Tag Archives: MultiCam

Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Pro

"The ATEM Mini Pro is your ticket to professional zoom meetings and a great tool for streamers on all platforms."

• Very easy to set up

• Incredibly powerful

• No driver is required for most functions

• Low latency HDMI output for gaming

Stop yawning! An HDMI switcher may not sound exciting, but this year the Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Pro is the most fun for me with a technical product. Developed by a company that manufactures expensive, rack mount devices for broadcasters, this is an affordable multi-camera streaming solution for the rest of us. Finally, you can live out your fantasy of being an evening news director (well, maybe that's just me).

In fact, the ATEM Mini Pro (and a cheaper non-pro variant) has a more realistic goal that focuses on the rise of video conferencing from home: converting a real camera into a webcam. A computer's built-in webcam is mediocre at best, and even standalone USB webcams have limitations. With the ATEM Mini you can connect any camera that has a clean HDMI output (ie without UI overlays), including many mirrorless cameras and DSLRs.

The price for this category is excellent at $ 595 for the Pro and $ 295 for the Standard model. Many people have been interested in the ATEM Mini line again due to limitations in social distancing due to COVID-19, so both the standard and pro versions are reordered from large retailers. Blackmagic Design told me it was "to build as soon as possible", but it has proven difficult to keep up with demand.

To put it plainly, this product is more than exaggerated if you only want to use a single camera as a webcam. However, if you need to conduct more complex video conferences or YouTube livestreams or just want to specify as an additional participant in the zoom call, the ATEM Mini is a game changer.

Plug and play

One thing I've always appreciated about Blackmagic design products like the Pocket Cinema Camera series is that their advanced features don't clog up the elegant user interface.

The same philosophy is intact in the ATEM Mini Pro. In combination with the control software – the same program with which the professional ATEM switch is operated for $ 10,000 – the available fine tuning is almost unlimited. You can add custom graphics, program macros, control Blackmagic cameras, and more. It is stunning for the uninitiated.

Or you can ignore all of this.

In a world that is increasingly moving towards software interfaces, the ATEM Mini (refreshing!) Is a bit old-fashioned because it handles so much at the hardware level. No driver needs to be installed even with four HDMI sources. Simply connect the ATEM Mini to your computer via USB and it will appear as a selectable webcam in Zoom, FaceTime or other video conferencing and streaming apps. It is the definition of plug and play.

Blackmagic Design provided a Pocket Cinema Camera 4K to test for this test. I used it with a 12-40mm f / 2.8 Olympus lens (courtesy of Lensrentals) as an A-camera to get an adjustable field of view that was more than wide enough for my close-up video conferencing. I filled in the remaining HDMI inputs with my personal mirrorless Fujifilm X-T2 camera, a Nikon D780 DSLR and my Xbox One X.

Video newbies pay attention: all of these sources were originally set to different resolutions and frame rates, and that's … perfectly fine! The ATEM Mini instantly converts various signals into a single, uniform output. It only works as long as your source is not using copy protection.

Using the ATEM Mini Pro

With four numbered buttons, you can switch between inputs on your computer without stopping in the video feed. As far as is known, only a single camera is connected. Optionally, you can choose from a selection of built-in transitions to play when you switch inputs, including crossfades, dips, and deletes. There are even buttons that let you change the duration of these transitions from half a second to 2 seconds.

Picture-in-Picture (PIP) is integrated at the hardware level. This is ideal for presenters who want to stay on the screen while looking at a second angle. Video game streamers are an obvious target here.

There's also a dizzying array of audio controls that can be a little daunting for anyone who's never run a broadcast studio before. With two 3.5 mm jacks, you can not only use audio from one or all HDMI inputs, but also connect external microphones. You can switch each audio input individually and adjust it for each individual level. You can also select AFV (audio follows video) at each input to automatically use the audio from this source when switching.

