[Music]
setting up a multi-camera live stream or
podcast has always been
complicated and expensive that is until
now
this is the blackmagic a10 mini and for
300
it lets you switch between four hdmi
inputs live
and before we begin i just want to make
sure you know this video is sponsored by
me and my paycheck because i'm the one
who bought all of these things and this
video is not sponsored
in any way i think that's important
because it's going to be a pretty
glowing review
in fact to just jump to the end and
spoil the whole thing
out of a 10 star rating i would give the
a10 mini
11 out of 10. the numbers all go to
11. and that's definitely not because
i'm a huge fan of blackmagic products i
actually tend to not like them very much
you might remember my video about the
elgato cam link where i talked about how
much more i like it than the blackmagic
mini studio recorder which i really
dislike
a lot in general blackmagic has a lot of
really good ideas and they have so many
products and some of them are
truly excellent and some of them are
truly awful and
a lot of them i have found in my
personal experience
tend to be in the middle where it's a
great idea with a really funky execution
and while the atem mini has a few areas
for improvement
this is an absolutely groundbreaking
device
and as far as i'm concerned it's perfect
and so despite my long-standing
hesitation to use blackmagic
products this atem mini has really
captured my
attention but in order to understand
that i think it's important for me to
give a little bit of context
within the world of video switchers so i
got my very first job back in 2001
working at a tv news station
where they had a production switcher
from a company called the grass valley
group and it looked
something like this and it cost when it
was new
upwards of a hundred thousand dollars
and
obviously considering that was purchased
in the 1990s
it was not a high definition switcher by
any means it only
output in standard like 480p
definition and it wasn't really designed
to be purchased by individuals by any
means with a price like that and with
the size of you know being a nasa
mission control center
it was intended to be purchased by large
corporations and network affiliates and
customers
like that and after that in 2016 i came
to
this school where part of my job was to
set up a live daily broadcast program
i've talked about that
quite a few times before but the first
thing i did was look for
a mixer and this is the one that we
ordered which is the roland v40 and this
mixer
is a four input mixer it does take
hdmi sdi rgb components so it's very
versatile on what it takes
and it's super reliable it's really
fussy about like
making sure every input has the same
frame rate resolution and the output to
match and all that but once you get
everything
matching this sucker is very reliable
the thing is this four channel mixer
at the time we got it cost six thousand
dollars
so it's literally one of the most
expensive single pieces of equipment in
this whole
studio and if i'm sweating right now the
air conditioner is broken it's like 100
degrees in here
and so about two years ago we actually
replaced that with
the blackmagic tv production studio and
this mixer is an eight channel mixer and
that was a big thing that i wanted was
to be able to have more inputs
because with four we could do three
cameras and like graphics on a computer
or video playback
now we can do you know seven cameras
plus some video playback and the thing
about this blackmagic mixer when it
first came out is it was
about two thousand dollars which is the
cheapest i had ever seen a production
switcher especially considering has
eight inputs it does definitely have
some quirks but for the price i mean
this is
this is unbelievable so this became our
studio mixer
and the roland mixer is one that we use
for mobile live streams
but again this was six thousand dollars
this was two thousand dollars
which is why this little black magic
mixer
is so incredible for 300 this does
almost everything that that roland six
thousand dollar four channel mixer does
but the thing about this
also is it's so friendly with
resolutions and frame rates you can plug
in pretty
much any hdmi source computer
tv console camera frame rate whatever
and it will convert it to whatever you
set it as an output and it will do
everything at 1080p you don't have any
other options besides 1080
but it does give you 23.98 all the way
up to
60 frames per second so that's three
hundred dollars
six thousand two thousand three hundred
dollars so with all that being said
while this might not be a perfect
perfect device for what it does for 300
i don't think there's really any legit
criticism you can throw at it other than
the fact it doesn't have a power button
blackmagic has a thing where they just
don't like putting power switches on
their devices
which is insane i luckily have been able
to just hook this up to like a
wall plug thing that lets me control it
with the remote control so what i want
to turn it off
i can push a button here and it turns
the switcher off and i can push a button
here
and it will turn the switcher back on
but otherwise the only way to turn this
on and off is to literally unplug it
which is just silly
the same is true for the two thousand
dollar tv production studio
that we have at work just put a power
button on your products come on
it doesn't take any kind of black magic
to see that that is a smart thing to do
but beyond that and especially
considering this is marketed for
you know a home streamer or a consumer
this does everything that you need it to
do and it just kind of gets out of the
way
each channel has its own audio input so
you can choose by pressing afv
which is audio follows video that means
every time you cut to that
angle the switcher will take the audio
from that angle as well these little up
and down arrows let you adjust the
volume of that input
and in addition to that there are also
two 3.5
millimeter inputs on the back that you
