The YoloBox Mini is a super tiny live-streaming encoder with a bunch of amazing features, but it only has one video input.
The ATEM Mini is an amazing four input video switcher, but it has pretty limited capabilities when it comes to adding graphics to your live streams.
But if you combine the two together, you get an incredible combination of features.
So let's take a closer look.
Hi, I'm Aaron Parecki.
I've been using the ATEM Mini and the YoloBox for live streams on this channel for a little over two years now.
And as much as I love the ATEM Mini, it definitely has some limits, especially when it comes to graphics.
In this video, I want to show you some of the ways you can use the ATEM Mini with the YoloBox Mini to take advantage of the best features of both of them.
First, a quick recap of the features and the limits of the ATEM Mini.
The ATEM Mini has four HDMI inputs.
You can switch between them with the buttons on the front.
There's also one upstream key which you can use for green screening one input on top of another, or you can use it to make picture and picture effects.
The big limit here is that it really lets you only take one video source and crop and scale it on top of another video source.
You can't do a proper side by side layout or a newscaster style layout from multiple sources.
Another thing the ATEM Mini has is the ability to load in 20 still images and use them like video sources, but it can only handle still images.
No video, and you have to load them from a computer rather than from a USB drive.
The YoloBox Mini on the other hand, has quite a number of graphics features that you can't do with the ATEM Mini.
There's the built in title generators where you can create lower thirds and other titles and type them out right on the box itself.
There's the built in countdown timer, there's the scoreboard feature, and you can even load images from the SD card and scale them and use them as overlays.
There's also the new web URL overlay, so you can actually bring in graphics from a web page and do a lot more fancy things that way.
I actually used that to add a real time map and a speedometer when I did a live stream from a bicycle ride in Portland.
So you can already see how much easier and more flexible the YoloBox is for graphics compared to the ATEM.
But the big limit with the YoloBox Mini is that it has only one video input.
It supports USB webcams as well as HDMI cameras, but it can only use one at a time, not both.
So while it's great for adding graphics, you're limited to adding graphics on top of one video, and that's where combining these starts to open a lot of possibilities.
So let's look at a few different ways to combine these to take advantage of the best parts of each of them.
Let's start with the simplest case of using the original ATEM Mini with the YoloBox Mini.
The original ATEM Mini can quickly let you use four cameras with the YoloBox Mini.
This ATEM Mini doesn't have the multiview features to see all your cameras at once, so you'll want to connect the HDMI out from the ATEM into the HDMI input of the YoloBox.
And now when you switch between the four inputs on the ATEM, the YoloBox sees it as just one camera.
And now you can use all the graphics capabilities of the YoloBox to add your text or count down timers or web overlays and that kind of thing.
You can also stream from the YoloBox to one or more platforms, something you also can't do with the ATEM mini.
This is already a great combo and you can think of it as either using the cheapest ATEM Mini to add more cameras to the YoloBox or using the YoloBox as a streaming encoder for
the cheapest ATEM Mini.
And that streaming encoder has a bunch of graphics features that you won't find in other streaming encoders.
I also want to take a minute to show you this.
The PK1 stand for the ATEM Mini.
I started the PK1 brand a little over a year ago, and I first designed a 3D printed stand for the ATEM Mini, then the Extreme, and then I found some manufacturing partners to be
able to actually sell these as real life physical products.
So you don't actually have to have a 3D printer to get one.
And now we're an international brand with a bunch of different stands and cages for the ATEM Mini as well as for the YoloBox.
This stand gives you a solid mount to attach things to the ATEM Mini and it tips it up at an angle that's a lot more comfortable to use.
The aluminum bar on the top lets you mount things to the top, which is the perfect place to stick the YoloBox mini.
If you want to use a wireless HDMI transmitter, you can also attach the receiver to the cold shoe mount at the back and that keeps things nice and tidy.
We also have a version for the Extreme which is big enough to let you mount a 7" monitor and the YoloBox side by side on the top bar.
You can find links to all the different stores to buy these at pk1.tv.
So let's now look at what you can do with the ATEM Mini Pro or Pro ISO with the YoloBox Mini.
The ATEM Mini Pro and Pro ISO models add a whole bunch of features to the original ATEM Mini.
I actually have a video that goes into all the differences between the three models.
I'm going to leave a link to that down below.
So we're not going to go into all the details here.
I do want to focus on a couple of differences, though.
The main differences that are relevant to this setup is that the Pro and the Pro ISO add the multiview feature which lets you see all your cameras at once, and they can record to
a USB drive.
The Pro records only the main program feed and the ISO model records the program feed plus all four cameras at the same time.
So now you have a couple of options here.
If you want to use the multi view on the ATEM to see all your cameras, then you can run the USB out to the USB input on the YoloBox and keep the HDMI port free for the multi
view. The YoloBox will see the ATEM as a webcam and you can use all the graphics features on the YoloBox like before.
The downside here is that the USB port is now taken up for the webcam out, which means you can't record a backup on the ATEM itself onto a USB drive.
The other option is to run the HDMI out of the ATEM into the YoloBox, so no more multi view.
But now the USB port is free to plug in a hard drive.
I think this is especially useful if you're using the ATEM Mini Pro ISO because then you also get a backup recording of all four cameras, not just the program feed.
So the YoloBox would be the one streaming to YouTube or whatever.
You'd be switching cameras angles on the ATEM, and it will be also recording all four cameras to separate files on the drive in case you want to go back and edit later.
I think it's also worth mentioning a couple of extra things you can do with the YoloBox Pro with this setup as well.
The YoloBox Pro is a lot like the Mini, but the big difference is that it has three HDMI inputs and you can actually switch between the three different inputs and create various
layouts on the YoloBox itself.
So if you only have three cameras, then you can just use the YoloBox pro by itself without the ATEM at all.
But if you want more cameras or if you want to be able to record all the cameras at the same time with the ATEM Mini ISO, there's still some extra things you can do by combining
the two. Since the ATEM Mini Pro doesn't have the SuperSource feature, which is the feature in the ATEM Mini extreme that lets you do the complicated layouts like newscaster
style or putting up to four different sources on top of a background.
It means that you're really limited in terms of what kinds of layouts you can create in the ATEM itself.
You're basically limited to putting one input on top of another input and shrinking it and cropping it.
With the YoloBox on the other hand, you get a lot of different options for layouts like side by side, newscaster style or picture in picture.
You can also load a PDF onto the YoloBox Pro and include that in your layouts.
And I think that's where this combo is super interesting.
If you run all your cameras into the ATEM and use the YoloBox just for the graphics, you can make these layouts with the camera and slides side by side or picture in picture and
it's super easy to switch which camera appears next to the slide.
Another feature of the YoloBox Pro is you can actually bring a live stream in from another YoloBox as a video source into the manual box.
I demonstrated this with PhotoJoseph a little while back.
I'll link to that video below as well.
So that means you can actually use the YoloBox just to bring in the remote stream and use your ATEM for mixing all of your local video cameras.
So I hope this gives you some ideas of how to take advantage of the best features of both the ATEM Mini and the YoloBox together.
Let me know down in the comments how you are planning on using them together and which ones you have.
And of course, visit pk1.tv For more info on the PK1 stands and cages.
Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one.