Any newer alternatives to Hyperdeck Studioo Mini?

[Josh Hayes]

I purchased an ATEM Television Studio last year (the 1K option) for the biggest conference we film each year in October. This year I want to buy something like the Black Magic Hyperdeck Studio Mini to use as my program record. Should I be worried that if I purchase it a newer/better model will come out? Any thoughts? Or has something else come out that still plays nicely with Blackmagic's Software (Atem Control, Desktop Video) which has been notoriously hard to interface non-BM stuff with..... Any thoughts?

[Brad Kraus]

Well, there will always be something that is faster, cheaper, has higher resolution, more storage capacity, etc. looming on the horizon - that is the curse of working/living in a technology field! One can literally wait forever for the perfect product to come along that will never be outdated but sooner or later, you just need to take a deep breath and jump in.

That all said, if I may make a suggestion and if your budget has the room, for about twice the price of the studio mini, you can get the Studio Pro 4k. this gives you several years of future-proof resolution (maybe even longer before anything above 4k becomes genuinely commonplace) and has the added advantage of using removable (and relatively cheap) SSD drives which can be swapped out (a better overall option than the cards the mini uses, im my opinion); giving you pretty much unlimited storage capacity.

This may be your best bet at a solution that can grow with you for several years to come and all you may need to buy are a few extra SSD drives for extra storage. We went this way and have zero regrets. In fact, we just bought a second HyperDeck Studio Pro 4K for our off-site rack as well.

It's always a tough deciosn to weigh out, so best of luck!

[Josh Hayes]

Great points, thanks Brad! Our budget isn't quite there, but appreciate the insight for sure.