Which Switcher? ATEM Mini Pro vs ATEM TV Studio HD // Gear Review

blackmagic design has got so many video switcher options available it can be completely overwhelming to a non-expert about what the right solution is when it comes to live streaming for church i'm a big proponent of hardware video switchers so if your church has yet to invest in that direction and you're trying to find the right solution for your setup make sure you stay tuned for the rest of this video because that's exactly what we're talking about today hey thanks for checking this video out i'm spencer from churchvideoschool.com where we help churches learn both the technical skills and the ministry strategy necessary to win when it comes to online church in this video we're going to be looking at two very popular switcher models for churches the atem mini pro and the atem tv studio hd i've helped dozens and dozens of churches get set up for live streaming in the past year and i can tell you that there are good reasons for both switchers but what confuses a lot of people is how to know which one is better for what kind of setup so in this video we're going to compare the features of both switchers to get a better idea of when to use one when to use the other or when to get something totally different now before we get too far into the video today i want to let you know that all the gear we're talking about today as well as gear for video production and live streaming specifically for churches is linked in the church video gear guide in the description below so make sure you check that out alright so the a10 mini pro came out about a year ago or so and it was amazing timing for blackmagic with the kovid 19 pandemic the a10 mini pro is an all hdmi switcher it's got four hdmi inputs one hdmi output one usbc connection and one ethernet connection the a10 mini pro retails for 5.95 the a10 mini pro can be completely operated by the buttons though it does need to connect to a computer to get set up for live streaming the atm tv studio hd is a little bit more of a broadcast style switcher though it can technically be controlled from all the buttons on the front it's a two-third size rack mount that can go either in a rack or just straight on the table for inputs it's got four hdmi inputs and four sdi inputs it has an ethernet port and a usb 2.0 port to get it connected and set up and controlled from a controlling computer it's got an hdmi out for multi-view and sdi out for multi-view four sdi program outs one main sdi program out and one aux sdi out the a-10 tv studio hd retails for 9.95 all right so let's compare a few different categories to stack up how the a10 mini pro and the tv studio hd compare to each other the first thing we're going to look at is inputs so for number of inputs the a10 mini pro has four hdmis but the atem tv studio hd has eight four hdmi and four sdi so for pure scalability the atem tv studio hd has a lot more room to grow than the atem mini pro however there's one big difference between these switchers which is that the a10 mini pro comes with a built-in video scaler that means as long as it's an hd or lower signal it can come in at almost any frame rate and be converted to whatever the standard use set is so that means in a practical sense that when you're connecting your macbook pro that's running at 60 hertz and it's very difficult to change it'll still work even if your cameras are coming in at 24 or 29.97 hertz whereas on the tv studio hd every single input no matter what kind of input it is has to be the exact same frame rate and resolution this can make connecting computers very difficult and require additional equipment or software for audio connections the differences are somewhat minor the a10 mini pro only uses a three and a half millimeter headphone jack which isn't super great but it will get your signal there even in stereo and the atem tv studio hd has got two xlr inputs which lock are easier to run and again just simpler to set up all right now let's talk about operation both of these switchers connect to computers via ethernet and are controlled with atemp control software this is very simple to use it mimics a desktop video switcher but don't have to spend three thousand dollars to have one and it makes operation very very simple however a difference between the two is that the a10 mini pro doesn't actually need the software in order to run technically neither of them need the control software in order to stream but the tv studio hd is very difficult to run on the physical buttons just because of where they are and how they operate the atem mini pro is designed to be used as an actual device where you use the buttons so it's actually really simple to use without the software there is one more big difference with the a10 mini pro which is that it's got a usbc port that means that you can record directly to a hard drive over usbc without having to use any additional computers or equipment you can just plug it straight into the switcher literally hit the record button on the switcher itself and it'll record everything going out your program feed this is a huge benefit for those of you who want a master copy or who may be doing other produced work for editing later to just save time the other enormous advantage the a10 mini pro has in operation is that it can stream by itself it's got a hardware encoder built in so once you use the atem software to set up your streaming destination you can unplug from that computer and plug directly in to a router or a switch ethernet port and you can literally stream with just the press of a button to that destination no computers required this is an amazing asset of the a10 mini pro and probably my favorite feature of it because it eliminates another computer from your workflow if you're limited on space or on funds alright now let's talk camera control because that's an exciting feature for many of us we're not talking about ptz control where you can control your focus and all of your actual camera physical movements we're talking more about color control iso color balance white balance all those kinds of adjustments to make sure all your angles line up and look exactly the same and as good as possible both of these switchers feature camera control through the atem software and if you're using blackmagic cameras you can use this amazing feature without buying a shading station or any other expensive equipment with one big catch for the atem tv studio hd you've got to be able to run an sdi feed back to one of their studio cameras or their ursa or ursa mini cameras that can accept a usb signal in order to use this kind of feature there is a converter called the up down cross that allows for you to use fewer cables for this but the bottom line is those are the only compatible cameras with the atem tv studio hd now the a10 mini pro is only compatible with two cameras that blackmagic produces for camera control but those two cameras are the blackmagic pocket cinema 4k and pocket cinema 6k easily