Hello streammakers! Less than one year after the
release of the ATEM Mini Pro, here comes the ATEM Mini Extreme. Now, I don't like making videos
about incremental updates. And at first, I just
thought it was an ATEM Mini with more inputs and buttons. But then I took a closer look and I realized that we really
have a big game changer in the live streaming game,
and it's quite a big update. Having one, two, three,
four, five, six, seven, eight inputs doesn't mean, it's
only designed for people who use eight cameras. Actually, you might want to consider it even if you are only
connecting one or two cameras, or none and I'll show you why. For me, the key new features are the improved layout possibilities. You can really up your streaming game now, and I will show you my favorite workflow and how I set up these
interactive layouts. If you are new to the ATEM Mini series and are now just diving in, I recommend you check out
my 50 minutes long tutorial on the ATEM Mini Pro first, because I won't cover these
aspects again in this video. Today we are going to go
through a quick overview of the new features of the Extreme, an in-depth look at the SuperSource mode, explain what the Upstream
and Downstream keys actually are with simple words if you never quite understood, and finally I'll show
you my favorite workflow for dealing with motion
graphics and lower thirds. We'll ultimately finish with a recap of the upsides and downsides
of this new ATEM Mini Extreme. Now let's get started and
start with a quick overview of the new features. (uplifting music) In terms of design, we can definitely see a clear coherence in the product line. The ATEM Mini Extreme design is very similar to the
existing ATEM Mini models, they share the same ATEM
Software for computer control. And all the features that you could find in the ATEM Mini Pro can be found in the ATEM Mini Extreme such as streaming to live platforms directly from the switcher. Now, the ATEM Mini Extreme is heavier, longer, and you can connect
up to eight HDMI inputs instead of four. There is now a headphone jack and a second USB connection which means that you can now record to disk and use the ATEM USB output
as a webcam simultaneously. There is also a second HDMI output, which means you can bring up
the multi view on one monitor, and the final program
output on a second monitor or in a high quality ProRes
recorder, for instance. It's worth noting that you
can assign both outputs to any of the inputs in just two clicks in the ATEM Software. And this can be highly
valuable in many situations. For instance, if you have
a customer that wants to bring up just a
PowerPoint on a stage monitor instead of the complete program output, well, you just have to go to output two, select your PowerPoint
source and there you go. The first inputs can
be directly controlled using the switcher. At the back there I have the multi view, but if I click on PGM
here you can see that it just switches the output to
whatever input I choose here. Finally, it's worth
noting that the multi view is now entirely configurable. So you can set which
source you want to see in which position, including the preview and program windows. You can also easily switch from a four box to a full screen box, if you don't need the
preview window, for instance. So that is another very
valuable addition to me. (uplifting music) What initially struck
me when I saw the design was the enormous amount of buttons! There are exactly 201 buttons, which is four times less
than the 756 buttons of the ATEM Advanced Panel 4M/E but almost twice as
much as the 104 buttons of a full computer keyboard! Even though I found it
disturbing at first, I think the general idea is to make the ATEM Mini Extreme usable on its own, without any laptop. And looking at it, there
are many button sections that are just eight copies
of the eight camera inputs, which actually helps not making mistakes because that way you know
which dangerous buttons control the camera that
is currently on air. Here, we can see that
it's camera two on air. So all the buttons that are above, well I have to think carefully
before touching any of these. We can find all the sets of buttons which were already there
in the ATEM Mini Pro. But with the ATEM Mini Extreme, we now have headphones
volume control buttons, more transition types. There are also shortcuts
for recalling macros number one to six of the ATEM. There is also a select bus to quickly set which video source you would
like to be in which key, and I'll come back to these in a moment. Finally there are new buttons for quickly adjusting
Blackmagic camera settings such as ISO, Focus, Shutter and Black level control also called pedestal. I would have preferred
an Iris control button instead of a Shutter button, because I generally adjust iris much more than I adjust the shutter. (uplifting music) If you wanna go a step
further on camera control, there is this free software we built that allows you to use
any external joystick to control for instance
the iris, the pedestal, the zoom, the focus, et cetera! You just have to run it on a laptop, connect your laptop to
your switcher router, set your ATEM Mini Extreme IP address and then you can custom map any joystick axis and