can turn on or off and adjust the input
level
unfortunately you can't see what the
level is you just have to turn it up
turn it down and
probably use your software to monitor it
but one thing i like to do is i've
plugged my videomic pro plus directly
into this and it has worked terrific as
an audio source
but typically when i'm using this it's
with the road caster pro
i just plug the monitor outputs into one
of these 3.5 millimeter jacks
and then i have all of the inputs all of
the sound effects all of the
capabilities of the road caster pro
available as i'm doing any kind of
streaming or online classes and that's
really where i decided to purchase
this thing and where it has totally been
a lifesaver is
starting this school year virtually and
online instead of in the classroom like
normal
it was about two weeks before school
started and i realized
oh my gosh it's not just enough to have
a camera that i can talk to my students
with but i'm probably going to want to
switch to
different camera angles as i'm doing
that
and then that's what made me realize
this was going to be the perfect thing
for my setup and then from there
it can be used in live streams when
heather and i do our weekly podcast
sometimes we play around with it and the
reason that i
know that it is really good is because
often times when i get my new camera
gear heather my wife is just kind of
like oh that's cool
and when i got this she was legitimately
excited about it because
of the capabilities that it provides so
the fact that something like this can
bring that excitement out in almost
anyone who encounters it
i think is really cool and it's not that
you even just have to switch live if
you're using software like obs
you can record directly into that
software and it will record
all of your switches and all of your
camera moves there are some other basic
functions built in you can do
picture-in-picture some very basic
transitions
and some basic king and even though this
is designed to be simple and
user-friendly if you do want to take it
a step further and add in some more
advanced features you can use the atem
mini
software control on your computer which
is a free download from
blackmagic's website and that
essentially turns this into the same
thing as like the tv
production studio that i have at work
it's got all your inputs here you can
add in
bars and transitions and keyers and
chroma there's even a
media pool so if you wanted to add in
still images unfortunately it doesn't do
video
you can just drag up to 20 still images
in here and then make them
live so for example if i drag an image
to one of these windows
then it pops up and now it will be live
there and then on the switcher itself if
i press the still button that will
transition to
whichever image is selected over there
you can also
adjust your audio much more finely than
you can on here you can see the audio
inputs from every source
and adjust them specifically and if you
are using blackmagic cameras
of course they're going to be more
compatible with this and you can jump in
and control all the color and all of the
fine-tuning
of your connected cameras i don't have
any black magic cameras
but that is a capability built into this
which is
huge so it's not even just a basic four
channel mixer
there's a lot of this button is flashing
so it's not even
what are you doing so it's not even that
this is just a
simple mixer it has a lot of
really cool built-in features to the
hardware component
and then goes through the roof once you
bring in the software component if you
want to take it
to that level now in learning more about
this switcher after i got it i found a
great youtube channel bad guy named
aaron pirecki where he kind of dives
into like every possible setting in a
very detailed
way so if you want to know the absolute
technical capabilities of this
i think he does a better job than i ever
could of explaining that
what i want to do is explain how
something like this fits into my
workflow in a really practical
down-to-earth kind of way it's also
important to mention that blackmagic
does have an
atem mini pro which goes for around 500
and just has a few more of those pro
level features
like a multi-camera output so just like
back at my
job with our bigger switcher you can see
all your inputs and then select from
them on a monitor
that's definitely much more of a
traditional live stream setup now on the
back there are the four
hdmi inputs along with the hdmi output
which can go to a reference monitor and
i actually have found that to be very
helpful because i use this most of the
time currently
with zoom and you don't really get a
good preview window
of zoom before the meeting actually
starts so having that monitor up there
so i know even if i'm sharing a screen
or whatever
having that set up is a great way to let
me know what camera angle i have and
and that it looks okay and then the
fourth input i actually have from
my old macbook pro so i can run like
keynote presentations or play videos
because i have found that playing the
video from the switcher
gives me better quality over zoom than
just doing a screen share and trying to
play a video and it sounds all garbly
and
terrible and whatnot there's also the
usbc connector which will let you
connect it to the computer
there's the two audio inputs there's
also a
an ethernet connection so you can run
this over a network and of course the
power jack connecting this to your
computer via usbc
is what also lets it act as an interface
so i don't even use it with something
like the cam link this takes care of all
that itself and it shows up as a webcam
in your software so for example if i
open up zoom and then i go into
preferences and click on
video it shows up as an input option
there's of course the built-in facetime
camera which is
just horrible quality and then there is
there are two options for blackmagic
there's 30 frames per second or 60
frames per second all my cameras are
only actually set to 24.
