Warning

This is a work in progress. NOT TESTED YET AND NOT PRODUCTION READY. This software is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind. The author cannot be held liable for any damage, malfunction or loss resulting from its use, including during live productions. Use it at your own risk and test it before going on air. See LICENCE

Ross Carbonite

Controls a Carbonite switcher series. For now only Carbonite Black Solo (CBF-109) or Carbonite Black Solo 13 (CBF-113) are available. This module uses RossTalk to communicate with teh switcher, and reads tally and source names back with TSL UMD v3.1.

Control (RossTalk)

The switcher accepts RossTalk on TCP port 7788, nothing has to be enabled on it. Enter the IP address of the frame (192.168.0.123 from the factory) in the module configuration.

Available actions

Trigger GPI
Fire custom control
Cut, Auto Transition, Fade to black
XPT (select a source on Program, Preview, a key, an Aux bus or a MiniME)
Transition Keyer, Key Mode
Next Transition: included elements, Transition Rate, Transition Type
Recall Memory, Store Memory
Load Set, Save Set
Load Media-Store
Set Source Name
Clip Player, Clip Player: Load Clip
Initialize Chroma Key
List supported commands
Send a custom command

The commands are those of the Ross RossTalk reference. Older software versions do not know all of them: run List supported commands and read the module log to see what your switcher accepts. The switcher gives no answer to a command, so an action that is refused fails silently.

The HDMI inputs come after the SDI inputs: IN:13 on the Solo 13, IN:7 to IN:9 on the Solo.

This module calls Preview the bus that Ross calls Preset (PST in RossTalk). The preview outputs (PV in RossTalk) are listed as Preview Out.

Feedback (TSL UMD v3.1)

RossTalk gives no status. For feedback, the switcher has to send TSL UMD to Companion:

On the switcher press MENU > SYSTEM > NEXT > NEXT > Device Config.
Press Add and select an ethernet slot.
Set Type to SerialTally, then SubType to TSLUMD_1.0.
Enter the IP address of the computer running Companion.
Set Port to the TSL Listen Port of this module (5727 by default) and Transport to the TSL Transport of this module (UDP by default).
Set ShowUMDId to On and ShowBusName to Off.
Set 1SecUpdate to On so that Companion catches up quickly after a restart.

Open the listen port in the firewall of the computer running Companion.

Feedbacks

Tally: source on Program / Preview: the tally the switcher sends for an input or a Media-Store (TSL tally 2 is program, tally 1 is preview).
Bus: source selected: the source selected on ME 1 Background or Preview, on a key, on an Aux bus or on a MiniME. With ShowUMDId off the switcher only sends the name of the source, and the feedback is wrong when two sources have the same name. Black and Matte Color share TSL ID 0 and cannot be told apart.
TSL: tally of an address: any tally of any TSL address.

Variables

source_in1_name ..., source_ms1_name ...: source names set on the switcher.
bus_me1_bkgd_source, bus_me1_pv_source, bus_aux1_source ...: name of the source selected on the bus, and ..._source_id for its TSL ID.

The TSL addresses used are those of the Carbonite Black Solo column of the Ross TSL UMD setup page.

Credits

Based on companion-module-rossvideo-rosstalk.

ROSS®
Bitfocus

License

The MIT License

Warning

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

see LICENSE

Author

Ange-Marie MAURIN : a-m.maurin@a2msystemes.fr

AI assistance

Parts of this module were written with the help of Claude Code (Anthropic). All code was reviewed by the author. Hardware testing is still in progress.