That sounds complicated, but there is a separate button for everything. Once you know the different abbreviations, it's easy. You don't have to dive through menus and don't have to remember keyboard shortcuts. The buttons are backlit with different colors. White indicates what has been selected, green indicates what is shown in the preview, and red indicates what is active. So you get a lot of information at a glance.

Do you have an external monitor? This is where the real fun begins. When you connect it to the ATEM Mini Pro's HDMI output, you get a streaming command center with a multiple view of all inputs and volume levels on the screen for each audio source. You can make each entry in full screen mode separately from your live program stream, even if it is not the active entry. Players can use picture-in-picture to overlap in their stream while still playing with a distraction-free view (however, this limits the game to a resolution of 1080p).

Again, all of this is possible without installing a driver. However, some customers should definitely install the software, especially gamers. In addition to the other features that are unlocked, this is the only way to turn on 60fps output. The ATEM Mini is set to 30 fps by default.

ATEM Mini Pro against ATEM Mini

The ATEM Mini Pro is the newer of the two and essentially an ATEM Mini with additional functions. There is no difference in video or audio quality – both support up to 1080p / 60 fps and 10-bit video – but the additional $ 300 detaches the pro toggle from a computer and provides direct hard drive and recording Live streaming via Ethernet to YouTube, Facebook and twitching. It also offers the multiview monitor output mentioned above, which the non-pro model lacks.

Most people will be fine with the ATEM Mini and shouldn't be spending the extra money on the Pro version. Even without directly recording the Pro on the hard drive, you can record your stream on your computer using software from the standard ATEM Mini.

The Pro is still a bargain for what it offers, and if you have the money to burn (after all, it's probably a tax write-off, after all) you might want to access it if you think you are ever in a streaming or situation Record without being connected to a computer. Multiview monitoring is just cool too.

Who can really use it?

With some companies saying that they are now going to let employees work from home indefinitely, many new customers are looking for something like the ATEM Mini. This is the crème de la crème that you can use to turn your camera into a webcam. It's overkill for people who just want to look better with zoom, but zoom hosts who work in an office environment could definitely use the multiple camera and microphone inputs to improve the quality of hybrid remote / local meetings (as soon as social Distance is loosened anyway).

For YouTubers, the ATEM Mini can instantly improve the value of live stream production so you can create professional, broadcast-style streams that go far beyond the basics. During an interview, for example, you can switch between a wide-angle shot and close-up pictures of the host and the guest. Live tutorials, from cooking to photography to make-up, can benefit from different perspectives.

It takes the processing out of the processing.

Since any HDMI device can be a source, I could imagine remote work software developers using it. Mobile app developers can connect a smartphone or tablet and stream the direct experience of using their app on a particular device, while web developers can do the same for websites.

With a document camera – or any camera and a copy stand – even printed materials or other physical media can be transmitted live. This could be important for teachers and artists.

Even for developers who are not interested in live streaming, the ATEM Mini can be a worthwhile investment. Every time you shoot with multiple cameras, you can do live cuts instead of having to load footage from each camera onto a computer and go through the tedious process of cutting in the mail. It takes the processing out of the processing. Makeup artists, chefs and car repair gurus could take advantage of multi-cam productions without having to learn how to be a professional video editor.

The only limitation is again the maximum output resolution of 1080p. This limit applies to both live streaming and hard disk recording. If you have a 4K camera, you just have to live without those extra pixels. I personally don't think this is a problem for YouTube or streaming, where most viewers watch on small phone screens and video quality is limited to compression. Still, 4K is one thing to give up if you want to use the ATEM Mini to cut live instead of editing a video with multiple cameras in the post.

For me, the ATEM Mini saves me time and money. Before social distancing, I drove to the Digital Trends office every second Monday to see my appearance at Digital Trends Live. I did a two hour tour for a 10 minute section. It sounds ridiculous, but it was worth it because the studio's professional cameras and close-ups made it much easier to present the new product that I had in hand.

Now I can do it all from home. Sure, it might not be necessary – a single angle, maybe even sticking to my webcam, would probably be enough. But that would hardly be so cool.

Editor's recommendations