So in this bag, I keep all the peripherals, all those little
pieces of equipment that can prove absolutely vital on the
sorts of streaming jobs that I undertake.
And in this clip, I'm going to go through the equipment item by
item, explain what I think of them, and where relevant how I
might upgrade in the future.
Hello there, my name is Carlos, I'm a Producer Director based
near London. I'm also a Content Creator. And this channel, my
channel Feelgood Footage, is all about how to create better
content - whether that's improving workflow, techniques,
or equipment thoughts and reviews. That's what I'm all
about. So if that sounds like something you're interested in,
well consider subscribing.
Like so many of you, during the last 12 months, live streaming
has become a much more important part of what I do. And when the
inquiries and bookings first started coming through to me for
live streaming jobs, I was short of key equipment. I've put that
right, and the equipment that I can now call upon is fairly
comprehensive, and at least for sort of bookings that I
undertake, gets the job done. So let's go through it.
So let's start with the two key pieces of equipment you need to
stream, the first being a capture device of some sort that
will allow you to bring an external camera, or several
external cameras, in this case, into your computer and streaming
software. I went with the Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini and
think this is a simply superb piece of gear.
I think at the price point, you simply can't go wrong. So to
state the obvious, a switcher like this allows you to set up
multi camera shoots, which is an absolute must for me. Basically,
I've been streaming events, being a location with
Presenters. So I absolutely need to have various camera angles to
get the coverage required. And the ATEM Mini works brilliantly
for that. Having come from a broadcast TV background, it is
mind blowing to me that this little box, plugged into a
computer, allows you to emulate a live TV production gallery.
It's just insanely powerful!
In terms of an upgrade, I did weigh up whether I should buy
the ATEM Mini Pro, rather than the basic version. But I just
didn't think I really needed the record or direct live streaming
functionality. And that's been the right call for me, I think.
So hopefully this will be good for the next few years. So the
other key piece of equipment I needed was a laptop. My main
computer is a fairly powerful desktop PC. And I'm very happy
with that. But I've been thinking about buying a good
laptop for a while and the move into streaming forced that
purchase. Since I use vMix as my streaming software, which only
runs on PC, it was always going to be a Windows machine. And
that means you can actually buy something powerful at a
reasonable price. I went with PC Specialist, an independent UK
supplier. And I've only got good things to say about them. When I
purchased I needed the laptop very quickly, so when with one
of their pre-configured systems. I had the laptop next day. The
only thing I would change is opt for 32 gigabytes of RAM. As I
say, I needed the laptop very quickly, so changing the memory
from the standard 16 GB would have added a delay in the
dispatch. But I can always upgrade the memory at some point
next year. I only use this laptop for streaming, and when
the world returns to normal, also plan to use it when needed
to edit on the road. But right now it just lives in the bag,
with its power cable, and gets used only for streaming which
should extend its lifespan.
So you need to connect to the internet at the highest speed
available and with maximum stability. So I always connect
via wired connection. I bought a five metre and a 10 metre CAT5
Ethernet cable so I could connect to the nearest
connection point at a streaming location. I may buy a 15 metre
cable next year, which is still very much within the maximum
recommended length for this sort of cable. Sometimes you need to
be further away from a network connection point at a location
then your longest cable will allow you, so I bring a network
switch to allow me to bridge additional distance. On the
first job I unplugged my network switch from my home office and
took that but then thought it was such a pain unplugging
everything and then reconnecting everything after the job, why
not just buy another switch? They are after all quite
reasonably priced. So I did that and as I say that just lives in
the bag ready for the next job. In terms of upgrade, when it
comes to connection, the watchword is 'redundancy'. In
other words, having a backup plan if the location's wired
internet provision fails. So what I'm thinking about
investing in is some kind of sim-based cellular wireless
router as a backup. But I've not really investigated this topic
much yet.
