. Just right for a flip up lid road case or mount it in a standard depth wall. 3 models, $600, $900, $1,200. Just thinking... BTW the best picture of the mother board is at 15:54.
Hopefully you read this stuff...spilt a beer on my atem mini pro. Luckily it was unplugged at the time and I cleaned it off right quick, but there was a good bit that on the right section of buttons. It looks to me like the buttons are a solid plastic piece to hopefully guard against spills, but I fear the some liquid could get through if it was not fully solid plastic. Can you illuminate?
Yeah, the fan is an interesting one. I think they wanted to keep it as quiet as possible. The loudest I've ever heard it is during updates. But yeah as you said, it gets a little toasty.
Looking closely around the 8:45 mark, gives me an idea: dimming the light from the left six large buttons. It looks like each button sits over a field of ten (or seven) items. Based on my non-professional engineering understanding, it seems that there are four contacts - one at each corner - that absolutely must not be covered. But what about the (4) three pairs of LEDs (or the (2) three single LEDs) in the middle of each of the left six large buttons? Critical question though: when you looked at the flexible pieces at the 8:00 mark, did you notice whether the LEDs on the board exposed their leads? As for the seventh large button to the right, I would not change that one. It doesn't get turned on very often, and when it does, it can be important.
I suspect they put only the LEDs they need to make it cost effective. AS far as the LEDs, they don't expose their leads so it'd be hard to replace if they fail.
@@RyanKnowsNothing My ATEM Mini is being used at our local theater after the last Friday the 13th closing of - everything. Thought the brightness would be an issue, but not under the kind of lighting that doesn't have a real audience. When we get permission to host a real audience again, that may change. That's when dimming may be useful. Your answer about not exposing the LED leads is good news. Painting a wash of some color directly on the LEDs for the big left six buttons might work. I wouldn't do it on our only ATEM Mini, but if we get back to making some money from tickets and add another switcher, who knows. In the meantime, any adventurous soul that tries my idea should know that it is just an untried idea with no guarantees whatsoever.
That is very well done, great stuff! Thank you so much for doing and sharing it with us! The crowded layout and very limited space on the rear may also explain why we did not get a second HDMI out but instead ´only´ Iso recording in the new Mini Pro Iso model (which does not require a complete redesign). Would be good for comparison if someone will have as well strong nerves and skills to reveal the inside of new Mini Pro Iso model. Again, thank you and thumbs up!
Thanks Eyck! Yeah, I always expected they had crammed as much in as they could, but now it's confirmed. They'll need to do an entire redesign if they want to add more physical I/O. There is still room for more buttons if they have one more model in them.
I know that is a big issue for some people is the inability to retain information. Hopefully they can address this in the future, but for now, I'm not sure. Maybe I'll have to break it open again and give it a try!
@@RyanKnowsNothing I know that it is asking a lot of you to open it again but it would be nice to know if it would actually work. I think you'll be everyone's hero :-)
J11 on the left edge looks like it could be for another USB-C connector. It has the 24 pins required and is the same physical size as the USB-C connector on the back.
My work's one is due for delivery tomorrow. I've promised my boss that I'll not take it apart. No matter how tempted I might be. Not even having seen the final 30 seconds of your video. :)
J13 with the command:" RTC CLKout" gives a lot of pro's hope. somebody tried to scoop/check this connection? are there closeups available especially a shot inside the J13....
the large chip is probably a xilinx Zync-7 FPGA (includes 2 ARM cores) the 4 chips around are ram (and there is space for 2 more) the square chip below the FPGA is the configuration eeprom for that FPGA, loads the "hardware" program on bootup
I'd expect those four chips around the main processor are Ram. There's no space on that lower board for a third audio input, to match the missing switches on the top. Given the ISO is out now, and those pads aren't used on it either, and given there's a space for a UART chip that's also not present, I'm going to suggest that the button and missing chips and socket, are to communicate to another device. A jog/shuttle wheel for replays on the ISO would be one choice, but doing so would have had the button placement associated moved away from the Audio input controls, and Jog/Shuttle could be done via ethernet connection. What I think we'll see next, is a small Atem Audio add-on, a mini mixer with sliders and probably four balanced inputs.
The 2+2 missing chips to the ledt of the CPU are probably RAM and the 2 to the right are flash memory. There is also a 8 lead chip above the flash that is probably a serial boot EEPROM.
Thanks for this insight! I kind of think the ISO is the last in the lineup of the Minis, mainly because of what you're talking about. If they want to add more, then they need a different form factor. But you never know! They could come out with some crazy feature that it can still handle. I suppose they could change the top PCB if they wanted to add more buttons.
@@RyanKnowsNothing - Chatting with some people with more access,.. there's some pre-production information suggesting the design originally had a headphones socket out to the left side, that has since been deleted. This is still an extra audio interface, and BMD's audio side, is not great,.. I'm still expecting a further model with audio expansion, perhaps in co-ordination with another manufacturer.
Many BM devices (BM converters, PCI minirecorder so on) havn't the interface HDMI chips (in most cases the HDMI interface is realized on FPGA), and I am really pleased that seems in Atem mini there are some secialized HDMI interfacing chips. Could you kindly wrote down the markings on those chips? I have heard that Atem mini inputs often burining out because of bad grounding, so just interested where to buy spares and what the functionality of those chips. many thanks.
The HDMI out is at least a TDP158, and is a display interface chip capable of handling several DisplayPort lanes. The HDMI in on number 1 is a TMDS171, this is the only interface-in chip that is different because of either setting format standards (it can determine the video standard the rest of the inputs allow/set if I remember the manual correctly), but it could also be different because it might allow routing HDMI 1 directly through to the out, so might require some extra pins. It's also the only non-BGA chip on the interface-in ports. HDMI 2, 3 and 4 all use adv7610bbcz-p chips. This is information that for me comes from an Atem Mini Pro by the way (one that has a defective out, that is working, but mostly intermittent). In my case it probably requires replacing the TDP158 but I'll have to do some more testing first because output seemed to become a bit more stable because of the chip heating up. When there was some display at some point, it did eventually show the correct colors, so the chip is fine, and it could also just be the pins on the HDMI out port that are not making good contact anymore. If you want to look at spares, look at Mouser, Digikey, Distrelec or a different big electronics parts seller. The TDP158 is sold by Mouser.
My USB C died. I got a high power use error first on my Mac. Assuming it shorted. Looking at this what do you see that I should replace? Is there a specific usb c connector I need? Kind of a noob and they want 125 to fix it. New ones are now 195
Hi. I got a new 4k splitter so i can display to 2 projectors from my atem mini extreme switcher. All went well until about 2 hours of show, everything went black. Initial suspect was that the new splitter caused ground. I recently checked the extreme and it did detect all HDMI input but the output resolution is not okay. Audio and recording is fine. One suggestion was to change the pins of hdmi out. I'm not sure how delicate the pins are and there's no ATEM service center. I'm not super knowledgeable about this. Hope i could get a help from you or anyone? It will really be a big help🙏
If your experience with desoldering or soldering SMD components is slim tot none, please do not attempt to repair an HDMI connector. The pins on an HDMI connector are delicate and if you don't know what you are doing trying to desolder the HDMI connector you will rip off incredibly tiny pads that will require a lot of work to repair if possible at all. Personally, I would be more suspect of the interface chip that drives the output. If it is the same in the Mini Extreme, it is a TDP158 interface chip, and from what I have been able to find it is slightly notorious for going bad due to overheating issues. Since it doesn't see any passive nor forced-air cooling in the Mini Pro (Bought a defective one yesterday hoping to fix it) I would not be surprised if that is the culprit in yours as well. Mouser sells this TDP158 chip for about 5 euro's each in my country (The Netherlands). Some phone repair ships might be willing to try and fix this if they do soldering to phones and tablets or laptops, because the technique in doing so is inevitably is the same.
has anyone tried to have the usb port replaced? have an atem mini with a failed usb port. Sent to BMD and they won't fix it (no repair available). So trying to decide to do with the paperweight.
