Minza 2026

Click here for Minza 8.0 Media

Overall, I think Minza went well. Others will disagree.

Mixer was fun and uneventful. Dhruv, the photographer, had a family emergency so he couldn't make it. I filled in for Mixer photography, but Dhruv was back to be the photographer for comp.

Dhruv got back to campus at the end of Mixer. I stayed over with him for the night so we were able to review some of his past work from Sitaaron Ki Shaam (UMD's South Asian performing arts fall showcase). I noticed a few things he could do better with cropping, editing, and framing, but overall, he got all the shots that mattered at SKS.

For Minza, I gave Dhruv the Nikon Z6iii with a 50mm f/1.2. The above picture was shot by him at comp. It's soo good, right!? I can't wait for him to finish editing the rest. Really glad I went over things with him the night before comp.

Livestream Audio Issues

Throughout the livestream, the audience experienced a separation of about 8 seconds between the picture and the audio. For a dance show, this type of lag is unacceptable and arguably makes it impossible to watch. I understand, and I'm deeply sorry about this issue. Some commenters found workarounds while others stayed to spew hateful comments.

Here's the technical bits from which we can troubleshoot this issue.

Some audio issues are apparent at 1:04:27 in the livestream. Roughly 8 seconds after the emcee speaks, we hear her again. Let's look at our setup to see where there may be issues. This may get a bit technical, and I don't have any pictures taken of the setup at the time of the livestream.

At the center of the setup was the Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Pro. Fed into it were: line-in from the audio booth, line-in from a Sennheiser MKE-600 via a Zoom H4e, front row camera (Nikon ZR w/ 17-35mm f/2.8), back row camera (Nikon Z6iii w/ 24-700mm f/2.8), and emcee camera (Nikon Z8 w/ 70-200 f/2.8). The ATEM Mini Pro outputs to a viewing monitor and a laptop (HP Spectre x360) running OBS.

Before the show, I tested the audio as usual to make sure the levels sound good. In doing so, I found that there was no audio from the ATEM into OBS even thought the ATEM sofware showed an input. This does happen sometimes with open source software, so I found a workaround by adding an additional audio input in OBS and setting it to capture audio from the ATEM. I turned off audio inputs from the 3 cameras, and used the line-in from the booth as the main audio source. I also allowed input from the MKE-600 for audience cheering and turned it down in the ATEM software by roughly 10dB.

During the show, as the front-row camera operator, I cannot monitor the livestream. A volunteer from the competition board manages switching cameras on the ATEM and switching slideshows on OBS. To be able to fix issues quickly, I equipped the volunteer and my entire team with Hollyland Solidcom C1 Pro wireless headsets to stay in communication. Reading the livestream comments, the volunteer told me about the audio issues during the first anthem performance. Seeing as there were two inputs into the ATEM, I turned off the MKE-600, hopefully removing the "echo" from the mic potentially being out of sync from the audio booth (although this was not an issue while testing before the stream). At 1:07:00, we can see the issue still persists.

During the second anthem, I came back to check why there is double audio. I realized it may be due to the earlier workaround where OBS wasn't getting audio from the ATEM. So, I turned off "Audio Input Capture 2" and allowed audio from the Video Capture Device (which is the ATEM):

Photo by Dhruv Suri.

Once I did this, the double audio was gone. Things seemed to be fine until the end of RU Sapa's performance, when my volunteer called me back because of continuing audio complaints from commenters. I thought maybe the line-in from the audio booth is out of sync with my camera. Or there might be latency due to the Hollyland Pyro H wireless video transmission system. So I told my volunteer to switch to the audio from the cameras whenever he switched cameras, and not use the line-in. There wasn't enough time for me to confirm if this worked because UGA Shikaari's performance began. You can actually see me rushing to get back to the front row in the their Front Row video.

The complaints continued. There's something wrong and I couldn't figure it out. After the comp, I went home. I set up the livestream the exact same way, and played a countdown timer to see where the delay is coming from. I suspected it was the connection between ATEM and OBS. The test showed no issues. I could not replicate the lag. I tried switching cameras, looking through settings in OBS and the ATEM software, switching between "Audio Input Capture 2" and "Video Capture Device" in the OBS Audio Mixer, and other things. I still couldn't figure out the issue.

Until now. Until I went back through everything to see what might be the issue. While looking through the YouTube livestream comments, one commenter gave me the biggest hint:

This comment came in exactly when I returned tot he front row for Shikaari's performance. It would have told me that the last "fix" did have an effect. I just did it backwards. By turning on "Audio Input Capture 2" and turning off "Video Capture Device" in the OBS Audio Mixer I could have fixed the issue. Right?

Let me run another test to see if we can recreate the issue. This time, same setup, and I'll turn on both "Audio Input Capture 2" and "Video Capture Device". The result: there's is double audio. But, it's only a quarter second off. Not 8 seconds. So what could be the issue? I still don't know.

I have one more theory to test: The audio lag could've aggregated on one of the sources in OBS while the other stayed synced. To test this, I'll run another test livestream unattended for an hour like I did at Minza, and see if the "Video Capture Device" aggregates a lag. I'll do that after posting this blog because I want this out soon.

UPDATE: after an hour of letting the livestream run, I found no significant difference between the two ATEM audio sources. It's unlikely one audio source aggregated a lag over time, rather, it's more likely OBS incurred a rare bug that's difficult to reproduce. In the future, we will continue to test audio more thoroughly and if needed, power cycle the entire setup between sets.

Uploading Front Rows

Since the livestream is difficult to watch, and because I think it's good practice, I posted the videos immediately after comp. Having fast turn around times is something I started doing at Tu Bhi Nachle 2024. After TBN, I went home and uploaded videos by 5am the next day. I thought I was the best videographer in the world for that (lol). Then the next week, the G.O.A.T., Ashwin Suresh, uploaded his comp videos the same night so I was a little defeated. Anyway, I bought a whole 2nd laptop so I can edit and post videos same night. It was worth it because I just sat in a Taco Bell and edited and posted after comp. Then I drove home in the glorious snow it was so beautiful. This was my first time in 3 years I didn't make it to Minza AP but it was worth it.

My Minza History

As a student at UMD, I've been involved with Minza one way or another for 5 years since my freshman year. My first year, I had no idea what DDN was. I just heard my friends were volunteering so I signed up too. I drove teams around in vans and it was so fun. I still had no idea what it was about until I saw JHU Zinda perform their Tom & Jerry set. Their opening song was Maari Thara Local, a Tamil song, which I did NOT expect considering I grew up exposed to a culture where the only Indian representation we had was primarily North. From there, I was addicted to DDN in every way except as a dancer. I volunteered for Minza again my sophomore year, where I met Raul from RGBTV who I shot Mixer with, and Ashwin Suresh who shot comp videos. I lost my camera so I didn't shoot comp lol, but I got my camera back eventually. I volunteered again Junior year, and Senior year, I was hired to be Minza's full photo + video team. I'll need to dedicate a whole blog post to that so stay tuned lol.

DDN Confessions

Confessions are always wild. Here's what people said about me after Minza: