Forget the iPhone 11 Pro as the budget game changer. This is!

Thomas Smet

Thomas Smet

Veteran
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/atemmini

As one who used to do a ton of live video switching and live video streaming this is the biggest game changer I have ever seen.

Not only is the hardware itself full of great features but plug the USB into a computer and you get switcher features that rival what I used to do on $20,000+ switchers. All for $295 which any YouTube personality could afford. Even has a full audio editing setup in software and a media store and PSD graphics support that just blows me away.

Pick up a few super cheap HD cameras with clean HDMI output and one has a fully featured production setup.
 
Pretty cool if it’s reliable. I have a 4 channel card in a PC with OBS to do this (+ 2 more inputs via USB HDMI capture devices).
For location work this could be excellent.
 
I've been using the ATEM switchers with the software interface for years (I have an X-keys USB keypad programmed to perform switcher and other functions). Great and versatile tool. I thought the new HDMI switcher looked cute but once I saw it interfaced with the software aspect, was even more impressed.
 
Looks very interesting. One nice thing it shows in the standards matrix is taking 1080i and sending a 1080p output. A bunch of old GH2 cameras are cheap.

The only real issue is cable length due to HDMI. I wonder if they will make an SDI version for a couple hundred more.

If we have money left at the end of our financial year, I'll pick one of these up.
 
Yes, very nice looking product. Blackmagic is proving to be a solid company for the lower budget but quality conscious shooters! There has to be some work out there to had setting up one of these with affordable cameras like Greg mentioned.
 
Greg_E said:
Looks very interesting. One nice thing it shows in the standards matrix is taking 1080i and sending a 1080p output. A bunch of old GH2 cameras are cheap.

The only real issue is cable length due to HDMI. I wonder if they will make an SDI version for a couple hundred more.

If we have money left at the end of our financial year, I'll pick one of these up.
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You can get 50' HDMI cables that are almost spec compliant. I think 45' is the max but some 50' cables have been tested to work fine up to at least 100' with 1080p sources.

Then there is HDMI over CAT6 solutions which do add a lot of cost to the setup but if you really need longer than 50' that's probably the best way to go. A lot of long run home installations will use CAT6 to send HDMI signals through walls. 50' to the left of the switcher and 50' to the right of the switcher is still a pretty good spread of coverage for a Multicam shoot however. May not cover every scenario but then again this is aimed at budget users who are typically shooting in a small room or at most they kitchen for a online cooking show. Sports coverage could get a bit tricky for schools to cover an entire football field and in those cases I would suggest a CAT6 solution.

As nice as a SDI version would be it suddenly puts it out of reach for a lot of people since SDI cameras cost a lot more. I'm sure it would still provide HDMI but the SDI wouldn't help pa lot of people unless they already had some SDI capable HD cameras or invested in a bunch of HDMI to SDI adapters.

The SDI adapters are another solution that may cost less than the CAT6 solution. BMD has micro converters for $55.00 although they require a power supply. Each camera will require one plus a $59.00 SDI to HDMI adapter adding a $120 cost per camera but that may be one solution for using SDI with this for longer cable runs.
 
Thomas Smet said:
The SDI adapters are another solution that may cost less than the CAT6 solution. BMD has micro converters for $55.00 although they require a power supply. Each camera will require one plus a $59.00 SDI to HDMI adapter adding a $120 cost per camera but that may be one solution for using SDI with this for longer cable runs.
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I've had to spec a bunch of converters this year so the numbers are close at hand! The street price on the BMD micro converters are $45 without power supply and $59 with, for the SDI to HDMI version, and $39 and $55 respectively for the HDMI to SDI version. There is a copycat version on Amazon for $39 with power supply that has the same feature set, and a series of even cheaper versions of both directions (without the loop out) for around $29. I've had good results with all.

One thing to be aware of with SDI to HDMI conversion is that in 24p mode, many legit cameras (Sony, Panasonic) output 23.98psf rather than 23.98p and none of the ATEM switchers accept this as a format especially this one, since psf is not part of the HDMI spec. The BMD Micro will not make the conversion to 23.98p. The least expensive box that does is the Decimator MD-LX, which is a bi-directional converter for $99 with power supply.

Finally: at the switcher end, a cleaner way to power everything would be to get the versions without power supply and use a USB power hub and run USB-A to micro power cables to each converter (or USB-A to 5.5mm plug for the cheaper versions), rather than a separate wall wart for each. It's a humble savings but it's less bulky and hey, you might have some ports left over where you can charge your phone or other devices.
 
Thomas Smet said:
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/atemmini

As one who used to do a ton of live video switching and live video streaming this is the biggest game changer I have ever seen.
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It is impressive for what it is.