On the top board, the square IC is probably an Arduino class MCU (Micro Controller Unit). It is probably talking a serial protocol with the bottom board CPU. Don't know why they used a wide ribbon cable? If the MCU is talking I2C to the main CPU on the bottom board, then only 4 wires would be needed rather than the ribbon cable. The next two ICs are probably 8x8 switch matrix encoders. The last IC is probably a 8x8 LED driver. About the 4 extra buttons, they are probably included to fill out the first 8x8 switch matrix. Ignoring the bottom row of buttons, there are exactly 64 buttons including the 4 unused buttons.
There is not much space to pull out the Mic inputs and make it balanced (except for the last "tad-bit") -- just wish the audio inputs could be "PRO" and not consumer grade. Mabe just build an external module -- thinking about the THAT 1580/5171 Digitally Controlled Microphone Preamplifier { www.thatcorp.com/1580-5171_Digital_Mic_Preamp.shtml }. That gives the foundation for having XLR inputs -- time to sketch this out in detail.
Hello, I hope you are well. We have an Atem mini pro, during a transmission in a gym there was a voltage spike that affected it (although we were protected with UPS); at that moment the HDMI output port smoked and so we immediately turned off the equipment. Then to test it we turned it on, the 'atem' turned on, however it does not give a signal on the monitor (HDMI output). I ask you: Is there any chance that it can be repaired if only the HDMI output port has been affected? comments. Thank you very much.
If you observed smoke, you should be able to open up the unit and witness the TDP158 chip near the output port having a burn or "blister" mark where the smoke left the part. If you need to ask this question, you are probably not equipped with the skills to desolder this chip and buy a new one off of Mouser or a similar electronics parts store, but it might be possible (I am attempting to try this myself for a unit with intermittent HDMI out which does work but might have a defective chip or loose legs on the port itself.) A voltage spike will probably not have been transferred into the unit (switch-mode power supplies, which the ATEM uses are typically protected from them reasonably well because of how they create lower voltages) but if camera's tied to it were operating on mains voltage there can have been a voltage difference between devices, more the result of a ground loop than an actual voltage spike. If this spike was the result of a direct or indirect lightning strike, it might have damaged the power supply first and then hit the unit, or there was a spike induced in the cabling due to the massive amount of power in the electromagnetic pulse that a lightning strike also is.
Hey Victor! Sorry for the late reply. I took the last month of the year off from RUclips. In answer to your question, the ME2 is one that I had replaced the connector on a long time ago. I think it is a Rean 1/8" screw down connector. It sounds good, but I think it may have needed a resistor or something in there. I ended up just getting a Rode Lavalier Go for $80. It's not the best sounding mic, but I know it'll work withe the Wireless Go setup. I hope that helps! Thanks Victor!
My HDMI out went black at one point and never came back. Any ideas why? All cables and connections and screens were verified and in good working order. All other functions of the ATEM were good. Firmware was updated aslo. Any help would be appreciated. Unit is off warranty. Thanks.
Can be the TDP158, which has some mentions in the datasheet about max voltages and temperatures in free-to-air operation (which the application in the Atem mini switchers obviously is not). Given that it does not see even a little bit of forced air cooling and the fan in the unit I have barely spins at all even though the main processor get's freakishly hot (burn your fingers hot) it could be that it sees overheating. Best things to check is to heat up the PCB with a hairdryer (if it blows hard and heats up quickly, use a big distance, if it's a much older hairdryer, you can use a smaller distance) and heat up the PCB for let's say 5-10 minutes, and switch on the unit. If there is output and it is intermittent, it could be heat-related where the TDP158 chip is suffering poor contacts that due to heat become better (expansion is a thing after all, even in 5x5mm sized components). If that doesn't make things better, try cooling it down by force-cooling it with something (preferably something not causing condensation to appear). If the chip suffers a thermal runaway state due to poor thermal dissipation (achieved by good PCB design, which....well, might not be what BlackMagic adhered to) you will see it that way. Find something plastic and softly tap the chip as well: if that causes output to temporarily reappear, the chip might only be suffering poor contact on pins, and require reflowing with a hot-air station, protect the HDMI out port with aluminium foil when you do to prevent melting of the plastic core of it. Pay attention to the small parts in the immediate surroundings as well, they might start to wander off because of the hot-air gun's airflow. Take a high-resolution picture beforehand if possible so you can identify missing components if only for their shape/color if necessary. Troubleshooting will be the more important thing to do here in order to not replace the wrong part and not fix the problem (or make it worse).
Thanks for doing a teardown! "The fan is really quiet" LMAOOL - Not my ATEM Mini Pro ISO!! It's loud when it's not hitting something (shroud or wires?) and when it is hitting something, it is unacceptably LOUD and unusable. And there's more than me that has/had this problem. Most disappointing for $900...
@@RyanKnowsNothing Perhaps a difference between the Pro and ISO? To be fair, mine doesn't run all the time but if I have more than 2 inputs and also doing keying, it fires up and gets louder and louder during use. When it's banging against (I'm guessing) the wiring harness, it's flat out disturbing.
I am super excited seeing your teardown video. Thoughts that pop in mind. 1. Why does the RTC does not have a battery installed ?? 2. Did you take Hi-Res Still images of the board ?? The chips could be identified then. 3. The chips right behind the HDMI connectors could be HDMI Rx chips which takes in a HDMI signal and converts it to Parallel or Serial Video signal that could be used by the SoC which I guess could be a Xilinx (Intel) UltraScale which includes a high efficiency H.265 / H.264 encoder www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/white_papers/wp471-ultrascale-plus-perf.pdf or even the latest Arria series. www.intel.in/content/www/in/en/products/programmable/arria-series.html 4. Technically it should only be software (IP in this case) with exactly similar hardware of the ATEM Mini for the functionality offered for the PRO model. 5. Could there be a hack to convert a Mini into Pro 😈 6. The chip is capable of processing 4K, the unpopulated DRAMs on the pcb could mean a larger frame buffer. When you open it again keep some heatsink compound handy. Wipe off the compound and you could identify the chip. Then you can re apply the compound and put back the heatsink. Adhesives loosen up with heat. Don't put it in the oven though while dealing with. A big big THAAAAANK YOU Bro. Grateful that you did this. I have been wondering if a low cost 4K to 2K ePTZ could be made. All cameras are 4K and we only stream at 2K so having a viewport (Region of Interest of ROI) scaler could give electronic pan tilt and zoom. Such product does exist but expensive. www.aja.com/products/4k2hd
Thanks Sougata! I am not sure why there is no battery. I may take it apart once more to see if a battery will help retain the information in the ATEM when power cycling the unit. I didn't take hi-res images unfortunately. Again, something I'll have to do when I bust it open again. I posted a link to a guy in the Uk who took photos of the regular ATEM Mini. You are a much smarter individual than I am! You bring some great info to the table. I will definitely have some compound handy next time! Thanks again for the comment and all the great info. Good luck on your streams as well!
Next time, please wipe the thermal compound of the main chip so we can see what the markings are! 😀 (and reapply some before you put it back together again 😅)
It's a Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ which is an ARM based MPSoC. Basically a bog-standard set of ARM cores with an FPGA built into the chip for custom logic. An FPGA is basically a sea of transistors that lets you design any sort of logic you may want. You can build your own specially optimized "CPU" or "GPU" in a large FPGA. BMD will be using that FPGA bit to do all the video processing in hardware with their own custom design.
Going out on a limb here. I think the large silver chip is a custom DSP chip that actually processes the video and below it is a smaller black chip, U31, that is probably an ARM base SOC, System On a Chip. The ARM CPU is probably running a custom version of Linux (Linux From Scratch?). And there appers to be a serial console with its Rx and Tx pads.
Xilinx fpga. Bmd only uses Xilinx fpgas for all there video processing. No Linux. But real fpga power. The Atem mini is powered up and ready within a second. Try that with Linux 😂
@@WolfsHaven A popular misconception. Yes, BMD would need to make any Open Source code they use available, but only the base code they include in their product. For most Open Source code there is no requirement for companies to make their changes available. Only the base code they started with.