From connecting to the internet to connecting to cameras, and
in terms of the ATEM Mini it is HDMI input only. So I've bought
five metre, 10 metre and 15 metre cables. I already had
plenty of other, shorter HDMI cables. But for event shooting
five metres is the bare minimum length to be useful for any
camera that's not located right next to the switcher. There is a
bewildering choice of HDMI cables. So I opted to go for
ones that claimed they were optimised for 4k throughput,
even though I would only send HD from the cameras. Of course,
they're also cables that have got good reviews. I also would
not buy an HDMI cable longer than 15 metres because, as I
understand it, 15 metres is the upper limit for an HDMI cable
run before possibly introducing signal degradation. Anyway,
these cables have proved fine so far. And the really cool thing
is that because the cameras I'm connecting them to have XLR
inputs, each cable can carry audio from two separate
microphones to the switcher, which arrives perfectly in sync
and ready to send to the stream. That's my current solution send
the audio into the cameras, which means I could have up to
eight microphones running - way more than I've needed so far. If
that changes and I need to have more mics, or I need to have the
mics separate from the cameras, I'd consider the Behringer XR18
which seems to be very popular with live stream Producers. In
the UK, at least the products from the manufacturer SubZero
are only available from gear4music.com. I've bought a
few things from that retailer and have always had very good
experiences. In terms of this product, I've got to say it is
great, I absolutely love it! It allows you to take the Headphone
Out from the laptop and feed it to four separate headphones. So
four different people can listen without having to output any
audio through speakers. So that's incredibly useful in a
streaming situation, if you have to be close to any presenters or
talent with a hot mic. As I say, I think it's great. You'll need
3.55 millimetre to quarter inch headphone adapters. So I keep a
three-pack always with this to avoid having to scramble around
looking for that when they're needed. And there's also another
use case, when the world returns to something like normal, and
that's when you're editing. If you want to watch an edit
through with somebody else, and you're working in a communal
space, like an open office, you and up to three others can watch
and listen without inflicting the audio on people nearby.
Next, a very small item but it is absolutely critical. This is
a short USB C to USB C cable and I use it to connect the ATEM
Mini to the laptop. The Webcam Out from the ATEM Mini is USB C,
so at least one end of the cable would need to be USB C and the
other end could be standard USB. But since my laptop has a USB C
input, I thought I'd use that and keep the more in-demand
standard USB sockets free. I've got this little pouch which
houses a few more cables. I've got a 3.5 millimetre to quarter
inch stereo jack cable that connects the laptop Headphone
Out to the SubZero headphone amplifier input. I have a RODE
Smart Lav+ mic, which I usually carry around with me in my coat
or day bag in case I want to record good quality audio into
my phone. That's a useful and decent quality little lav mic,
but to use it with the laptop, and therefore potentially in a
live stream, I need this little TRS to TRRS adapter. With that
it works great. The RODE Smart Lav+ is good, but the cable
length is ridiculously short. So this extension cable provides a
decent length if I need to use the mic for somebody else during
a live stream. And finally, even though I don't actually have
these in the streaming bag, they are really, really important.
I've got a couple of SWIT field monitors and I use the five and
a half inch monitor with the ATEM Mini switcher. You really
do need to have a separate monitor, in addition to the
laptop you're sending the switcher output to. This one
normally lives when my cameras. It's very lightweight, has a
very small footprint and is battery powered. So it's ideal
when I don't have much space to work in.
I always have with me on a shoot a two-way and a four-way
extension socket and both of those have very long leads. And
they're used to supply the power to the lights, the cameras and
when it comes to streaming, the laptop, switcher
and headphone amp.
Right, that is it for this clip. Hopefully you enjoyed it.
Hopefully you found something useful. If you did Like would be
fantastic! If you have any comments, any thoughts, any
feedback, any questions that I can hopefully answer, well stick
them down in the comments below and I'll get to those just as
soon as possible. If you're interested in hearing more about
vMix, in particular vMixcall, which is superb, take a look at
the clip that's on screen right now where I go in depth with a
real world case study using vMixcall. And if you're just
interested in creating better content, well consider
subscribing because that's what this channel is all about.