buttons to camera settings. We will also soon
release a hardware device that can connect to the DJI Ronin-S2, so that you can use it as a PTZ head with the ATEM Mini Extreme! With the joystick you can control the pan and tilt precisely, and
also save position presets. In this way you can save
a very specific position with a custom zoom, focus, iris, shutter, white balance setting, and
then you recall it later with our software or using
Companion with a Stream Deck! Also, if you want to use your camera with a wireless video transmitter such as Teradek or Hollyland, you can also send camera and gimbal control information wirelessly as well with our device. I've put a link in the
description if you're interested, keep an eye on the Middle Things website! It's gonna come out soon. Anyways that's it for my self promotion. I'll now move to the most
interesting new feature of the ATEM Mini Extreme, which for me is the SuperSource! (uplifting music) The ATEM Mini Extreme
comes with a SuperSource. You can see this as a ninth virtual input into which you can put multiple
video sources side by side. So for me it's a huge addition, and it's surprise because
that was until now only available in the most expensive Blackmagic ATEM switchers. So let me show you how it works. Okay, so first, you can
see my program monitor at the back there. So I control it this way on the ATEM Mini. So I will start by
bring up the SuperSource on that program monitor, by
pressing this button here, this new button on the ATEM Mini Extreme. Then in the ATEM Software, I will just go into the pallette here and then I'm going to select SuperSource and then choose one of the preset here. So like if I press the four here, there you can see that it
pops up on the monitor. On the program we now have
four videos side by side, in the program output. You can have a total of up to four boxes in a virtual input. So each box can be
individually configured. For instance, here at box one I can move the position around. I can move, of course, the size. I can change the source that
will go into this box here so I can choose whichever camera I want. I can crop it, of course. And then here I have
different automatic layouts. I can also go into the Art tab here and select a background, for instance. Here if I want, I can put,
like if I take camera five, it makes a nice background. So it's an HDMI source but I could also put like a still image of a media player as a
background, for instance. And I can also put it on the
foreground, for instance, if I select cameras seven and I have a key for this one, which is camera eight. And you can see that on the
foreground I have a video with alpha which allows
me to do quite a few, a few things with that. I'll come back to that in a minute. And then back on the ATEM Extreme, as you can see I can use the SuperSource just as I would use any
of the cameras here. So I can just select SuperSource and I just have them side by side. So that's a very nice addition. In other ATEMs that have SuperSource, we can add a border. For some reason here for
the ATEM Mini Extreme we cannot add any border. So I don't know why it's this way. Maybe it's a hardware limitation. Now I find it quite intuitive to set it up in the ATEM Software, but it's not easy to change
the SuperSource very fast in a live stream if you
have different layouts that have to change very quickly. So I found three ways
to improve the workflow: The first one is to record
macros in the ATEM Software. Now if you're new to this, a macro is a sequence of ATEM actions that you can record in ATEM Software. So when you go to the ATEM
Software in the macro section and press Record, it will
remember every single click or action you make on ATEM Mini Extreme. And once you're done you can
playback the recording later. Well instead of wasting time setting the proper parameters for each time you have to set it up to bring it up, you can just record the
exact sequence of actions required to bring up the shot, and then play it back instantly by recalling the corresponding macro. Macros were already there
in the other ATEM Minis, but now you have hardware
button shortcuts here, one, two, three, four, five, six, right on the panel, which
can be very practical. This way, you can recall
six different layouts, straight from your ATEM Mini. So it's a great way to prepare your shoots by making predefined layouts that you can call anytime
during the stream. Also, you can easily
export and import macros to other ATEM Mini Extremes,
right from the ATEM Software. Now a more simple way
to create your macros is to use the H2R
SuperSource Layout software from John Barker, from
Here to Record channel. It's a tool that allows
you to set up your macros using a visual interface, just like PowerPoint or Photoshop, and it will export the
corresponding macro code for you. While it's only the beginning, I think it's a very, very promising tool because it really allows you to empower the ATEM Mini Extreme with the ease of use that you get with softwares
like OBS, Vmix or Wirecast. So, thumbs up for his
impressive piece of work! Finally, I would also like to credit Brian from A2Z productions
for the awesome macros he created that I now
use on a regular basis. Instead of making static macros