@@xtlivestream5825 I would wager BMD is running Linux on those two ARM cores on the FPGA. Linux gives the hardware developer an extremely robust set of internet utilities straight out of the box. A kernel, realtime performance hooks, a robust development environment, any programming language you might want, any Internet service you can think of, rich debugging tools. The list goes on and on. If you don't need them, leave them out and save space and resources. All for free. I think you would be surprised how quickly a stripped down Linux based device can boot. In a second? Maybe not. But 2 or 3 would not be hard. The key here is "stripped down". Linux runs very happily in a few Mb (not Gb) of ram and a few Mb of flash. You can run Linux on the ESP32 micro-controllers with no additional memory.
Robert Harker but they are required to note what libraries they used. Knowing Bmd. There fpgas are running full stacks, parrallel processing and more. They build this from scratch. Or they bought a xillinx IP that is able to do this. The whole TICO streaming they implemented in the 12G IP teranex mini converters are also a Xillinx IP that you can buy. I would not be supervised if on the Xilinx website there is just an IP to buy H264 RTMP encoding. 😉
It would be cool if someone would open the mini, the mini pro and the mini pro iso side by side, allowing us to see the differences as well as the similarities. And even cooler to see how it works if you combine the parts! Can you turn a mini into a pro by adding a few inexpensive parts? Maybe not, but wouldn't that be nice?
my HDMI Port 1 is not displaying any kind of signal anymore. just black screen. Blackmagic says since its out of warranty period, there is no repair. I am thinking it may be a port issue. any idea of how to replace the port on our own by soldering a new one
If you are convinced it's the port (it could be, but I'm more suspicious of the interface chip right behind the port which is a TMDS171), protect some of the smaller parts on the underside and heat it with a hot air gun from the underside without a nozzle on it. This will make the ground on the HDMI port become hot enough for removal along with heat traveling quickly enough to the much smaller interface pins to nicely detach without to much risk of ripping of a pad. Take high resolution pictures of the immediate surroundings of the HDMI connector to be able to identify any possible parts that go wandering off or fall of due to the heat of the hot air gun.
Add me to the long list of people who would like to thank you for doing this. I've been considering this myself. But don't own an ATEM Mini. Do have access to one but they may not appreciate my curiosity. Like others, I'm wondering if the only differences in the three models are; number of buttons and memory.
Some for of that, yes. Nah, just an iPhone using Filmic Pro. I didn’t have the shutter speed set properly and obviously it isn’t the best camera to use.
I can see you now with the two cartoon characters one on each shoulder. The wee devil saying "you know you want to" and the wee angel saying "you shouldn't really!". Glad you did though. Cheers.
Hello i hope you are reading comments, i want buy atem mini pro BUT i need know quality of streaming is good like a obs x264 ? I am using now magewell ultrastream hdmi but quality of stream its not so good i am looking for new streaming device.I am streaming fps games.My streaming setups are 1080p60fps 8000 bitrate
I am not sure how that compares. I know that the streams have been really clean. Aaron Parecki has streamed a lot from the ATEM Mini Pro, so I'd say go check out his streams and see what you think.
Yep - Guilty as charged myself! LOL I thought about doing this (teardown) on my relatively brand new unit because of the terrible fan noise my ATEM Mini Pro ISO has, especially when the fan is hitting something, as it does occasionally. So - THANKS hi-tech on life for doing it first/for me!! Based on your video, my guess is it's a cheap fan made of cheap materials, which swells and gets off balance when it gets hot and thus starts hitting the shroud or the wires on its connector just below (a really dumb place to put the connector IMHO) or both. This video is very informative about the basic architecture of the unit. And, nope - the ISO didn't get those extra audio switches on input 3, so maybe they're for the Mini Pro Plus-1-day-maybe version. ;-)
As Grant said in the presentation, I bet the top part has a microcontroller using actual Blackmagic API to talk the the "actual video board", using BM macros. That's probably why it's currently impossible to reprogram the buttons, as it would imply a reprogramming of the chip in the top part. The 2 blank spaces seems to be for RAM, so maybe they can swap the moutable ASIC, and add more RAM when needed for processing. If the HDMI controllers next to the plug can handle 4K, or if they can find other controllers using the same footprint, maybe they'll be able to produce a 4K version easily. Another thing to note is the other space for a ribbon cable, on the left. If it's connected to the ASIC maybe they could extend the features with another daughter board. But I don't think it would be enough to handle the signals, maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, very interesting teardown, thank you for doing it! And thanks to Blackmagic for making such amazing products for the price!! :p
Thanks man! And thanks for your advanced knowledge of this stuff. My brain only has a certain amount of space and right now it's filled with audio related stuff. That would be extra cool if they could make a 4k version of each switch.
@@RyanKnowsNothingmore features more money. The ATEM is definitely mores law at work by the time I decided the mini was for me they did the pro. Can't get the pro as yet and they got the ISO. So I'm gonna stick with the pro. Hopefully everyone goes for the ISO so the pro is available lol.
Oh dude! There’s no point not to reveal the FPGA chip model. All the people in the industry are slavering to know. May I ask you to buy some thermal paste and teardown again? Haha I guess it’s a Zynq.
@@wilsonlmh22 I pulled one apart, definitely an Ultrascale+ of some sort, just can't remember what specifically. Those guys are expensive one off, but price falls DRAMATICALLY with volume
I'd agree with you on other pieces of equipment these days. For instance every control surface ever for mixing audio. Or other higher end Blackmagic switchers that have a brain somewhere else in a rack. But this guy is all self contained! I don't need a computer to run it. All the scaling, audio processing, stream encoding and everything else is all done inside. I say it is definitely worth the 500 bucks!
@@RyanKnowsNothing theres a fair argument here based on what it can do. i might change my mind yet. id have to be earning decent money though for it to be a justifiable purchase.
@@nobbystyles4807 how can you say that this is just a controller? It is definitely not, it's a hardware switcher with quite a bit of functionality, including stream encoder and recorder, to some degree built on the same software/firmware as BDMs more expensive units. On top of that hardware, it also has a basic control surface. There are Midi controllers out there that cost more :P Just compare what a dedicated 1080P streaming encoder that can stream directly to the internet via LAN costs, BDM themselves doesn't even offer one, the closest they have is a 720P unit for almost exactly the same price, with significantly less capabilities (but with SDI though).
@@Robinlarsson83 because dear chap, i recently bought a state of the art full 12 voice polyphonic 49 key synthesizer for about the same price as this. it is a behringer and as such is probably slightly low balling the market (ie it should be more expensive) but considering the sheer power of the thing its unlikely ill get bored of it for the next year or more..... so its a pretty diverse flexible bit of kit that i cant also use as a stand alone production tool. the value comparison isnt good, the atem might be handling a bit of encoding but its not doing much of value.
@@Robinlarsson83 because dear chap, i recently bought a state of the art full 12 voice polyphonic 49 key synthesizer for about the same price as this. it is a behringer and as such is probably slightly low balling the market (ie it should be more expensive) but considering the sheer power of the thing its unlikely ill get bored of it for the next year or more..... so its a pretty diverse flexible bit of kit that i cant also use as a stand alone production tool. the value comparison isnt good, the atem might be handling a bit of encoding but its not doing much of value.
This is why I freaking love the internet! You can literally find anything! You just saved me about 150 bucks my man! I'm about to pull the most devious lick ever! I'll edit this post with details after mission complete! 🥷🏼
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
I'm so glad you did this so I don't have to!
Ha! Thanks Aaron. I was curious what the differences might be between the different models. Keep up the good work on your side!
Super interesting about the unused pads! I wonder if that means a fourth ATEM Mini is coming soon or if they scrapped whatever plans there were for that instead!
You gotta think they have something planned. They just keep throwing amazing things at us left and right.
At this point I can't imagine them launching a *fourth* product with this same form factor. Everyone is asking for either different audio input jacks or a second HDMI output, all of which would require a wider face plate.
Ahh, I didn’t think about that. It’ll probably take more processing than is available in one of these as well. I wonder why they released the ISO so fast after the Pro? Is that following their normal release pattern?
Hi Ryan, I recevied my brand new atem yesterday and took it to a gig today only to notice the fan was rubbing of something and making noise. I followed your video and was able to open it and pop the fan properly into its holders. All good now and saved the day. Thanks
I LOVED this, When I was a kid my Mom brought home Radios for me to take apart, they were TUBE radios, that says how old I am. It was great fun. Later when I went to Tech school I knew what was in all the components, resistors, caps, inductors and tubes.
