Which ATEM Mini Is Best For Streaming & Recording?

the blackmagic 810 mini is a super powerful video switcher at a relatively affordable price but there are five different models with different features so today i'll attempt to explain the differences between the atems to help you find the one that's right for you [Music] now that i've got your a tension let's cut right to the chase which is actually going to be super easy to do because i've got a switcher right here to cut to the chase where if you just want my recommendation for which a10 mini model to buy i think that the a10 mini pro is the way to go because there are a lot of pros to the pro mainly the price because last year blackmagic reduced the retail price to 495 dollars and i think that the pro has the best mix of useful features for the average user you not only get your four inputs but you also get a multi-view output so you can connect a display and see all of your inputs so you know what you're cutting between you also get the ability to record directly to a hard drive if you want to record everything not to your computer and speaking of not using a computer with the a10 mini pro you can stream directly to youtube facebook twitch all that kind of stuff just from the unit itself but there are a lot of nuances between all of the different models so let's talk about the entire a10 mini lineup so whether you get the 295 810 mini most basic version or the 1295 810 mini extreme iso there are a few things that all of them have in common first and foremost they are all multi-input hdmi video switchers that's really the main purpose of the atem is to switch between different hdmi sources that can mean cameras consoles computers whatever if it's got hdmi it can be a source for the a10 mini all of the a10 mini models have two 3.5 millimeter microphone inputs so you can run audio directly into the atem i personally do prefer to run my audio separately usually that's the road caster pro connected to the computer and then the a-10 connected and then those sources selected in the application that i'm using but you can run audio through all of the units all of the atoms do work very well with black magic cameras and davinci resolve of course because it's a black magic ecosystem and all of the atemps also come with the atem studio software so even though it is a hardware switcher you do get access to the software which does open up a lot of features and a lot of capabilities and lets you have a lot more control and flexibility over your workflow all of the atems do have fans and for the most part i'm a fan of the fan because they're very very quiet however i will say on my atem mini extreme iso i is so hopeful that i think mine is just defective because every once in a while it might happen during this video the fan will just kick on and go really really loud and the reason i think that that's a defect is because it will do it so randomly and so sporadically and then sometimes if i just lift up the corner and drop it then it turns the fan off [Music] and i feel like that's just a defect because i've not heard of that happening with any others they are pretty quiet they shouldn't be picked up on camera or microphone and of course if you're using this in a control room environment it's not going to be near a camera microphone anyway additionally none of the atemps have a power switch the only way to turn an atem on or off is to just unplug it and plug it in now this i think is taken from professional broadcast switchers where if you have like a tv studio or a production facility usually the equipment is just kind of left on all the time however i do think it is weird with the atems because even though they can be used of course in professional environments they are also targeted at home users independent users schools places where they wouldn't want it to be turned on all the time what i did is just buy some of those little outlet remote things where you plug the atem into a little box and then you plug the box into the wall and then you have a remote control so now when i want to turn it on and off i can just do it with a remote control and there are two things for every atem that could potentially be a downside that i think is very important to be aware of but whether or not they're downsized just depends on your workflow the first is that the atem is limited to 1080 you can do 1080 60 frames per second but that's it you're not gonna get 4k out of any of these no matter how much cash you 4k over for it the other thing to be aware of which some people view as a potential downside but it's just sort of how switchers like this work is that no matter how many inputs you have some models have four inputs some have eight your computer is only going to see your atem as one source a lot of people i've known have gotten an atem and they want to be able to then pull each source individually and create like a scene in ecamm live or do kind of split screen stuff your computer will basically just see the atem as a webcam so it's gonna be one video source and then whatever's going through is just going to be whichever channel you have selected at that moment now there are ways to do picture and picture on the atems especially using the software control i find it to be a little clunky and not super versatile the a10 mini xtreme models do have more options for doing like side by side or multiple sources over a background and you know upstream downstream keys all this stuff to kind of help build out more rich looking scenes from within the mixer itself i find it a little confusing to put all that stuff together so if you want to know how to do that i'm going to recommend that you check out aaron pirecki's youtube channel he is an absolute genius with everything related to the a10 mini and if you want to dive into some of those advanced features on any model aaron definitely has a video or a live stream that can help you out so now that we've covered what they all have in common let's talk about each model independently and see what sets them apart starting with this one