like I explained earlier, he created fully animated macros that will smoothly transition from one SuperSource to another. And if you have a Stream
Deck lying around, you can use the popular Companion software to import his custom button layouts, which will trigger the right macros depending on your current layout. So as you can see, when
I select one of his SuperSource layouts on the
Stream Deck using Companion, the animated macro runs and you can see the smooth transition from one layout to another. So that's awesome. And it's designed so that you
cannot mess everything up. And with another page, you
can select which HDMI input goes into which SuperSource box. And I also have on my macros here just in case I need to
use the other macros of the ATEM Mini Extreme. So this way, you can just
create SuperSource layouts on the fly very easily
in just a few seconds! And I can tell you this is highly valuable when you have to show
one or more speakers, a PowerPoint and a Zoom
remote guest side by side! So big thanks to A2Z as well! Now let's move on to our next part which will cover all
you have to know about Upstream keys and Downstream keys. (uplifting music) When it comes to overlays and keying, I do feel that words like Downstream keys, Upstream keys, DVE, et cetera are very tricky to understand, especially if you come
from computer softwares like OBS or Vmix. And I didn't really make it very clear in my ATEM Mini Pro review. So just to make things clear. A DownStream key or DSK is a layer that will go on top of everything. So you might want to
use it for a fixed logo on the upper right corner, for instance. That layer resolution should
match your ATEM resolution. So if you wanna put a logo, you have to import a TIFF file
with alpha which is 1080p, placing the small logo on
the upper right corner. What I usually do is export the layer directly from Photoshop
to the ATEM Media Pool using the Blackmagic plugin. So that I can make quick
adjustments on the fly. An Upstream Key or USK is a layer that you can add
in between the clean feed and the Downstream key. It can be any of the ATEM inputs, and you can make four
types of modifications on that input. You can make a Luma key which means you can key out
part of the fill source, that has a specific luminance value or using an external Key layer. You can also crop the result using a mask, and move the result around by activating what we call a Flying key. The second modification you
can make is a Chroma key. So you can key out part of the fill source that has a specific chroma value. For instance, if you
have a green screen shot, you can pick the green color to key it out and make adjustments to that shot. Just as the previous Luma key you can also activate
the Flying key options to resize and move on that chart around. The third type of
modification is a Pattern key. So you can key out part of the
field source with a pattern. And now the fourth type of modification you can make to the input is a DVE. DVE stands for Digital Video Effect. And you can resize and
crop the fill source, as well as add a border and a shadow. A DVE can be very useful
with Zoom and Teams calls, when you need to crop part of the screen and then make it bigger. Things like this. So in a nutshell, you just
have to remember that: The Downstream Key or DSK is the top of the top overlay, like a logo, for instance. So then DSK equals logo. On the ATEM Mini Extreme you can make two independent downstream keys. The Upstream key or USK is a modification of one of the inputs. On the ATEM Mini Extreme you can make up to four independent upstream keys, which is pretty big for a small switcher. Now I never really quit understood why they are named this way. I find it quite confusing actually because you know the Upstream
key should the top one. Up should be down and down should be up. Or if someone can explain me this stuff. Just as many other ATEMs you can adjust the DSK and USK settings into the ATEM Software. But what's new on the Extreme, is that you can quickly select which input should be used as a fill source for each of the keys here with the select bus buttons. For instance, let's say I
wanna use the Upstream key 1 to key out the camera four green screen. So I first bring up the
key using the key one. ON button here. There we go. I then select K1 chroma to tell it to make a Chroma key on Upstream key 1, and then I just have to
select the green screen shot which is camera four, there we go. Just to set it as the fill source. You can also customize
the four transitions with the fill source that will
be used for that transition. If I make a wipe transition and I select the same media play 1. You can see that when
I make the transition it will use the media player. If I want to set the
logo of media player one in the Downstream key one, I first bring up the key
using the DSK1 ON button here, then I select media player one. I pressed DSK 1 on air here. And you can see the logo pops up. Let's say we want to make a
nice layout for a Zoom call, for instance, so I'm
going to start by bring up the background and the
program window here. So here I have a video
loop of a background coming into HDMI five. So I select it. Then I will go to the DVE1. So we want to be able to