Great Fun!
Thanks!
Ha! That's awesome! Thanks Roger. I hope my kids get into some of this stuff too. It's way fun!
About the other chips on the board, left to right, 15:44:
U16 under the 4 caps is probably 4 channel A/D converter.
The next 4 chips, U4, U5, U7, U8 are probably HDMI input chips with input 1 using a different chip, U4, than inputs 2-4. Input 1 can be switched directly to the HDMI output as I recall.
U9 is the HDMI output chip is next and slightly smaller
Under the USB-C connector are two chips which probably a USB controller, U11, and either a serial buffer chip or perhaps a USB3.0 power management chip U3.
Under the Ethernet connector is probably an Ethernet controller chip, U12. Not sure where the Ethernet transformers are. Perhaps integrated into the RJ-45 connector?
@ The Ethernet Jack is indeed a magjack that houses the LEDs and the coupling transformer. The USB could be native to the FPGA because it also houses an ARM Cortex
The input 1 to HDMI switching could be from the internal bypass mode too. But they are definitely HDMI Rx chips.
Interestingly the modern FPGAs by Intel (Xilinx) support AI vision on the EDGE (Device itself) through intel's open vino toolkit. A development board costs $5K. I wish I could turn this into an experimentation platform for vision. It's so neatly done.
Thanks Robert for the insights.
@@SougataDas Isn't Xilinx a competitor to Altera, which is owned by Intel?
@@chuffrey445 Yes. BMD are using Xilinx AFAIK.
I'm so glad you did this. I wanted to replace my fan with Noctua, but I can see that it's not compatible. You just saved me a teardown
Dude that tear down was a ballsey thing to do. Salute to you!
Thanks man!
That's the only way to see real internal differences between all atems
Those things are so cheap it's insane. Thanks for the tear down
you know what i'm so glad you did this. There's this thing that occasionally happens when i press one of the 4 inputs, it either doesn't fully switch or switches twice (like two presses). Now i know the contact points, and where exactly to push to avoid such. Thank you!
You're welcome Toby! Thanks for tuning into the stream too!
i have the same problem. you have fix it?
Good to know about the fan.
3:54 are most likely memory chips, blank spots for more memory for future models.
That's what i was thinking too.
I was hoping you gonna remove this thermal compound to show what chip is exactly the main CPU.
This would certainly have been quite interesting!! It was certainly a missed opportunity once he got that far in the tear down. A bit of rubbing alcohol to clean it up, then just apply new thermal compound on re-assembly.
It's a Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ which is an ARM based MPSoC. Basically a bog-standard set of ARM cores with an FPGA built into the chip for custom logic. An FPGA is basically a sea of transistors that lets you design any sort of logic you may want. You can build your own specially optimized "CPU" or "GPU" in a large FPGA. BMD will be using that FPGA bit to do all the video processing in hardware with their own custom design.
I was thinking about it, but I don't have any thermal compound to replace it. Next time!
@@ConnorEhrgood They are absolute kings of FPGA stuff these days. When the Quad HDMI Recorder came out I took a look at the IC. Way more capable than the equivalent in the more expensive AJA KONA HDMI and much more flexibly programmed too. Impressive work.
It is a Xilinx XCZU5EV Zynq Quad ARM Cortex-A53 w/ Dual ARM Cortex-R5 FPGA
Hi! Can comfirm that the Atem mini (non pro) has the same top board. Thanks video! I got stuck on the fifth screw behind the lable. Would have broken my case if not for you! 😄
“I’m doing it so you don’t have to.” 😂😂😂❤️
Your video was helpful to fix the fan of my machine that was noisy. Thanks
Great! To makes nerds even happier In tear downs, try to get FCC numbers on boards if there are any (then you often can lookup ton of info about the board for free). And closeup on main chips like FPGA/SoC/CPU and maybe memories.
Thanks man! I know, I'm still quite a novice at this side of things. It was technically my first tear down. I'll probably open it up in a bit again to do a few more tests. Eventually I'll get it!
hi-tech on life I’m a bit clumsy so so typically avoid it. Always worried there’s some flat cable between boards you missed and you’ll get hard to repair damage.
Very cool finding that they seemed to have built for many buttons originally. Would be cool to know if how similar the different units are, if they run the same FPGA or if the cooler models needed a “bigger” more expensive one.
I did a vintage lens tear down some years ago to remove fungus and what not. When done I had a one screw over after reassembling :)
Opening it up shouldn't void any warranty regardless what the manufacturer says based on the Magnuson-Moss Act, however if you mess anything up while opening or closing the unit then of course that will void your claim as long as it's directly associated to the issue you're claiming.
Especially not with professional gear, you may even be required to open up and clean some things, like in stage lighting for example. You don't want dust build-up in your expensive gear, and even more so for stuff you use at events and the like.
This is clearly not designed for user service though, that's why they hide the screws.
It would be interresting to see if they can claim void of warranty both for opening the unit and for not opening it to clear out dust and grime :P
It is nicely engineered unit, thanks for opening it.
Absolutely! Thanks Kim!
BMD did a great design of the boards. Very clean and little wiring.
The real interesting missing part is the ribbon connector to the left of the CPU next to the JTAG(?) serial console. It is the virtical rectangle with solder dots top and bottom and then a column of very fine pads. This type of connector is typically used when you want a parallel data bus between a CPU and a device like an LCD screen or camera.
It's a UART. Probably for either testing/debugging or programming it in the assembly line.
That's awesome… you got guts man!
Thanks man! Keep up the cool content on your side!
You should take high resolution photos of the chips inside. The 2 empty chip spots are probably memories, probably like the other 4.
That's what I was thinking on the chips. I bet they just put more in to create this new ATEM Mini Pro ISO. Unfortunately on the pictures I already closed it up so that's not going to happen. Maybe on the next thing I tear apart!
Main board chips that is labeled SKhynix are memory modules. So in theory they can add additional ones on the board if they need to for future iterations ... I thinking that the ISO has more memory than the plain PRO in order to be able to perform the ISO part of the product.
That’s what I was thinking since the ISO came out. I filmed it right before it was announced and wasn’t able to release until shortly after. I wonder how long they can stretch this form factor.
Please note that you DO NOT NEED to remove the strain relief nut from the power port to open the case (and clean the fan, for example). Mine was extremely tight and I'm afraid you could damage somthing if you try to remove the nut.
this video is really really interesting. thank you. somethimes i have a little problem with press 1 button. i dont' know if i can fix it... but thank you
Thanks. Needed to know the airflow.
The board has clean design, well made. I don't now why on/off button is missing in their devices. Thank you for video.
I don't know either. It's small but unplugging each time is still an bit of an annoyance.
You don’t want to hit accidentally the power switch will in the middle of a stream. All atem do not have a power switch. Just use a power distribution you can easily switch off when done.
Great video! Much appreciated as it does reveal a lot about the future prospects regarding life after the ISO model.
Thanks Val! I'm trying to figure out what they could possibly do next with this form factor that wouldn't need a full physical change. Not sure yet!
Thanks for the video, did you have a chance to take Hi-Res pictures of the boards? I am particularly looking for an analog output audio bus so I could try and make a headphone out with a small amplifier.
Unfortunately I didn’t even think about it. I was just worried about getting it back together and make sure it still works.
Good engineering, to provide extra contacts for additional buttons should additional features be desired later, they can easily roll out a Pro Plus model without having to re-spinning the board for the extra buttons, just add the LEDs to the BOM and update the software, modify tooling for the plastics which may be done with an insert and update tampo print for front label. Slick layout and so glad you did this as I was curious about the innards. Shame you didn't do a close up of the chips so we could see part numbers and scrape off the silicone heat paste. Easy to add back afterwards if you're a PC builder like me and have a tube of artic silver.
I know! I need to do a good closeup of everything. Maybe the next time I get a new switcher. I want to see what model (if any) they come out with next. Then I hope to pull the trigger and buy it. We’ll have to see! Thanks for the comment and insight!
We need to open a mini and compare. It will be interesting if it actually has the same board, then the multiview could possibly be in firmware.
I know. I need to get my hands on one. Perhaps a future video😁
18:20 I can confirm, the upper PCB in the original Mini is the same, but the rubber is in one piece
Nice! I guess with the fewer buttons they can make it one piece.
