Every once in a while
a piece of gear comes along
that could have such a profound impact on
your workflow that you want to tear
everything down and just start again.
That's exactly what I did after watching
this goof talk about
the new Padcaster Parrot
Pro teleprompter, an upgrade to the
original Parrot prompter
that I had been using since
2017-ish, but
supports wider angle lenses.
After watching this fun segment a few
times, I hit the like
button, closed the video, and
secured my Kickstarter
order without hesitation.
Then I got to work.
Spoilers, yes, it is as good as I had
hoped, solving most of
the issues I had with the
original with one small caveat.
This hunka-junk was my old video village
and audio recording
setup for my on-camera A-roll
shots.
Built in 2019 when I started my Stream
Critique series and wanted
to prioritize efficiency,
it features a big monitor to preview my
video, tiny field
monitors don't help for checking
focus at a distance, a standard mic arm
holding my Sennheiser
shotgun mic pointed mostly wherever
I need it at a weird angle, and my
MixPre-3 II clamped in the
least reliable way possible.
It rolls, it goes where I need to, but
it's been a real pain in my ass lately.
I had to build this up as a separate rig
because anytime I wanted
to shoot my talking head
segments with any sort of script, I used
this parrot prompter, which
is now called the Pedcaster
Parrot, I believe, which does not play
nicely with wide angle lenses.
On my zoom lens that I would typically
use for autofocus, I have
to keep it around 50-55mm
to not show the prompter in the shot,
which means pushing the
camera pretty far back.
And that's a lot of stands and tripods
and cables to juggle.
It's not very efficient.
Things have been slow lately.
I can't keep up.
I needed a change.
Time to combine my original attempt with
ideas from the genius
minds of Caleb Pike and Josh
Yoo.
Impact Rolling C-Stand.
I bought a bunch of these a few years ago
and used them for everything.
Wheels are a must in my space.
Next I needed a C-Stand knuckle with this
boom pole mounting arm, slot in this boom
pole with integrated XLR cable that I
wish I knew existed
years ago, and I immediately
have a better mic arm solution than this
junk scissor arm I've been using.
Strap to it is this 32" BenQ monitor.
It's a 1440p 144Hz gaming monitor, but I
really don't like it for gaming.
What I do like is that it still accepts
4K30 signals and scales
it down so I can preview
my 4K cameras on it without any issues.
It's nice and big so I can see my
lighting, my exposure,
what's in the background of
my shot, and whether or not I'm in focus.
I'm tired of not being in
focus when I record a video.
This time we're recording
audio and video externally.
I dug through my drawers and found my old
Atomos Ninja Inferno.
4K60fps, DNxHR, and
ProRes recording to a SATA SSD.
Easily swappable with this 3D printed
sled, courtesy of the
Rigmaster himself, Caleb Pike.
This recorder has seen so much, having
shot all of my original
OBS Master class alongside
the Parrot Promptor.
These get mounted to this impact super
clamp and arm combo with a
ball head sitting between
the two recorders.
Perfect.
Speaking of audio recorders, the MixPre-3
Mark II, a 32-bit float and timecode.
Beast of an audio recorder.
I kinda wish I had the 6-input model for
some of my microphone
review, but it'll do.
Another impact clamp and a Manfrotto
articulating arm to mount my camera.
With an Arca Swiss quick release plate
because we do not spin
cameras in the studio.
On the boom pole goes my Sennheiser
MKH416 shotgun mic, my
favorite mic ever made.
At least for my voice, and strapped to
the recorder arm is my
Deity Wireless Lab Receiver.
Gotta be able to do both.
HDMI from camera to Ninja, and then from
Ninja to monitor, with a
second HDMI ready for the
monitor to connect to my R5C B-roll
camera so I can monitor both.
Because redundant audio is always a must,
I've strapped this tiny little AVerMedia
shotgun mic to the
camera itself, just in case.
I have needed it sometimes.
I will be running stereo out from the
MixPre to the Ninja to
bake in the audio once my
cable arrives, but due to the 32-bit
float recording, I'll
probably still be syncing
in post.
Some sandbags and zip ties, C-stand shelf
for a laptop, and
lots of Velcro later, and
I have myself the
ultimate A-roll machine.
Actually wait, something's missing.
Let's add another
Mathalini clamp and a C-stand arm.
Sick.
Now I can record with desktop mics too,
when I need to do those reviews.
I might later add a GoPro or something
for an up-close
product angle if I'm holding
something in my hands as well.