resize, crop, et cetera. So I will bring up the select bus for DVE1 and we can toggle the
Upstream key 1 on air here using this button ON. But I could also go
into the ATEM Software, here on press On air to
have it on the program. So as you can see, I now
have my Upstream key. And of course I can change the source here using the select bus there so I can put any camera I want. Here there's a small border
that we can adjust here in the Upstream key 1
settings in the ATEM Software. So as you can see, when we go to DVE here we have a few settings like the border. We can put a small shadow like this and we can actually crop the image using a mask and stuff like this. So we have a nice, a nice layout here. So if I can quickly no layouts, layouts, no layout, layout, et cetera. So I'm just doing like
background key, key off camera. So background key, key off camera. Now, if you're in the
middle of a live stream you're probably be in a hurry. So you might wanna prepare
everything beforehand to have all of your layouts ready. So instead of pressing all
these keys at the same time of course I can use macros. So that here you see, I
can select my camera there. And then when I press macro number six, here I have my layout,
which goes on automatically. So I can just turn it off
by selecting another source and then macro, it just
plays back the whole set of actions that I've recorded into the SuperSource settings instantly. So you can either use
these six buttons here or to a more advanced
setup with a Stream Deck and Companions with all your
macros as I showed earlier. (uplifting music) In this section I would like to show you three different workflows
for lower thirds, a simple one, a better one,
and lastly my goto technique. The most simple workflow I would suggest is using the ATEM Media Pool. So you can make 20 different lower thirds stills before the show, that use save as a TIFF file
with alpha using Photoshop. And then you bring them
up with a Downstream key and a simple fade, by
pressing the AUTO button. So for instance we can
put that lower third into a Downstream key. So in the select bus, I just
select a Downstream key 1. I select media play 1
where I have my lower third and then bring it on air I
press the Downstream key 1 button and here we go, it's on air. So of course, if I use the ATEM Software I can a very small fade to make it like smoother, like this. So, too bad the fade button isn't
on the ATEM Mini itself. Each time you change speaker, you have to load the next
file from the ATEM Media Pool to media player, like so. I find a little bit more convenient to sense the lower thirds directly from Photoshop because this
way you can live edit names and job titles easily on the fly if there are last minute
changes, et cetera, because customers often change their minds at the last minute. If you wanna add a bit of
movement in your lower thirds, I recommend creating a
PowerPoint presentation that has all your lower thirds video with a green screen background. So here I think it's on camera, yeah, camera four here. So I have PowerPoints. And then when I move the slides I just have full screen videos
with a green background. And then it's very easy to key. If I want to have it over my video here. So I press input number
two to show up my video. Then I press the Upstream
key 1 chroma here. I'm going to select, so it was camera four and then I just press
the Key 1 on air button. And here we go. We have all the lower thirds here and I'm just like going back and forth with my PowerPoints here. So if I wanna bring it to lower thirds, I just press Next in the PowerPoint, and it will play it out for me. Now I use PowerPoint for convenience but you can use any players you like. The only limitation with
that PowerPoint method is that you might struggle
with that lower thirds that have transparency due to the green screen keying. And you know, that's
pretty hard, et cetera. So now, my goto workflow
is to use a software called ProPresenter, which is kind of a PowerPoint, but optimized for live production. What I like about it is
that you can add videos and lower thirds in a ProRes 4444 format with alpha, and when
you playback the files, it can send two separate
key and fill signals to ATEM Mini Extreme if you use like a Blackmagic
Ultra Studio Mini HD or those Decklink card that you put at the back of the computers. And in the case of the
Ultra Studio HD Mini, for instance, you just
have a Thunderbolt 3 cables that goes from the Mac to the units, and then two SDI cables, one with the key, one with the fill. So it's uses two inputs
on your ATEM Mini Extreme. But then when you create a Downstream key and Upstream key you can specify which input is the fill and which input is the key, and then you will have a perfectly clean lower third motion graphic! Of course, you can also use it to playback full screen videos as well. Another cool feature
is that you can create a separate stage output using your computer HDMI out for instance, where you can display a
big video countdown timer, which lets the speakers on the stage and in backstage know
when the current video, that's playing is about to end so that they can prepare and know when they have to talk again. You can also use ProPresenter