@@RyanKnowsNothing here are some pics: www.meetupvideo.com/post/what-s-inside-an-atem-mini-photos
This is awesome! I'm going to link this in the description!
Thanks,
When a connector stops working I now know that I can safely open it and remember the middle screw so I don’t break the case then I can re-solder ( that is, by the way, pronounced solder not sodder for Americans who are still trying to master the english language)
Thanks for taking the risk for us all.
Hahaha!! Yes, we dun speaks funny over here. Thanks James!
Fun stuff! Good to see what's inside. Thanks for sharing this with us!
Thanks Tommy!
The end is the best part!!! It was so "Marvel!"
How do you know how some thing work if you don't pull it a part live & learn, I'm in my 60s but if i was 10 years old I would pull that a part a week or two after owning it.My Atem mini is still in one piece thanks for the inside view.
Thanks Tony! I told my son when he was 9 that he may physically grow older, but we're all just 9 year olds trapped in a grown ups body.
Very impressive! Just look at the input you got from the big names such as Aaron Parecki and Photo Joseph.
I know, right?! Thanks man!
Def unpopulated Ram U27 & U28 and some sort of xilinx FPGA ?or possibly arm based proc? I also see a Uart interface and possible JTAG? could be fun to hack !
Zynq Ultrascale+ EV MPSoC. Basically, an ARM CPU and FPGA squished together. Cool stuff!
Thx for the teardown. If you plan on doing more of these in the future you might want to have a look at what Dave Jones from EEVBlog does.
You did a great job of explaining the mechanical side e.g. how to take it apart. But I was missing things on the electronic side. I understand that you do not have the knowledge to do in depth reviews of the circuits like Dave does but if you get what‘s important for viewers who know about electronics you may make your videos way more interesting for them.
Things like high res photos of the boards, rubbing of the thermal compound to read the part number and in general pointing out part numbers of the bigger chips would be great. The next step would be to search for those part numbers to identify the purpose of a certain chip but I think this only makes sense if you yourself would want to learn about electronics or the inner workings of the specific product. If not I happily search for the part number myself.
None the less thanks for the video.
And to add some info: The silvery tape on the bottom isn‘t a thermal pad. The metal cans on the bottom part are for shielding and the tape serves the same purpose. It‘s shielding tape that covers the gaps where it‘s impossible to use the metal cans to shield high frequency circuits.
Hey Bastian! Thanks for the advice. I am definitely still a novice at most of this stuff. I have the audio production side of it, but yeah, the technical side not so much. I'll keep those in mind for the future! AND I'll check out Dave's info! Thanks again!
By chance did you find a headphone input anywhere inside this thing? Would be a great hack to be able to add one, 1/4 or 3.5.
Thinking about the unpopulated ribbon connector. Could it be a bus to a small display? There is a gold connector J13 in the lower right corner. Could J13 be a power connector?
How about a ATEM mini rackmount. A low cost 2U unit with the mini on the right and 3.5" monitor on the left in a zero depth (1" deep) enclosure powered with USB-C. With cables out the back. Just right for a flip up lid road case or mount it in a standard depth wall. 3 models, $600, $900, $1,200.
Just thinking...
BTW the best picture of the mother board is at 15:54.
hoping that J13 is an timecode output @ LTC format
Hopefully you read this stuff...spilt a beer on my atem mini pro. Luckily it was unplugged at the time and I cleaned it off right quick, but there was a good bit that on the right section of buttons. It looks to me like the buttons are a solid plastic piece to hopefully guard against spills, but I fear the some liquid could get through if it was not fully solid plastic. Can you illuminate?
I came just to see if I can put in a better fan or something to deal with the heat issue.
Yeah, the fan is an interesting one. I think they wanted to keep it as quiet as possible. The loudest I've ever heard it is during updates. But yeah as you said, it gets a little toasty.
hi-tech on life do you think it can be upgraded?
Looking closely around the 8:45 mark, gives me an idea: dimming the light from the left six large buttons. It looks like each button sits over a field of ten (or seven) items. Based on my non-professional engineering understanding, it seems that there are four contacts - one at each corner - that absolutely must not be covered. But what about the (4) three pairs of LEDs (or the (2) three single LEDs) in the middle of each of the left six large buttons?
Critical question though: when you looked at the flexible pieces at the 8:00 mark, did you notice whether the LEDs on the board exposed their leads?
As for the seventh large button to the right, I would not change that one. It doesn't get turned on very often, and when it does, it can be important.
I suspect they put only the LEDs they need to make it cost effective. AS far as the LEDs, they don't expose their leads so it'd be hard to replace if they fail.
@@RyanKnowsNothing My ATEM Mini is being used at our local theater after the last Friday the 13th closing of - everything. Thought the brightness would be an issue, but not under the kind of lighting that doesn't have a real audience. When we get permission to host a real audience again, that may change. That's when dimming may be useful.
Your answer about not exposing the LED leads is good news. Painting a wash of some color directly on the LEDs for the big left six buttons might work. I wouldn't do it on our only ATEM Mini, but if we get back to making some money from tickets and add another switcher, who knows. In the meantime, any adventurous soul that tries my idea should know that it is just an untried idea with no guarantees whatsoever.
That is very well done, great stuff! Thank you so much for doing and sharing it with us! The crowded layout and very limited space on the rear may also explain why we did not get a second HDMI out but instead ´only´ Iso recording in the new Mini Pro Iso model (which does not require a complete redesign). Would be good for comparison if someone will have as well strong nerves and skills to reveal the inside of new Mini Pro Iso model. Again, thank you and thumbs up!
Thanks Eyck! Yeah, I always expected they had crammed as much in as they could, but now it's confirmed. They'll need to do an entire redesign if they want to add more physical I/O. There is still room for more buttons if they have one more model in them.
There was a Battery holder. Would it "hold" stored pictures with a battery?
I'm really interested know if it really would work with a battery in. It would be fine it remembers all settings.
I know that is a big issue for some people is the inability to retain information. Hopefully they can address this in the future, but for now, I'm not sure. Maybe I'll have to break it open again and give it a try!
Also, I am going back through the footage and I can't see where a battery holder is. Can you point it out? I must be blind.
@@RyanKnowsNothing I know that it is asking a lot of you to open it again but it would be nice to know if it would actually work. I think you'll be everyone's hero :-)
@@RyanKnowsNothing At minute 12:38 and 13:28 you see something covered up with transparent yellow tape that looks like a battery holder.
J11 on the left edge looks like it could be for another USB-C connector. It has the 24 pins required and is the same physical size as the USB-C connector on the back.
The USB-C on the back marked J8 is nowhere near as large and doesn't have as many pads as we see with J11.
My work's one is due for delivery tomorrow. I've promised my boss that I'll not take it apart. No matter how tempted I might be. Not even having seen the final 30 seconds of your video. :)
Ha! Resist as much as you can!
J13 with the command:" RTC CLKout" gives a lot of pro's hope. somebody tried to scoop/check this connection?
are there closeups available especially a shot inside the J13....
Is that ribbon cable that combines the two units replaceable? Can I purchase that part?
the large chip is probably a xilinx Zync-7 FPGA (includes 2 ARM cores)
the 4 chips around are ram (and there is space for 2 more)
the square chip below the FPGA is the configuration eeprom for that FPGA, loads the "hardware" program on bootup
Thanks Aumary! I’ll have to do a more in-depth tear down next time.
I'd expect those four chips around the main processor are Ram.
There's no space on that lower board for a third audio input, to match the missing switches on the top.
Given the ISO is out now, and those pads aren't used on it either, and given there's a space for a UART chip that's also not present, I'm going to suggest that the button and missing chips and socket, are to communicate to another device. A jog/shuttle wheel for replays on the ISO would be one choice, but doing so would have had the button placement associated moved away from the Audio input controls, and Jog/Shuttle could be done via ethernet connection.
What I think we'll see next, is a small Atem Audio add-on, a mini mixer with sliders and probably four balanced inputs.
The 2+2 missing chips to the ledt of the CPU are probably RAM and the 2 to the right are flash memory. There is also a 8 lead chip above the flash that is probably a serial boot EEPROM.