That was the rig.
Now time for the video.
For the camera for
this, I'm going with my A7C.
What a workhorse.
4K video, full-frame,
amazing eye-detect autofocus.
This used to be my webcam, but I can go
in with heavily modded
Razer Webcams instead.
Video soon.
Now I WOULD be using my 24mm G Master
lens here, but it died at
the hands of a power surge.
So it's in the shop.
For now we're using the classic Sigma
16mm F1.4 with a 1/4
black Pro Mist filter.
Small problem.
This is far too wide for my teleprompter.
Crap.
It was about this time that an email
unexpectedly showed up in my inbox.
Padcaster offered to send out an early
unit of their new
Parrot Pro teleprompter for
review, unaware that I had already
pledged to the Kickstarter.
Of course I wasn't going
to pass up this opportunity.
If nothing else, I don't have to wait for
my Kickstarter to come
in to start using it.
It's beautiful.
Clearly made of better
materials than last time.
Nice durable outer shell, the phone
compartment locks into
place and acts as a cover.
No more bending my camera out of place to
shove my phone in as I
kept doing and always
messing up my angles.
And it supports bigger phones.
Though not iPads, despite
the company being Padcaster.
Hell, it even has a tripod mount on the
bottom in case you're
using it with a tiny device
like your phone or a GoPro or a webcam.
Padcaster is basically solving every
problem I had with the original model.
Parrot Pro comes with all of the threaded
adapters for your
lenses, a brush to clean
the reflector, and a nice little back.
And even a remote.
I got rid of it.
I lost the remote from my original one
during a couple of moves.
I never really used it.
I think I'm going to use this one.
I think I'm finally
committing to that workflow.
I do wish it came with multiple adapters
for more common filter
thread sizes, 82mm for
me, but it's compatible with the rings
from my older model, so
I at least have those to
double up on.
Now for the real test.
How wide can it go?
I've been using it with
this rig the whole time.
This is what the Sigma 16mm
looks like in full frame mode.
Despite common belief, it does actually
more or less cover the
full frame sensor, even
though it's designed to be an APS-C lens.
The 16mm is too wide for this.
So let's switch it to APS-C.
Boom.
Now, the padcaster
itself is out of the frame.
We got, okay, there's the teeniest bit of
vignette in here,
like over here and right
here. The teeniest bit.
If you add a vignette to your video or
just crop in a tiny
bit, you're good to go.
The problem is my phone.
This is an iPhone 11.
Well not the biggest phone on the market
these days, but also
maybe not the smallest.
It's probably the
smallest I own at this point.
You get reflections
off of, I guess my case.
My case kind of becomes foreground.
Maybe if I take it out.
I didn't think about
that before recording.
Let me...
What if I slide it in now?
Oh, it's better.
There is a hint of it at the bottom.
Yeah.
So, considering that, I would need to
crop in just the teeniest bit.
But it works.
It works pretty well.
For this setup, this is about perfect.
This is what I would want.
But it got me thinking.
A 16mm lens and an APS-C crop is roughly,
you know, somewhere
around the 24mm range.
What I get away with a 24mm lens,
assuming my G Master
lens ever gets fixed.
All right.
This is how far I had to zoom in before
with my original parrot
prompter to not have it
show up in the frame
at wider fields of view.
We're at about like 50 to
55mm on my Canon 24 to 70.
And it usually affects the height too, so
I got to start figuring this out.
But on the new Padcaster Parrot Pro, we
zoom in all the way out, baby.
This is 24mm f/2.8 on a zoom lens.
Zoom lenses typically show
these a little more than primes.
So for example, I had a 35mm prime lens
that I was using for a
while that did not really
have any issues with the original parrot
prompter, but 35mm on my zoom lens did.
And no longer works with my
new camera for some reason.
But this one, I'm seeing.
Yeah. Once again, we got like the tiniest bit
of vignetting in the
corners, which I could compensate
for or just crop in just the tiniest bit.
And plus I'm typically
shooting 4x3 or 2x1 today anyway.
So and I don't even see my phone.
I have the case on it.
Okay. If I push up a little
bit, you can see it.
I can't rotate this down anymore.
I wish I could.
So yeah, there's the faintest line of my
phone at the bottom
still, but like I've never
been able to shoot with a prompter
completely wide open.
I'm so stoked.
Oh, wow.
Okay. Yeah, your mileage is
definitely going to vary.
This video is from the new Nikon Z8,
which is another full frame video camera.
