ATEM SuperSource

In preview

ATEM supersource is in preview. If this is something you want on your show, get in touch on Discord or through our contact page and we’ll talk through it with you.

Blackmagic’s ATEM switchers have a SuperSource: a four-box picture-in-picture composite you can lay out however you like. Programming it from the switcher panel means typing numbers and squinting at multiview.

sndwrks local gives you a visual editor for it. Drag boxes on a canvas, save the layout into a macro command, and fire it from anywhere a macro can be fired.

Add the switcher

The ATEM is a device like anything else. Add it on the Devices page.

The server speaks the switcher’s own protocol, so it keeps a live session going and knows what the switcher can do.

Build the layout

Add a Device command to a macro, pick your ATEM, and choose SuperSource Apply Layout. That opens the editor.

The canvas

Four boxes, each with its own colour, over a 16:9 canvas. Drag a box to move it, drag a corner handle to scale it, or drag one of the edge handles to crop it.

• Arrow keys nudge the selected box 1 pixel.
• Shift + arrows nudge 10 pixels.
• 1 – 4 select a box.
• G toggles the grid.
• S toggles snap.
• Delete or Backspace resets the selected box — confirm first, then it goes back to its default position, size, and input.

The toolbar

• Layout Name — name it something you’ll recognize in six weeks. “Two Up with Lower Third”, not “layout 3”.
• Box selector — four buttons with the color swatch that matches each box on the canvas.
• Grid — a 16 × 9 alignment grid over the canvas.
• Snap — boxes snap to the grid as you drag.
• Mask — appears only when a mask is uploaded. See below.

Box controls

The panel beside the canvas holds the exact numbers for the selected box, and the canvas and the numbers always agree — move one and the other follows.

• Box on — whether this box is part of the composite at all.
• Input Source — the ATEM input number feeding the box.
• Position X / Position Y
• Scale (%)
• Crop Left / Right / Top / Bottom, with a Clear Crop button that goes dim when there’s nothing to clear.

Tip

Nothing you do in the editor touches your macro until you confirm the dialog. Cancel is a true discard, so you can shove boxes around to see what a layout would look like and back out cleanly.

Fire it

The saved command applies all four boxes in a single packet, so the switcher lands the whole layout at once rather than snapping through intermediate states.

If something’s wrong you get a specific message:

• No ATEM selected on the command.
• The selected ATEM no longer exists.
• This ATEM model has no SuperSource.
• This ATEM’s SuperSource has fewer boxes than the layout uses.

Design against your scenery

Real content rarely fills a clean rectangle.

Upload a SuperSource mask and the editor floats it over the canvas so you can lay out against the actual geometry.

1. Go to Settings → ATEM → SuperSource Mask.
2. Upload a PNG or SVG of your scenic geometry — 512 KB max.
3. Save.

Once a mask exists, the editor toolbar grows a Mask switch and an opacity slider so you can fade it against your boxes.

Note

The mask is a design aid and nothing more. It never reaches the switcher and never appears in program. One mask per server.

Uploading and replacing a mask is gated on settings.atem.superSourceMask.edit; seeing the panel at all needs settings.atem.view.