Thanks for this insight! I kind of think the ISO is the last in the lineup of the Minis, mainly because of what you're talking about. If they want to add more, then they need a different form factor. But you never know! They could come out with some crazy feature that it can still handle. I suppose they could change the top PCB if they wanted to add more buttons.
@@RyanKnowsNothing - Chatting with some people with more access,.. there's some pre-production information suggesting the design originally had a headphones socket out to the left side, that has since been deleted.
This is still an extra audio interface, and BMD's audio side, is not great,.. I'm still expecting a further model with audio expansion, perhaps in co-ordination with another manufacturer.
Many BM devices (BM converters, PCI minirecorder so on) havn't the interface HDMI chips (in most cases the HDMI interface is realized on FPGA), and I am really pleased that seems in Atem mini there are some secialized HDMI interfacing chips. Could you kindly wrote down the markings on those chips? I have heard that Atem mini inputs often burining out because of bad grounding, so just interested where to buy spares and what the functionality of those chips. many thanks.
The HDMI out is at least a TDP158, and is a display interface chip capable of handling several DisplayPort lanes.
The HDMI in on number 1 is a TMDS171, this is the only interface-in chip that is different because of either setting format standards (it can determine the video standard the rest of the inputs allow/set if I remember the manual correctly), but it could also be different because it might allow routing HDMI 1 directly through to the out, so might require some extra pins. It's also the only non-BGA chip on the interface-in ports.
HDMI 2, 3 and 4 all use adv7610bbcz-p chips.
This is information that for me comes from an Atem Mini Pro by the way (one that has a defective out, that is working, but mostly intermittent).
In my case it probably requires replacing the TDP158 but I'll have to do some more testing first because output seemed to become a bit more stable because of the chip heating up.
When there was some display at some point, it did eventually show the correct colors, so the chip is fine, and it could also just be the pins on the HDMI out port that are not making good contact anymore.
If you want to look at spares, look at Mouser, Digikey, Distrelec or a different big electronics parts seller. The TDP158 is sold by Mouser.
My USB C died. I got a high power use error first on my Mac. Assuming it shorted. Looking at this what do you see that I should replace? Is there a specific usb c connector I need? Kind of a noob and they want 125 to fix it. New ones are now 195
Waiting for the ATEM Mini Pro ISO Plus.
It’ll be interesting to see what they come up with next.
Hi. I got a new 4k splitter so i can display to 2 projectors from my atem mini extreme switcher. All went well until about 2 hours of show, everything went black. Initial suspect was that the new splitter caused ground. I recently checked the extreme and it did detect all HDMI input but the output resolution is not okay. Audio and recording is fine. One suggestion was to change the pins of hdmi out. I'm not sure how delicate the pins are and there's no ATEM service center. I'm not super knowledgeable about this. Hope i could get a help from you or anyone? It will really be a big help🙏
If your experience with desoldering or soldering SMD components is slim tot none, please do not attempt to repair an HDMI connector. The pins on an HDMI connector are delicate and if you don't know what you are doing trying to desolder the HDMI connector you will rip off incredibly tiny pads that will require a lot of work to repair if possible at all.
Personally, I would be more suspect of the interface chip that drives the output. If it is the same in the Mini Extreme, it is a TDP158 interface chip, and from what I have been able to find it is slightly notorious for going bad due to overheating issues.
Since it doesn't see any passive nor forced-air cooling in the Mini Pro (Bought a defective one yesterday hoping to fix it) I would not be surprised if that is the culprit in yours as well.
Mouser sells this TDP158 chip for about 5 euro's each in my country (The Netherlands). Some phone repair ships might be willing to try and fix this if they do soldering to phones and tablets or laptops, because the technique in doing so is inevitably is the same.
has anyone tried to have the usb port replaced? have an atem mini with a failed usb port. Sent to BMD and they won't fix it (no repair available). So trying to decide to do with the paperweight.
Thanks! Always curious 😀
Thanks for taking a look at my crazy videos, Virgil!
On the top board, the square IC is probably an Arduino class MCU (Micro Controller Unit). It is probably talking a serial protocol with the bottom board CPU. Don't know why they used a wide ribbon cable? If the MCU is talking I2C to the main CPU on the bottom board, then only 4 wires would be needed rather than the ribbon cable.
The next two ICs are probably 8x8 switch matrix encoders. The last IC is probably a 8x8 LED driver.
About the 4 extra buttons, they are probably included to fill out the first 8x8 switch matrix. Ignoring the bottom row of buttons, there are exactly 64 buttons including the 4 unused buttons.
Hey Robert! Thanks for all your comments and expert input on this. I think it all looks cool, but I am by no means an expert. You are awesome!
@@RyanKnowsNothing Thank you for the useful comments.
There is not much space to pull out the Mic inputs and make it balanced (except for the last "tad-bit") -- just wish the audio inputs could be "PRO" and not consumer grade. Mabe just build an external module -- thinking about the THAT 1580/5171
Digitally Controlled Microphone Preamplifier { www.thatcorp.com/1580-5171_Digital_Mic_Preamp.shtml }. That gives the foundation for having XLR inputs -- time to sketch this out in detail.
That might be an idea! I hope a future version (when they adjust the form factor) they can give us everything needed.
Hello, I hope you are well. We have an Atem mini pro, during a transmission in a gym there was a voltage spike that affected it (although we were protected with UPS); at that moment the HDMI output port smoked and so we immediately turned off the equipment. Then to test it we turned it on, the 'atem' turned on, however it does not give a signal on the monitor (HDMI output). I ask you: Is there any chance that it can be repaired if only the HDMI output port has been affected? comments. Thank you very much.
If you observed smoke, you should be able to open up the unit and witness the TDP158 chip near the output port having a burn or "blister" mark where the smoke left the part.
If you need to ask this question, you are probably not equipped with the skills to desolder this chip and buy a new one off of Mouser or a similar electronics parts store, but it might be possible (I am attempting to try this myself for a unit with intermittent HDMI out which does work but might have a defective chip or loose legs on the port itself.)
A voltage spike will probably not have been transferred into the unit (switch-mode power supplies, which the ATEM uses are typically protected from them reasonably well because of how they create lower voltages) but if camera's tied to it were operating on mains voltage there can have been a voltage difference between devices, more the result of a ground loop than an actual voltage spike.
If this spike was the result of a direct or indirect lightning strike, it might have damaged the power supply first and then hit the unit, or there was a spike induced in the cabling due to the massive amount of power in the electromagnetic pulse that a lightning strike also is.
Have you tried what happens if you just use the hidden button-pads?
I didn’t, mainly because I didn’t want to power up the unit with it open.
I think Its a hidden button to connect to main blackmagic server or some kind of launch button 😂
Thanks for making this video
I can't not open things up. It's a curse I think. Thanks man!
What adapter are you using to connect the Sennheiser lav mic to the Rode Wireless Go?
Hey Victor! Sorry for the late reply. I took the last month of the year off from RUclips.
In answer to your question, the ME2 is one that I had replaced the connector on a long time ago. I think it is a Rean 1/8" screw down connector. It sounds good, but I think it may have needed a resistor or something in there. I ended up just getting a Rode Lavalier Go for $80. It's not the best sounding mic, but I know it'll work withe the Wireless Go setup.
I hope that helps! Thanks Victor!
My HDMI out went black at one point and never came back. Any ideas why? All cables and connections and screens were verified and in good working order. All other functions of the ATEM were good. Firmware was updated aslo. Any help would be appreciated. Unit is off warranty. Thanks.
Can be the TDP158, which has some mentions in the datasheet about max voltages and temperatures in free-to-air operation (which the application in the Atem mini switchers obviously is not).
Given that it does not see even a little bit of forced air cooling and the fan in the unit I have barely spins at all even though the main processor get's freakishly hot (burn your fingers hot) it could be that it sees overheating.
Best things to check is to heat up the PCB with a hairdryer (if it blows hard and heats up quickly, use a big distance, if it's a much older hairdryer, you can use a smaller distance) and heat up the PCB for let's say 5-10 minutes, and switch on the unit.
If there is output and it is intermittent, it could be heat-related where the TDP158 chip is suffering poor contacts that due to heat become better (expansion is a thing after all, even in 5x5mm sized components).