the most popular cameras for live streaming that blackmagic makes so while you have a lot more options in pro control in the atem tv studio hd it doesn't really matter if you're running the pocket cinema lineup the a10 mini pro is the only switcher you can buy that'll talk directly to those cameras without an interface in between alright so so far the a10 mini pro definitely has a leg up on the tv studio hd but not so fast now we need to talk about the most important difference between these two which is outputs so we've already covered this a little bit but just a reminder your a10 mini pro has one hdmi output one ethernet output and one usbc output what that means is that if you're using a very basic live streaming setup where you've got cameras coming in you've got your hdmi out for your multi-view which is pretty much the only thing it's good for and then you've got your ethernet connection going directly into a computer or ethernet switch to stream to your destinations it's really really effective it does a fantastic job but and this is a huge asterisk if you want to send video feeds anywhere else in your building and stream at the same time you cannot do it with this switcher now before you leave a comment and tell me that i haven't done my research i have and here's the limitations the hdmi out on the back can be anything it can be a program feed a single channel feed a clean feed or your multi-view but if you take it away and use it for an hdmi output to say a resi device or back into propresenter 7 or into a distributor to go throughout your building guess what you no longer have a multi-view at all so you're switching blind you can't see what your cameras are seeing and to me there's no way you can effectively live stream without a multi-view so to me that option is completely off the table so what that leaves you with is the ethernet port and the webcam option on usb you technically can usb tether into a computer and treat your a10 mini pro as a webcam and use a webcam streaming service and software however this is a high latency low quality way to do this so i don't recommend it you're going to lose a lot of quality at a high cost so what that means is you've got your ethernet port only as your main program out now if you want to stream through propresenter 7 through a resi hardware encoder or any other hardware encoder you can take your ethernet cable plug it into what's called the atem streaming bridge and it will convert that signal into sdi and hdmi outputs with that you can plug one of those cables into your hardware encoder and send it online and use another cable and run a feed all throughout your building and that's great so that's technically a solution it's a 250 dollar purchase so to me you're not getting all that you paid for with the a10 mini pro which is a super affordable switcher that doesn't require a second computer you now have to get a streaming bridge for 250 bucks and you have to get a separate hardware encoder or at least a decklink 3g recorder device to get the feed into your computer which again is another 100 to 500 and it just ends up stacking up to where you're not saving any money by buying the a10 mini pro with the a10 tv studio hd i think a lot of people undervalue how much output potential that this switcher has obviously you've got your main sdi program feed which you do have to feed into a computer or into a hardware encoder which is again a hundred to five hundred dollars but what you also have is an aux out which can be anything you want again a single feed a clean feed a program feed copy that you can use for some other purpose and you also have four program outputs on that sdi row in the back these were designed for talkback and tally to go back to these cameras but if you use them and just plug them into a tv or plug them into your network you're going to have just a copy of your program feed show up anywhere you plug these in so that gives you so much more potential for networking lobby tvs cry room tvs without having to daisy chain one signal across the entire building i think this is a huge asset of the switcher and one that's really underrated by those of us comparing these two options if you're looking at how many converters you might be saving for sdi runs to cameras that are far away or if you're running into a control room not having to convert everything to hdmi may save you a couple hundred dollars in converters and that may be the difference if you're looking purely at cost all right so we really nerded out there and i hope that you guys were able to follow along but in summary this is what i would say if you're looking at a simple live stream setup and you don't need to feed video into other parts of your building then the a10 mini pro is a fantastic option and it's almost unbeatable for what it's designed to do which is a simple live stream with one destination online if you're looking at doing more of an infrastructure setup where you've got cabling running throughout your building and you've got stuff going online and you want to use resi or propresenter 7 or some other kind of streaming service the atem tv studio hd or other switcher models like the 4k models are going to allow you to do more with that same setup without buying additional gear now you may have noticed i haven't mentioned the a10 mini xtreme this definitely bridges the gap between these two switchers the a10 mini xtreme has literally doubled all the inputs and outputs of the a10 mini pro which solves many of the huge issues i have with the a10 mini pro it also has features that the atem tv studio hd doesn't like hardware scaling which is really really valuable now i already did a full review of the a10 mini xtreme which you can see up here if you haven't caught it already i think it's an amazing switcher and after i get my hands on one pretty soon it may become my go-to switcher recommendation for churches however at the end of the day there is no one size fits all what matters most is knowing exactly what you need and what you will need in the next 12 to 24 months before you make your purchase now if you'd like some help figuring out not only what the best tech solutions are for your situation but also with coaching and training for you and your entire volunteer team to run an effective live stream each and every sunday make sure you click apply in the link below to reach out to me and i would love to get on the phone with you and talk through the best solutions for you in your church so no matter what size your church is or what size your budget is there are ways for us to partner with you and reach more people for the kingdom using video all right guys i hope this has been helpful for you again leave a comment like and subscribe and this has been valuable to you and i'll see you next time you

Channel: Church Video School

Views: 10,586

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Id: FuuJMU5Hw3I

Length: 13min 52sec (832 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 17 2021