Watch this before buying the Elgato Prompter

I've been using the Elgato prompter for about a month now and this little thing just grab it could be a bit of a game changer for all kinds of users not just YouTubers but there are some major problems with this device that I need to tell you about and oh I'll tell you about these specs too now I've got no idea what's coming next so I need to put this back on my camera I'll see you after the titles people are often quite surprised that I Ed a teleprompter for making these videos now when I started making content I didn't used to but it would take me such a long time I've been looking off to the side at my notes and i' sometimes get things really wrong and have to go back and spend tons of time re-recording and if you think about some of the stuff I have to remember like crazy product names random battery capacities and the names of certain materials honestly some of these things are unpronouncable let alone memorable please do better tech companies anyway up until around a month ago I've been using this budget option from a brand called a des view it was Heavy it took an age to set up but it did did the job it let me put my iPhone or iPad Mini up here to scroll through text which I then load on Via a custom app and then I saw Elgato enveil this little thing and The Magpie in me was instantly activated I got in mega early with the pre-order meaning I was one of the first customers to receive this and I wanted to wait a little while before I gave you my thoughts because it's important sometimes to let that Magpie shine wear off especially since this thing is nearly double the price of my outgoing teleprompter in this video we'll talk about who I think this is for the stuff that's really impress me some major flaws that might make this a bit of a deal breaker for you and I'll do my best to answer the question should you buy one now I've had a good troll through some of the early reviews of this product and I've done my best to cover all the stuff that others seem to have missed but if you've got any other questions or thoughts about this yeah you know what to do but let's start by looking at what you get in the Box everything in here is recyclable by the way which is great to see and we'll come back to this box of Tricks shortly there's only two other things in here firstly there's this little shelf that you can use to place a webcam or phone on if you're not planning on using a camera behind the prompter and then here's the prompter itself now I was really surprised by how light this is it's mainly kind of plasticky construction and even with the integrated screen is pretty compact easily something you can hold in one hand Inside the Box we get some paperwork a braided USB cable and then this selection of lens attachments now these thread onto your DSLR camera lens and allow you to have the prompter directly attached to your lens there's no need for any separate mounts or brackets if you're using a tripod you also get a universal shroud and a mirrorless back plate you need to thread this onto the back of the prompter in order to use one of those little rings on it it comes fitted as standard for use of a webcam or phone now there are tons of other features here that make this worth looking at for a variety of use cases and to be honest for a $279 product there should be but as we'll come to talk about you're probably going to end up spending far more than that to get this to work for you firstly the absolute best thing about this device is the integrated screen so it measures 9 in with a resolution of 1024x 600 pixels and it's plenty big enough if you're relatively close now it offers a bunch of different use cases that instantly put this in a totally different League to a lot of teleprompters so if you take lots of video calls for instance you can set this up with your participant Windows here so people will see you looking directly at them when you're talking rather than slightly off to the side like this same goes for streamers if you want to see the chat box while you're in a live stream you can give viewers the impression that you're looking right at them while you're reading and responding to their comments maybe if you've got to give lots of online presentations using PowerPoint then you can use this as your presenter notes window so you can keep that eye contact and come across as though you've memorized everything in essence this is all designed to make you look good and that is so long as you remember the golden rule of looking away from the camera once in a while otherwise it gets really intense really quickly you want me to Blink don't you I'm not going to do it you blink first okay I have to Blink sorry this is probably a really good time to talk about these glasses now you notice I don't normally wear glasses but these aren't prescription they're blue light blocking lenses I actually have 2020 Vision which is frankly insane given the amount of time I spend in front of a screen these days but all that screen time does place a strain on my eyes due to the blue light emitted from a lot of devices so these are from a brand called any love and I thought they might be a bit of a placebo at first but I've genuinely noticed a massive Improvement in how my eyes feel after using them at the end of the day a really large reduction in dryness and a feeling of strain so I've put a link and a discount code below if you want to grab a pair they come in all kinds of different colors and styles including these ones which are specifically designed for gaming at night I kind of like to pretend that I'm Tony Stark wearing these ones anyway back to the prompter and aside from the built-in screen there are lots of great features here we should probably talk about the weight and the Simplicity of the setup now when people talk about Plug and Play This is genuinely it it's a one cable setup you plug it in you fire up the software and you're off sometimes we'll talk about that in a bit on top of all this you can use this with a bunch of different devices not just a camera so you can stick a webcam behind the screen or even your smartphone and you'll be able