to playback music files before the show starts, or even create a video countdown at the beginning of the show
to let your audience know when it's going to start. And if you unfortunately
experience technical issues, you can easily add a few
minutes here and there to that countdown timer. Here I made all of these animations using an After Effects
template I purchased so I've put the link in
the description for you. So that's it for my lower thirds workflow. So these three workflows can
be used with any ATEM Mini, but the last ProPresenter workflow uses two HDMI inputs for the
key and fill signals, so I think the ATEM Mini Extreme is much more suited for this workflow. (uplifting music) A bit earlier in the video, I talked about how you can create macros in the ATEM to improve your workflow. I've also showed you how you can export both the key and fill
signal for motion graphics with ProPresenter slides. Well now, what about controlling all of these worlds
together from one location? What about having one small controller sitting next to your ATEM Mini Extreme, on which you can show only the buttons you are interested in, it could do things like: Trigger a lower third motion graphic for speaker number five. Trigger your SuperSource layouts. Changer your SuperSource
inputs within seconds. Make the DJI Ronin S2 jump
to a specific position and trigger a SuperSource
with this framing. Well, the magic is created using this incredible tool
called the Stream Deck which is a button pad with
customizable LED displays on each button, so that you can name each
of the buttons as you like. So it comes with its own software, but things get even more exciting when you use it with a free software called Bitfocus Companion. In Bitfocus Companion, you
first add your devices, such as one or more ATEMs, ProPresenter, then you can map each button
to a sequence of actions. For instance, here, I'll create a button, tell the ATEM to run macro number two, which creates a nice SuperSource. And I'll also tell it to run ProPresenter slide number three which is a video that has alpha. Then I'll ask him to put
the ATEM DSK1 on air, and then boom, when I press On button, it will trigger all of
these things for me. So as you can see here I have all of my layouts here. With a single button I am able to combine a SuperSource macro
that I did in the ATEM. That's puts two videos side by side and I also trigger a
video from ProPresenter that comes on top of that SuperSource. So here you can see I have, at the background is like
the SuperSource of the ATEM. And then I add this video with transparency using
the separate key and fill from the ProPresenter Software. So I can make a nice transitions this way and I can make different types of layouts that are pretty, pretty nice to the eye. And yes, so we can make
that quite interactive. So here, just to show you
and Bitfocus Companion, how it works. If I want to create, for
instance, a button here that will trigger a lower third. So I just go into the
Bitfocus Companion interface, I set button type. I create regular button. So this will be lower third. I can put, like let's say a blue color and I can put blue color here. Then on the key down, I
will tell our ProPresenter. So ProPresenter to go to a specific slide and here I'm going to
put the slide number. So if I go to ProPresenter
you see this lower third here is on slide number eight. So I tell it to play
slide number eight here. And the presentation path is 00. Now, as soon as we launch
this video in ProPresenter we're going to tell
Companion to tell the ATEM to activate the Downstream key once. So here we are going to select Downstream key. Set Downstream key on air and we're going to
select Downstream key 1. Now you can see that the
new button here pops up on the Stream Deck instantly. And then when I select that button here you will see the lower thirds
that come on top of my video. So it's actually playing
the file from ProPresenter, with the alpha, et cetera. And it's also activating a Downstream keyer 1 and putting that file into the downstream keyer. So right now we only made one but of course we could have
many, many lower thirds here. And then, you know you just send them all right from one Stream Deck. So that's really, really valuable. (uplifting music) Unfortunately, I did not manage to grab an ATEM Mini Extreme ISO
version in time for the review, so I cannot tell you whether it works as promised or not. But I can tell you that the extra feature you will get with the ISO
is that you can record all of the inputs in one hard drive in good quality H264, and it will generate a
DaVinci Resolve project file for you with all the cuts, so that you can fine tune all
the live edits afterwards. If you have Blackmagic pocket cameras, it will also trigger
Blackmagic Raw recordings into the cameras, so that you can have a very
high quality edit at the end. (uplifting music) so I am honestly very impressed by all the important features
Blackmagic managed to pack in such a small form factor. I don't see any no go or big issue for me, it really addresses many of
the ATEM Mini Pro limitations. It's really an incredible switcher. Now as amazing as this device is, I think there is still