We're on their 24 to
120 millimeter f/4 lens.
And you can not only see the corners
vignetting, but you can also
see the top of the prompter
in the frame as well as significantly
more phone space in the frame too.
So your mileage with
zoom lenses will vary.
I think we'll try a 28 mil
dedicated lens just for kicks.
If I zoom in, let's say 28.
This has a 28 marker on it.
It definitely looks good.
35 looks good too.
Let's try a couple primes.
All right.
I'm going to zoom in on the Nikon Z8
using an old Nikon 35 mil prime.
And it's hard to tell with recording box
on the camera, but
best I can tell there's no
prompter in the frame.
Sick.
All right. And this is with a 28 millimeter Canon FD
lens adapted up to my R5C.
Once again, I don't see any sign of the
prompter in the frame.
So I'm going to say 28 millimeters is a
perfect sweet spot, which
honestly is not too much
to compensate.
That's, that's a fine compromise,
especially since some of
the older cameras crop in by
a tiny bit when you record in 4k anyway.
I think it works.
I only have a couple of minor complaints
about the Padcaster pro
having finally built my
entire rig around it with the purpose of
using it and recording a
couple of videos with it
at this point.
And that comes down
to a couple of things.
I don't think we can lower the angle that
your phone sits on
enough for some of my uses.
Like right now you don't
really see my phone in the shot.
Like if I drag my finger along this edge,
I've gotten it just
out of frame, but I had
to really crank on the shelf that the
phone sits on to bend
it away from the prompter
to keep it from
glowing kind of in the shot.
And I had to take my case off.
Now a smaller phone, this is, as I
mentioned, it's an iPhone 11.
A smaller phone would do a little bit
better, but you can't get
that much smaller and you
can't really get thinner.
So that's not
necessarily Padcaster's fault.
Again, it's going to work better if
you're at like 30, 35
millimeters, 28 millimeters
even probably, but I would love the
flexibility to still be able
to lower that shelf a little
bit because I can still see it.
Like if I, if I angle my phone away from
the prompter, it's still
close enough to the prompter
that I can see it
reflected back up at me.
So that isn't a problem.
So between that and the little tab that
actually holds your phone
in place, which I love, but
it sticks up too far.
I guess it's like, you don't need it to
cover the entire phone.
You just need it to stick up far enough
for the phone to stop up against it.
It sticks up far enough
that it can go in the shot.
Like if I don't crank this down, like I
have it, if I put it
back where it was kind of
supposed to go, you get that bump from
that little bit in the shot.
So I would love the ability to turn it
down a little bit more.
And I would love for that little tab with
their logo on it to be smaller, basically
about the size that the logo is.
Otherwise I don't know what else there is
to complain about it.
Like I had very minor
complaints about this one.
I didn't really care.
Like some people said it felt cheap.
I didn't really care so much about that.
I hated having to, like I
hated that this was spring loaded.
Like I said, to put my phone into it, to
like shove it in there, I
was constantly, you know,
cranking down on my lenses, which
probably isn't good for the
mount and the strain there,
but would also kind of even, even when
locked off on my good
tripods, like would still kind
of tilt them a little bit, adjust my
angle, that kind of thing.
And it just wasn't fun to mess with.
And again, it just showed up in lenses or
in frames, but this
isn't the first attempt
at a wide angle prompter.
And in fact, I covered another one back
in my original
teleprompter roundup videos I
was doing a couple of years ago now when
I first moved into the studio.
And that other one was the Desview T2.
Now apparently this one actually violates
a padcaster's patents
for how they're doing
the mounting system on this, which is
hilarious and unsurprising
for, you know, an overseas
knockoff product on Amazon.
But I did want to see how it compared
because I didn't, I
ended up ditching my one that
I used in those videos.
Like I suggested it if you wanted a wider
angle alternative, but I just, I found it
a little bit too jank and I didn't like
the overall workflow
and it still didn't let
me go as wide as I wanted.
So I went ahead and grabbed another one
just so I can compare here in the shots.
What I should have said is I ordered
another one to do these comparisons.
It actually didn't arrive in time.
It was delayed from getting to the video.
So I will have a separate little short
video over on my Epos
Fox clips channel, where I
show you the comparison on all the lenses
I used in this video.
I will post a channel link to that in the
description and
update that with the video
link as soon as it goes live.
It'll be sometime over the weekend since
I don't got to
produce a whole thing, but I
don't have it just yet.
Badcaster Pro is currently
being sold on Kickstarter.