But what about sound? Maybe I'm missing it, but I'm not seeing any XLR sockets. If that's true, I wonder what possessed BMD to skip the mic preaps, phantom power options, and balanced XLR cables required to use real microphones (not to mention decent meters and limiters). You'd think that BMD would understand the need for XLR cables, especially for a box like this designed to be used in electrically questionable (i.e. noisy) places like houses and apartments.

So to use this new device I'd have to either buy some amateur mics for use just with this box, or some kind of audio mixer that can output unbalanced mic-level audio for 3.5mm plugs, like a MixPre-D can (with a custom cable). The newer SD boxes aren't designed to feed an unbalanced signal to a camera IIRC, because they are designed to do the sound recording themselves, which wouldn't be helpful during live streaming.

Hopefully this is just me being blind (again). And if that's true, hopefully some kind soul will point out my folly and correct my mistakes. I'd love to be wrong on this one.

Otherwise, it's a good thing MixPre-Ds are cheap and easy to find on the used markets.
 
The GH2 (specifically) has problems driving long cables, I'e had issues at 30 feet when other devices easily power through the same cable.

Be careful of some of the cheap converters, I have a few cheapo's and the audio doesn't work very well. But good for driving monitors that don't need audio.
 
Bruce Watson said:
It is impressive for what it is.

But what about sound? Maybe I'm missing it, but I'm not seeing any XLR sockets. If that's true, I wonder what possessed BMD to skip the mic preaps, phantom power options, and balanced XLR cables required to use real microphones (not to mention decent meters and limiters). You'd think that BMD would understand the need for XLR cables, especially for a box like this designed to be used in electrically questionable (i.e. noisy) places like houses and apartments.

So to use this new device I'd have to either buy some amateur mics for use just with this box, or some kind of audio mixer that can output unbalanced mic-level audio for 3.5mm plugs, like a MixPre-D can (with a custom cable). The newer SD boxes aren't designed to feed an unbalanced signal to a camera IIRC, because they are designed to do the sound recording themselves, which wouldn't be helpful during live streaming.

Hopefully this is just me being blind (again). And if that's true, hopefully some kind soul will point out my folly and correct my mistakes. I'd love to be wrong on this one.

Otherwise, it's a good thing MixPre-Ds are cheap and easy to find on the used markets.
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Um it is a $295 switcher that rivals what I used to do on a $20,000 switcher. Just how much do you want for $295? You need to look at the target market for this which is schools, gamers, webinars and YouTube presenters. XLR could have added to the cost and the majority of users may have had no need for it. There is nothing wrong with 3.5mm inputs and the majority of users may never actually use it and only use it for the four HDMI camera inputs. While it would be nice to have XLR it isn't a big deal to add in a adapter or cheap mixer in-between XLR and the 3.5mm port. There are more expensive BMD switchers if you need more professional features like XLR.
 
Bruce Watson said:
It is impressive for what it is.

But what about sound? Maybe I'm missing it, but I'm not seeing any XLR sockets. If that's true, I wonder what possessed BMD to skip the mic preaps, phantom power options, and balanced XLR cables required to use real microphones (not to mention decent meters and limiters).
Click to expand...

I have to agree with that. Even the you tubers use XLR mics and interface boxes. Anyone with multiple cameras and looking to do switching is going to be using xlr mics. At the least BMD should have included one XLR. Then you can easily plug a mixer in. I don't have any 3.5mm mics.

Otherwise the ATM mini is exactly what I need.
 
Does it have a multiview output? It appears you have to either use the HDMI Out for Program Out OR Multiview... which makes it pretty much useless for a live production where you need to feed the house image mag projectors AND have a multiview for the TD.
 
jbregar said:
Does it have a multiview output? It appears you have to either use the HDMI Out for Program Out OR Multiview... which makes it pretty much useless for a live production where you need to feed the house image mag projectors AND have a multiview for the TD.
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No multiview output unfortunately. The single HDMI output is like an Aux output, you can set it to Program, Preview, or to one of the HDMI input sources, but there is no built-in multiviewer.

It seems like the workflow Blackmagic was envisioning for this switcher was where you have a few locked off shots, where you more or less know what they look like (talking heads, for example). And then you feed the USB-C webcam output into a computer that can show you what the program output looks like for streaming. Then you can set the single HDMI output to Preview out (to a separate monitor), so that you can see what the shot looks like before transitioning to it.

Blackmagic does sell a standalone four input multiviewer (the MultiView 4 HD) for $185, but it only has SDI inputs so it might not be natural pairing with the HDMI inputs on the ATEM Mini. And once you start adding too much extra equipment, you're probably better off just going with the ATEM Television Studio HD ($995) which has 8 inputs (4 HDMI/4 SDI) and a built-in multiviewer.
 
I have a feeling that multiview could make its way into the USB connection, but that will kill the streaming from computer. Personally I like streaming from a dedicated encoder, even the cheap ones look pretty good these days.
 
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