HDMI is really taking hold on the broadcast/film industry and pretty much all the big players now offer it somewhere. Black Magic design, Sony, Canon, Convergent Design and so on now have this as a standard and you see it in monitors, cameras and recorders, transmitters and receivers.
But it seems that an HDMI connector/signal is simply not just an HDMI connector/signal. I’ve been trying to concert a GoPro Hero 3+ black edition camera from HDMI to SDI for a about a week now.
My first try was with the Atomos Connect. It won’t convert the GoPro unless the camera is set to 720/100?!! It will NOT lock in any other picture mode of 720 or 1080. The Atomos receives the signal but won’t lock and it seems to be some sort of “hand shake/protocol” issue.
Then I tried the Black Magic Design HDMI-SDI converter with the built in battery. It worked great on a Sony 17″ OLed but when I tried it on my 5″ Marshall it didn’t work…
I wish HDMI was more like SDI. I think it is a huge problem when something works only sometimes with certain “compatible” equipment. I don’t know if this is an issue related to the GoPro HDMI out but when in doubt I go by the practice: “Don’t assume, test!”