They're doing a Kickstarter campaign to
make sure they can do it.
They've already blown past it.
Thanks to Gerald's video.
I'm not sure I will contribute anything
to that since
everyone's already heard of it.
But I do recommend if you want to pick
one up for yourself,
that would be the best way
to go about it.
It's about $129, which is a little
expensive for a teleprompter.
The desk view is like $79, $80.
I don't remember how much this one is.
I think it was like $99 when I got it
originally, but it's been out a while.
But for what you're getting for the
workflow, I'm not sure I
could possibly say it was ever
not worth it because we're talking about
the ability to sit
right up on your camera to
record high quality video and to
immediately control scripts.
And if you're not scripting your videos,
if you're making videos
and not scripting them
at this point, you're really not even
necessarily the whole thing.
Just parts of them, parts
of this video were scripted.
Script parts of your video get better at
writing in your own
voice and your video quality
will improve.
And plus you can use it at the desk to
like, this is wide angle enough.
24 mil is what I would recommend as in as
a lens focal length.
That's what I'm trying to say for
standard webcams on full frame.
Like that's what I was using on my A7C
was a 24 mil as a webcam.
You can now mount this cleanly on top of
your webcam and either
use your phone for like
prompter or something like that.
If you're doing like streams or at desk
recordings, or you can get a
little five inch field monitor
slot it in there and you can pull up your
chat, you can pull up
people you're talking
with on a meeting, on a call.
That's how I recommended doing it in my
original prompter video.
I had one back when I had a whole
separate set up on this
side of the studio that had
a little yo yo, I think five inch monitor
that I had chat and a
teleprompter app and
Skype or zoom discord,
whatever running through it.
And for streaming being able to like look
at the camera and
still see chat and not have
to be like to see chat.
Like it's huge.
This is a game changer.
I am so glad.
I don't know why it took them so long.
I don't know what the difficulties in
engineering it were.
I am so glad it exists.
And yeah, go check it out.
Link will be in the description.
This is my new a roll rig.
I know it's weird that I have my R5C and
I'm not using it for a
roll, but I'm trying.
I want to be the person I had to sell off
a lot of my cameras at
the start of the year.
Things were really rough.
A lot of stuff was going on.
So my G7s are gone.
My working a6400 is gone.
My other one's dead.
I don't know about the
shop getting repaired.
I only have a couple
extra real cameras now.
And so I was trying to be that person
that was using the same
camera for everything.
But at this point I have my R5C so rigged
up for B roll and like
run and gun shooting.
Bring it in over here and using it for a
roll and things like
that has become kind of a
problem. And I do want this kind of unified.
Just I want to set up and go.
I want to be able to just flick this on
and start recording
whenever I have something
to say or whatever.
I'm ready to produce videos.
And this new rig is
going to let me do that.
And I would only be able to do this rig
because of the wide angle
support of the Padcaster
Pro. If you're interested in any of the gear I
used to build out
this rig or showed off in
this video, I will have a
kit link in the description.
I used to use this service a ton.
I just forgot about it honestly.
So I'm trying to get back to it as I've
had some requests for to
consolidate my affiliate
links a little bit.
It's just a big list with affiliate links
to all the different pieces of what I use
to build this rig and
what I am using here.
So I have a link to that in the
description if you want to
peruse it for yourself and
take any ideas for your rigs.
And if you do build something, tag me on
Twitter or send it in our Discord.
We have an awesome setup channel or
awesome setups channel
or something like that.
I absolutely want to see it.
I'm sorry videos have
been so slow lately.
I have two channels to juggle on top of
just barely any time in
the office at the moment.
And I'm working on my
OBS masterclass for 2023.
It's called the
definitive guide for OBS studio.
It is available in pre-sale.
Now you get the lowest discount I'm ever
going to offer on it.
It is the most thorough, complete
hands-on if you need
handheld through supporting all
the way from learning OBS for the first
time to doing crazy
multicam streams or webinars
or esports production kind of stuff.
It is the most thorough kind of involved
course that has ever
been made for OBS and it is
releasing at the end of this month.
So go check that out.
That's EposVox.GG/presale
link in the description.
Otherwise, we got some other videos
coming soon, but I
really wanted to tell you all
about this because I've been preaching
wider angle
teleprompters for a long time.
And I've seen some of the crazy setups
you all have come up
with for rigging that.
And some of you even showed like mounting
your phone separately
for that kind of thing.
But I think this is it
and I'm super stoked.
Remember to be kind, rewind.