If that doesn't make things better, try cooling it down by force-cooling it with something (preferably something not causing condensation to appear). If the chip suffers a thermal runaway state due to poor thermal dissipation (achieved by good PCB design, which....well, might not be what BlackMagic adhered to) you will see it that way.
Find something plastic and softly tap the chip as well: if that causes output to temporarily reappear, the chip might only be suffering poor contact on pins, and require reflowing with a hot-air station, protect the HDMI out port with aluminium foil when you do to prevent melting of the plastic core of it. Pay attention to the small parts in the immediate surroundings as well, they might start to wander off because of the hot-air gun's airflow.
Take a high-resolution picture beforehand if possible so you can identify missing components if only for their shape/color if necessary.
Troubleshooting will be the more important thing to do here in order to not replace the wrong part and not fix the problem (or make it worse).
Thanks for doing a teardown!
"The fan is really quiet" LMAOOL - Not my ATEM Mini Pro ISO!! It's loud when it's not hitting something (shroud or wires?) and when it is hitting something, it is unacceptably LOUD and unusable. And there's more than me that has/had this problem. Most disappointing for $900...
That’s funny! I never hear mine unless I am doing a firmware update.
@@RyanKnowsNothing Perhaps a difference between the Pro and ISO? To be fair, mine doesn't run all the time but if I have more than 2 inputs and also doing keying, it fires up and gets louder and louder during use. When it's banging against (I'm guessing) the wiring harness, it's flat out disturbing.
I am super excited seeing your teardown video.
Thoughts that pop in mind.
1. Why does the RTC does not have a battery installed ??
2. Did you take Hi-Res Still images of the board ?? The chips could be identified then.
3. The chips right behind the HDMI connectors could be HDMI Rx chips which takes in a HDMI signal and converts it to Parallel or Serial Video signal that could be used by the SoC which I guess could be a Xilinx (Intel) UltraScale which includes a high efficiency H.265 / H.264 encoder www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/white_papers/wp471-ultrascale-plus-perf.pdf or even the latest Arria series. www.intel.in/content/www/in/en/products/programmable/arria-series.html
4. Technically it should only be software (IP in this case) with exactly similar hardware of the ATEM Mini for the functionality offered for the PRO model.
5. Could there be a hack to convert a Mini into Pro 😈
6. The chip is capable of processing 4K, the unpopulated DRAMs on the pcb could mean a larger frame buffer.
When you open it again keep some heatsink compound handy. Wipe off the compound and you could identify the chip. Then you can re apply the compound and put back the heatsink.
Adhesives loosen up with heat. Don't put it in the oven though while dealing with.
A big big THAAAAANK YOU Bro. Grateful that you did this. I have been wondering if a low cost 4K to 2K ePTZ could be made. All cameras are 4K and we only stream at 2K so having a viewport (Region of Interest of ROI) scaler could give electronic pan tilt and zoom. Such product does exist but expensive. www.aja.com/products/4k2hd
Thanks Sougata! I am not sure why there is no battery. I may take it apart once more to see if a battery will help retain the information in the ATEM when power cycling the unit.
I didn't take hi-res images unfortunately. Again, something I'll have to do when I bust it open again. I posted a link to a guy in the Uk who took photos of the regular ATEM Mini.
You are a much smarter individual than I am! You bring some great info to the table. I will definitely have some compound handy next time! Thanks again for the comment and all the great info. Good luck on your streams as well!
Next time, please wipe the thermal compound of the main chip so we can see what the markings are! 😀 (and reapply some before you put it back together again 😅)
I definitely would have but I don’t have any extra lying around. Maybe when I open the other models! Thanks man!
Xilinx FPGA. Bmd does all there video processing in Xilinx. 😉
It's a Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ which is an ARM based MPSoC. Basically a bog-standard set of ARM cores with an FPGA built into the chip for custom logic. An FPGA is basically a sea of transistors that lets you design any sort of logic you may want. You can build your own specially optimized "CPU" or "GPU" in a large FPGA. BMD will be using that FPGA bit to do all the video processing in hardware with their own custom design.
@@ConnorEhrgood Do you think there is any difference in processing by outputting via USB vs Ethernet, or is all the processing the same?
Going out on a limb here. I think the large silver chip is a custom DSP chip that actually processes the video and below it is a smaller black chip, U31, that is probably an ARM base SOC, System On a Chip. The ARM CPU is probably running a custom version of Linux (Linux From Scratch?). And there appers to be a serial console with its Rx and Tx pads.
Xilinx fpga. Bmd only uses Xilinx fpgas for all there video processing. No Linux. But real fpga power. The Atem mini is powered up and ready within a second. Try that with Linux 😂
If it was Linux based they would have to make the code available. I can't see BMD wanting to make that public.
@@WolfsHaven A popular misconception. Yes, BMD would need to make any Open Source code they use available, but only the base code they include in their product. For most Open Source code there is no requirement for companies to make their changes available. Only the base code they started with.
@@xtlivestream5825 I would wager BMD is running Linux on those two ARM cores on the FPGA. Linux gives the hardware developer an extremely robust set of internet utilities straight out of the box. A kernel, realtime performance hooks, a robust development environment, any programming language you might want, any Internet service you can think of, rich debugging tools. The list goes on and on. If you don't need them, leave them out and save space and resources. All for free.
I think you would be surprised how quickly a stripped down Linux based device can boot. In a second? Maybe not. But 2 or 3 would not be hard. The key here is "stripped down". Linux runs very happily in a few Mb (not Gb) of ram and a few Mb of flash. You can run Linux on the ESP32 micro-controllers with no additional memory.
Robert Harker but they are required to note what libraries they used.
Knowing Bmd. There fpgas are running full stacks, parrallel processing and more. They build this from scratch. Or they bought a xillinx IP that is able to do this.
The whole TICO streaming they implemented in the 12G IP teranex mini converters are also a Xillinx IP that you can buy. I would not be supervised if on the Xilinx website there is just an IP to buy H264 RTMP encoding. 😉
Wait - there's SW 5, 6, and 17 and 18 unused!
I bet they could be reprogrammed to be used as macro buttons to say the least.
That would be awesome! Perhaps they have one more iteration in them.
It would be cool if someone would open the mini, the mini pro and the mini pro iso side by side, allowing us to see the differences as well as the similarities.
And even cooler to see how it works if you combine the parts! Can you turn a mini into a pro by adding a few inexpensive parts? Maybe not, but wouldn't that be nice?
I agree. That would be awesome. Not me though! Can’t risk that much money!
my HDMI Port 1 is not displaying any kind of signal anymore. just black screen. Blackmagic says since its out of warranty period, there is no repair. I am thinking it may be a port issue. any idea of how to replace the port on our own by soldering a new one
If you are convinced it's the port (it could be, but I'm more suspicious of the interface chip right behind the port which is a TMDS171), protect some of the smaller parts on the underside and heat it with a hot air gun from the underside without a nozzle on it. This will make the ground on the HDMI port become hot enough for removal along with heat traveling quickly enough to the much smaller interface pins to nicely detach without to much risk of ripping of a pad.
Take high resolution pictures of the immediate surroundings of the HDMI connector to be able to identify any possible parts that go wandering off or fall of due to the heat of the hot air gun.
I noticed the top board said copyright 2019, while the bottom said 2020. Maybe the mini has the same top
Yep! I believe I talk about that towards the end. I bet the regular mini and ISO have the same top PCB.
@@RyanKnowsNothing yes, the upper PCB is the same in the original Mini as well.
Add me to the long list of people who would like to thank you for doing this. I've been considering this myself. But don't own an ATEM Mini. Do have access to one but they may not appreciate my curiosity. Like others, I'm wondering if the only differences in the three models are; number of buttons and memory.
Ha! Thanks Glynne! I’ve been trying to get my hands on the other variants but money is a bit tight right now.
Fantastic vid cheers for sharing
Thanks!
Hmm, who's gonna solder on some more ram there? Also bet those other empty spots are for a serial interface, maybe jtag or i2c or something.
They (the manufacturer) probably added memory for the ATEM Mini Pro ISO.
The empty spot with 8 large pads is probably a serial console. It is marked with Rx and Tx. Wonder what is displayed as the mini boots.