room for improvement. Of course, this is only
from my perspective. So I might be the only one to think that but the button layout could have been a bit better, I think. Since we need to open the ATEM Software to adjust the settings of the different Upstream and Downstream keys I end up rarely using
the select bus buttons. Well, I use them, but not that much. And on the field, I tend to
rely on pre-recorded macros that automate all the
layouts for me, or Companion. Also, the only transition buttons that I really use are the Mix, Dip, may be the Wipe here. But I don't think these
other transition buttons are that important. The picture in picture
shortcut buttons are fixed and not customizable so
I don't use these either. So regarding the select bus, this picture and picture
transitions there, I don't think these burdens
were absolutely necessary. On the opposite, we only
have one toggle for DSK1 and one toggle for Upstream key 1, I would have preferred
to have all the toggles for both Downstream keyers and all the four Upstream keyers since I use these on a regular basis. And finally, to me I think an Iris button would have made more sense
than a Shutter button on the camera control here. Now regarding the ATEM Software, a struggle that could
be improved in software is adding custom destinations. It's not practical to have to
edit that Streaming.xml file since you have to take
the XML file with you when you move from computer to computer. I would love a better UI for this. Also, when using Blackmagic pocket cameras with ATEM Mini switchers, you are suddenly locked
into a Blackmagic Raw recording mode, and I wish
we could have the option to record ProRes, too! Just like when the HDMI is not connected. Lastly, I think there is still quite a bit of a learning curve for new users, especially with this Upstream and Downstream key terminology. Sometimes the short name is USK1, sometimes it's K1, sometimes it's Key 1. So I think the UI in general has a potential for improvement to make it much easier
to make layouts for users that don't come from a
broadcast background. And this is mostly about
software improvements, and I think John Barker
from Here to Record tackles this issue very well with his promising H2R Macro Layouts, I talked about earlier! What I hope to see is the simplicity of the What You See Is
What You Get computers interfaces like
PowerPoint, OBS, et cetera, pushed into the ATEM, so that you can get the
upsides of both worlds into one reliable hardware capture card, switcher and encoder
instead of a computer. With that being said, I do have a few suggestions to make to Blackmagic for future products. I think this form factor is perfect for fixed studios, churches. But when you're on the go, you quickly end up having to
pull out lots of converters, cables and monitors each time, which means longer set up times. So I think it would be
nice to see two variations of this ATEM Mini Extreme. A 1U rack mount version, just like the good old
Television Studio HD, but with all the features
of the ATEM Mini Extreme. And second, an all in
one ATEM Mini Extreme that would include two small monitors. One for the multi view, and one for the program feed or whichever feed we want, in addition to the two HDMI outputs. (uplifting music) Just before I end this video, I would like to refer to a few channels that I like, if you want to
learn more about ATEM Minis. I already mentioned John's
Here to Record channel which has plenty of valuable content, as well as very cool
software and utilities. There is also Brian from A2Z Productions, a pretty new channel,
but with great insight and the macros are very good. And you might already
know Doug Johnson, too, his videos are more about professional live production in general
than just the ATEM Mini series, but he has an incredible expertise and his videos have helped me understand lots of concepts, so big thanks to him. PhotoJoseph makes great content in the live production field as well, and if you're looking for ATEM Mini Pro and Extreme tutorials
I definitely recommend Alex Pettitt and Aaron Parecki's channels who both focus all of their
content on these devices, which is great too! Of course there are other channels that I probably didn't see, but these are the six
channels that I watch and learn from the most in this field. So let's wrap, for me
this ATEM Mini Extreme is not just a small ATEM Mini
Pro update with more inputs, it's a much much more powerful machine, so if you are seriously
considering live streaming I definitely recommend it over a computer if you have the budget. If you already have an ATEM Mini Pro and are happy with four inputs, well the question you
have to ask yourself is, do you need to put videos side by side, do you need a second USB output and a second HDMI output? Well, depending on your use case, it can be important, so it's up to you. And this is it for this walkthrough, I hope you liked it, I've tried to make it as
extensive as possible. And I've not been paid by Blackmagic nor have I been sent this
unit for free for this review. As with all videos, I would love to read your thoughts too on this ATEM Mini Extreme, so let me know in the comments! Goodbye and see you soon! (uplifting music)