it doesn't really matter everything
looks fine so who cares
and this is my second angle here's my
third angle you can see over here
normally the fourth one is where my
computer beat would be and the first one
would typically be this camera but right
now it's
not connected to the switcher if you go
into audio
it will also show up blackmagic design
as an audio source and typically
for a zoom meeting i will select that
because the road caster pro will be
running
into this and then that will set it up
as my audio source
and the same thing would be true in a
program like obs or whatever you're
using to stream
i've used it with stream yard i've used
it with youtube studio you can just
select
the blackmagic a10 mini as its own like
interface and then whatever you have
connected to it
will automatically show up so it's very
easy it's really
plug and play and you can kind of see
any switches i make on the software also
take place
on the switcher itself and there is just
like a
more traditional mixer there's a program
and preview settings so if you're using
the software and you want to do that
essentially what that means is program
this red button is whatever is active
so if i want to switch to camera 2 or
camera three this is usually the easiest
way to do it if you're just one person
kind of manning your stream
traditionally in a broadcast setting
what they will do is have a preview so
i have camera one active now i'll
preview
input number three and then i will cut
between them and that just prevents you
from making mistakes
and switching to something before it's
ready or accidentally lets you make sure
your next shot is ready to go before you
take it live and you can actually set
that up
in this software so that this does work
that way so when you download the atem
mini app it does include the software
control but
it also includes something called atem
setup and if i open that up it's going
to give me the option
to change a few things one of them is
the switching mode i can switch from
program to cut
and if i switch it to program preview
and save and now you can see if i want
to switch from angle 1 to angle 3 i
press 3
but it doesn't go live yet it turns
green meaning it's in preview mode
and then i can press cut to actually
take it and now camera one becomes
the preview if i press auto that will
automatically
do whichever transition i want so you
can kind of see both options are then
red
which means it's transitioning between
them and then it switches once they're
done so it just depends on what your
workflow is what you're used to how
you're using the a10 mini which one
would be best for you
i i can't believe that this costs 300
this is something that
thousands of dollars was the minimum
price you would pay for this
functionality up until now
so while there are weird things you know
it would be great if it had a multi-view
output
it'd be great if it had a power switch
sure it'd be great if you could see
the level of the volume when you're
pushing these buttons up and down
but for 300 the capabilities that it
provides to you
there's no room to argue the elgato cam
link is a one
source capture card that has none of the
switching capabilities
and it's one-third the price so for one
hundred dollars you get one camera and
nothing else
for 300 you get four cameras plus all
the audio processing plus all that
software support
that's an unbelievable deal and it puts
multi-camera broadcasting right into the
hands of
pretty much everybody now is this
something you need for your live stream
to be successful
no absolutely it's not like i just
mentioned the something like the elgato
cam link
if you just need one really nice camera
connected to your computer
one little hdmi capture card like this
is definitely the way to go and you can
get stuff that looks terrific
but if you want to switch between
sources easily on the fly
this is unreal and having a hardware
switch or a physical thing
that controls that makes it so much
easier than having to like go in here
and click a mouse button and do all that
kind of stuff you can just push a
physical button
sometimes without even looking i can
just push the button and i know which
one it is and it's going to switch the
angle and i'm going to look super slick
on camera and my students are going to
think i'm awesome
more awesome than they already do and
that's ultimately the point right is for
people to just think you're
even more awesome than they already do
that's not the point
you