right here this is the 295 dollar atem mini it's just the a10 mini it's the most basic one that there is and basically what you're getting here is a four input switcher and that's kind of it you can do a few different transitions you can use the software to load in a couple of images if you want to like throw up an image or something you don't have multi-view output you can't stream directly from here you can't record to a hard drive you can basically just switch between four sources but that simplicity is also its strength and i bought this early in the pandemic when i was a high school teacher and i was teaching all of my classes online and i just wanted to be able to easily switch between sources while i was teaching i didn't need crazy monitors i didn't need multi-view i didn't need fancy features because i was using ecam for everything else i just needed to be able to easily have a few cameras set up switch between them to make my classes more interesting and make it easier to communicate what i was teaching online and this was perfect for that now i did do a full review of the a10 mini and in that i explained kind of the history of broadcast multi-input switchers and i definitely recommend checking that out if you want to know why i'm so impressed with these because up until that point in time this kind of technology and capabilities cost thousands or tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars so the fact that you can get one for under 300 is mind-blowing to me now the next model up from this is the a10 mini pro and that again is the one that i think is the best overall value so this is 295 dollars the a10 mini pro retails for 495 dollars and it has all those features that i mentioned earlier you get everything that this does plus recording to a hard drive plus native streaming if you need it plus what i think is the best feature is multi-view output if you want to be able to see all of your sources and then know what you're switching to and exactly what that source looks like at that moment you can do that the base model does have an hdmi output but this is just a program output so it's just going to show you whatever is currently selected whatever is currently being displayed from the atem the next step up from the a10 mini pro is the atem mini pro iso these names get a little bit ridiculous iso means isolated recording for each track so it does everything that the pro does but it will also then let you record independent tracks for every input to a hard drive so you'll get everything that you're doing all four sources just the full raw footage in addition to a fifth track which is your mix so if you are you know switching between things and recording you can still get your full recording in addition to all your sources and it will also create a davinci resolve project file so you can take that put it into davinci resolve and then your whole project will already be there with all your cuts and you can go through and tighten things up or change shots around or fine tune it but after going through a live switching event you already have kind of a completed project file that you can just polish up a little bit and the a10 mini pro iso retails for 795 dollars so 300 more than the pro beyond that that's where you get into these extremely big switchers which are the atem mini extreme and yes it is ridiculous to say this is a mini thing and there's 800 buttons on here that do different things these buttons are just really fun to press also on all of them but there's just so many buttons here so for 995 you get the a10 mini xtreme which then gives you eight inputs in addition to you have camera controls that work with black magic cameras unfortunately not other cameras but you can change the gain the focus the black the shutter speed you can adjust all that stuff right here the extreme models also have a headphone output so you still have your two microphone inputs but now you also have a headphone output so it's easier to monitor your audio the extreme models have a very robust select bus here so if you want to start mixing and matching sources overlapping sources creating like a four window overlay almost like you would create a scene in ecam live or obs you can do that from directly within these devices right here it's a little clunkier it's a lot clunkier than something like ecam live would be but it's definitely possible on the back of the unit you also now have two hdmi outputs so you can run a monitor you can run multi-view at the same time and you also have two usb outputs so that means you can be recording to a hard drive and you can be connected to your computer at the same time and just like the difference between the a10 mini pro and the a10 mini pro iso the difference between the a10 mini xtreme and the a10 mini xtreme iso is that ability to record the independent isolated tracks so you can now have nine tracks all eight of your inputs plus your program output can be recorded separately and can be used to create project files in davinci resolve now these are all really powerful switchers and when you pair them with atem software control they become even more powerful but hopefully by looking at each of them individually you can kind of see what the differences are and speaking of things that are really powerful thank you to everyone who supports my channel through patreon and youtube channel memberships and if you do want to attempt to take a more in-depth dive into the a10 mini check out my full a10 mini review right here [Music]

Channel: Tom Buck

Views: 31,424

Keywords: live streaming, atem mini, atem mini pro, atem mini switcher, blackmagic atem mini, atem mini blackmagic, atem mini review, blackmagic design, atem mini pro iso, atem mini setup, atem mini extreme, atem mini pro setup, atem mini vs atem mini pro, atem mini vs, video switcher, hdmi switcher, camera switcher, livestream equipment, atem mini extreme iso, atem mini comparison, atem mini features, atem multiview

Id: 74_6-Eak874

Length: 10min 32sec (632 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 14 2022