to access all of these features it also plays really nicely with other Elgato products and finally you get a lovely selection of cold shoe mounts so you can even on a light or a microphone or even a monitor if you're feeling brave now for me the thing I like most is the ease that I can just click this onto my camera and just start recording I can genuinely be up and running with my full YouTube setup in less than 5 minutes which is a massive game changer for me in reducing friction in the process of getting these videos made so there's loads to love here then but I need to flag up some of the flaws that do make this a bit tricky to recommend to absolutely anyone and I'm not exaggerating when I say that some of these have made me want to rip my face off with sheer frustration firstly oh the software that runs this Elgato camera Hub is all kinds of shuny I'd actually go as far to say it's downright bad bear in mind I'm coming from a process where I used to write a script dump it into my teleprompter app and then hit play then being able to stop and pause and then pick it up again just as easily as this and with the prompter this is not the case first thing I have to load the script in piece by piece it actually breaks it up into chapters which then you can advance through but not dynamically so if I wanted to re-record an element and jump to this part of a script I have to start at the beginning of the chapter and then wait for the prompter to get to the bit I want to re-record if you've not thought this through beforehand and you've just pasted all your text into the software in one big chapter this is a maddening process now likewise the software doesn't just automatically read a paragraph As a new chapter so you have to break it up yourself when you start the prompter software so for all that time save the setup this has added so many more steps into my process not good now the other thing about this software is that it doesn't seem to like Max very much now I'm basing this on other reviews I've seen with folk who are running this through a PC and don't report this issue so if anyone's got a Mac and doesn't have this problem let me know in the comments FYI I'm running an M1 chip MacBook Pro and I promise you it's potluck as to whether this works or not every time I plug this in I'm not kidding the other day I spent 20 minutes just getting this thing to connect restarts software upgrades Docs switching I tried blowing on the cables which works most of the time right I even tried swapping out the cable that Elgato provided for this massive magnetic beast from mag tame no it just decides to work some of time and then the rest of the time you have to wait for it to play nice now if it feels like I'm laboring this point I probably am I just need to stress that this software is so bad that I have regularly fantasized about just reaching out for my old budget prompter and iPad combo and it's doubly annoying because Elgato have really nailed the convenience and features here it's almost just as though the hardware department was operating in a different planet from the software team anyway software aside there are a couple of other things I need to share firstly it doesn't pack down like many other cheaper products do so if you're like me and you mainly record from one place like a studio setup or an office that might not be a big problem but if you need to transport this around to different locations you're going to have to pack it away in its box or find another way of keeping this very light plastic from breaking and finally this one is going to sting this is an expensive prompter at almost $300 but it's highly likely you're going to need to spend more to make this thing work for you so for example because of the way the software works you'll need to find an easier way to control it maybe if you got something like a stream deck and that's going to set you back between 150 and $250 or maybe this pedal set which will let you control everything from under the desk or out of shot of the camera that's $70 by the way and that's before you get into things like Des stands lights boom arms and the rest I reckon you could easily drop drop a grand on this setup if you stick with Elgato branded stuff for all of these elements and for that kind of money as far as I'm concerned this thing has got to be practically making these videos for me it should definitely be shipping with software that works better than the chocolate Fire Guard yeah that really felt good to get off my chest thanks for listening all right so you've heard what I've got to say let's round off with a question of whether you should by the Elgato prompter now in my view if you make a living from being able to look someone in the eye whilst talking to them through some kind of screen whether it's giving presentations making lots of Zoom calls making video content maybe all three in that case this could be a game Cher for your workflows and your overall video credibility especially if you've got the Deep Pockets required to spec this up to work in the way that Elgato have designed it now for your average content creator like me I do think this needs some work before I could fully recommend Rec commend it there are many other better cheaper alternatives available like the padcaster which comes in at sub $100 and it lets you use your phone as a teleprompter with a remote control and everything so if you're starting out in the content creation game and you need something to help you save time remembering your content don't buy this until Elgato spend some time fixing their horrible software and I promise I'll let you know when that is folks if youve got any questions about this one that I've not covered here just let me know down in the comments if you need to level up your online meeting game super quickly you'll love my special hack that I've uncovered using my iPhone it's all in this review when you're ready to check it out see you next [Music] time

Channel: That Mark Gilroy

Views: 4,007

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Id: 92FohvCRmV0

Length: 10min 47sec (647 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 04 2024