Did it work when you put it back together?
Yes it did! Even after the second time I took it apart. Check out the very end of the video.
What are you using for your overhead shot lighting?
Some for of that, yes. Nah, just an iPhone using Filmic Pro. I didn’t have the shutter speed set properly and obviously it isn’t the best camera to use.
@@RyanKnowsNothing I actually thought it came out pretty good.
What was the little white switch for
It is labeled SW1, so I steered clear of that! Perhaps a reset button of some kind?
Great video!
Thanks Landon!
After see its fan, I start to worry about heat when use ATEM mini outside
Let us know what you find out about that. I don't think I'll ever do that, but it'd be nice to know if it can handle it.
i just claim my ATEM mini, two HDMI port spoil and sometime the hdmi out or usb c out just hang, my work environment is average 33 degree C. .
Always hate that 5th screw!
Right?!?
Pleeeeaase bust open a Sling Studio hub. People having sooo many issues after warranty :(
I wish I had one to break open! Maybe some day.
Looks like one big FPGA - Xilinx Virtex or something?
and some memory chips surrounding it.
Probably. Everything in our industry is being ran off some sort of FPGA core.
@@billlance387 Xilinx Ultrascale+ EV, if I remember correctly
I can see you now with the two cartoon characters one on each shoulder. The wee devil saying "you know you want to" and the wee angel saying "you shouldn't really!". Glad you did though. Cheers.
Hahaha!!! Absolutely!
Hello i hope you are reading comments, i want buy atem mini pro BUT i need know quality of streaming is good like a obs x264 ? I am using now magewell ultrastream hdmi but quality of stream its not so good i am looking for new streaming device.I am streaming fps games.My streaming setups are 1080p60fps 8000 bitrate
I am not sure how that compares. I know that the streams have been really clean. Aaron Parecki has streamed a lot from the ATEM Mini Pro, so I'd say go check out his streams and see what you think.
Im the same way dude, my parents would get upset when they would buy me electronics and I would rip it apart on day 1
Ha! Yes. I'm surprised my parents kept buying me stuff like that!
Yep - Guilty as charged myself! LOL
I thought about doing this (teardown) on my relatively brand new unit because of the terrible fan noise my ATEM Mini Pro ISO has, especially when the fan is hitting something, as it does occasionally. So - THANKS hi-tech on life for doing it first/for me!! Based on your video, my guess is it's a cheap fan made of cheap materials, which swells and gets off balance when it gets hot and thus starts hitting the shroud or the wires on its connector just below (a really dumb place to put the connector IMHO) or both.
This video is very informative about the basic architecture of the unit. And, nope - the ISO didn't get those extra audio switches on input 3, so maybe they're for the Mini Pro Plus-1-day-maybe version. ;-)
can you open the ISO?
I would if I had one, but the funds are a bit small currently.
@@RyanKnowsNothing You can and you will it's just a matter of time, i have faith in you, so the money will come.
thanks for the video.
If you compare with replacing the clutch on an old SAAB this looked like a piece of cake just a few screws and you are done lol
Ha! Very true!
I want to see the inside of a red camera.
I think Linus Tech Tips did a video on that.
@@RyanKnowsNothing Do you have the video ID or link?
When I was a kid Id take stuff apart...Pop used to get mad at me for that...but I became an Engineer...
Dang straight!
Medal of courage
Ha! Thanks Michel! Much appreciated.
As Grant said in the presentation, I bet the top part has a microcontroller using actual Blackmagic API to talk the the "actual video board", using BM macros. That's probably why it's currently impossible to reprogram the buttons, as it would imply a reprogramming of the chip in the top part.
The 2 blank spaces seems to be for RAM, so maybe they can swap the moutable ASIC, and add more RAM when needed for processing. If the HDMI controllers next to the plug can handle 4K, or if they can find other controllers using the same footprint, maybe they'll be able to produce a 4K version easily.
Another thing to note is the other space for a ribbon cable, on the left. If it's connected to the ASIC maybe they could extend the features with another daughter board. But I don't think it would be enough to handle the signals, maybe I'm wrong.
Anyway, very interesting teardown, thank you for doing it!
And thanks to Blackmagic for making such amazing products for the price!! :p
Thanks man! And thanks for your advanced knowledge of this stuff. My brain only has a certain amount of space and right now it's filled with audio related stuff. That would be extra cool if they could make a 4k version of each switch.
Oh it’s just a guess, I’m far from being an expert :D
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Man I'm still waiting to get my hands on the Pro they come out with the ISO and you are taking yours apart. Sigh.. :)
Aww man! What’s taking so long? Would you rather have an ISO? I think I would.
@@RyanKnowsNothingmore features more money. The ATEM is definitely mores law at work by the time I decided the mini was for me they did the pro. Can't get the pro as yet and they got the ISO. So I'm gonna stick with the pro. Hopefully everyone goes for the ISO so the pro is available lol.
Oh dude! There’s no point not to reveal the FPGA chip model. All the people in the industry are slavering to know. May I ask you to buy some thermal paste and teardown again? Haha
I guess it’s a Zynq.
That was my thought as well. Dieing to know what chip they used.
Maybe on the next model I get.
Zynq Ultrascale+ EV if I'm not mistaken
@@ConnorEhrgood Unlikely, consider how affordable it is...
@@wilsonlmh22 I pulled one apart, definitely an Ultrascale+ of some sort, just can't remember what specifically. Those guys are expensive one off, but price falls DRAMATICALLY with volume
Dude why would you take a para such a perfect machine what’s wrong with you
They’ve been trying to figure that out for years.
Goody goody. 🖐🖐Electronic guts mmmmmmn.
I know, right?
Grown up.....right....LOL!
Ha! You know it!
So much focus hunting in this video :-/
I know! Stupid camera!
@@RyanKnowsNothing there are benefits at times to just sticking with manual focus, at least then the camera can't take on a mind of its own
The funny thing is that I almost did that. I had the fear of me being just completely out of focus the whole time. Next video will be much better.
is it 500 quids worth of kit....? probly nah. its a controller essentially. nut unlike a lot of controllers its over priced.
I'd agree with you on other pieces of equipment these days. For instance every control surface ever for mixing audio. Or other higher end Blackmagic switchers that have a brain somewhere else in a rack. But this guy is all self contained! I don't need a computer to run it. All the scaling, audio processing, stream encoding and everything else is all done inside. I say it is definitely worth the 500 bucks!
@@RyanKnowsNothing theres a fair argument here based on what it can do. i might change my mind yet. id have to be earning decent money though for it to be a justifiable purchase.
@@nobbystyles4807 how can you say that this is just a controller? It is definitely not, it's a hardware switcher with quite a bit of functionality, including stream encoder and recorder, to some degree built on the same software/firmware as BDMs more expensive units. On top of that hardware, it also has a basic control surface.
There are Midi controllers out there that cost more :P
Just compare what a dedicated 1080P streaming encoder that can stream directly to the internet via LAN costs, BDM themselves doesn't even offer one, the closest they have is a 720P unit for almost exactly the same price, with significantly less capabilities (but with SDI though).
@@Robinlarsson83 because dear chap, i recently bought a state of the art full 12 voice polyphonic 49 key synthesizer for about the same price as this. it is a behringer and as such is probably slightly low balling the market (ie it should be more expensive) but considering the sheer power of the thing its unlikely ill get bored of it for the next year or more..... so its a pretty diverse flexible bit of kit that i cant also use as a stand alone production tool.
the value comparison isnt good, the atem might be handling a bit of encoding but its not doing much of value.
@@Robinlarsson83 because dear chap, i recently bought a state of the art full 12 voice polyphonic 49 key synthesizer for about the same price as this. it is a behringer and as such is probably slightly low balling the market (ie it should be more expensive) but considering the sheer power of the thing its unlikely ill get bored of it for the next year or more..... so its a pretty diverse flexible bit of kit that i cant also use as a stand alone production tool.
the value comparison isnt good, the atem might be handling a bit of encoding but its not doing much of value.
This is why I freaking love the internet! You can literally find anything! You just saved me about 150 bucks my man! I'm about to pull the most devious lick ever! I'll edit this post with details after mission complete! 🥷🏼