Is there a new cheap updated switcher like the Atem Television Studio?

[Josh Hayes]

Hi folks. Been doing live events for a long time. Never had the budget to pay a bunch of money for a professional switcher setup and all the gear that comes with it, and am a little out of my element figuring it all out. A few weeks ago I started looking at Black Magic's Atem Television Studio and I was super stoked on it until I realized it doesn't do 1080P. Ouch. A lot of the info on it, is several years old but I couldn't find much research on any updates to it or any potential rivals at that price point. I see the Atem 4k Switcher which besides being out of my price range doesn't take more than 1 HDMi input as far as I can tell which is useless for me. I shoot on GH4s and GH3 so the 4 HDMI input option on the Atem Television Studio was crucial. Are there any other competitors or options I should be looking at and researching?

[Donald McPherson]

I've been looking at the Roland when I can afford it.
Roland Pro A/V - V-1HD HD Video Switcher

[Bruce Dempsey]

Cerevo Livewedge

[Sander Vreuls]

The Atem Production Switcher 4k has 4 HDMI inputs and does 1080p.
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/pro...specs/W-APS-04

[Josh Hayes]

Sander you're right it does I looked at the wrong specs for that one. It's a little out of my price range though.

[Josh Hayes]

I didn't know about the Roland or the Livewedge! Researching them now.

Have you guys used either?

[Chris Harding]

Hi Guys

We do have a new section dedicated to live streaming here given to us by Chris Hurd so please use it rather than the general DV forum

[Bruce Dempsey]

I've had a livewedge since they came out about a year ago and it's never let me down

[Josh Hayes]

Oops sorry I didn't realize there was another section.

[Josh Hayes]

Bruce: So it doesn't do 1080P 24 or 30 fps?

Input Options
480/59.94i, 576/50i, 480/59.94p, 576/50p, 720/59.94p, 720/50p, 1080/59.94i, 1080/50i, 1080/59.94p, 1080/50p, 640×480/60Hz, 800×600/60Hz, 1024×768/60Hz, 1280×768/60Hz, 1280×1024/60Hz, 1366×768/60Hz

[Steven Digges]

Josh,

Here is one of the technical things about switchers you need to know. I'll keep it simple.

One of the things that separates low and high priced switchers is scaling. High end switchers have a scaler built in to every input. That allows you to mix sources of different types and output resolutions.

In your price range most do not have scalers, That includes the BMD ATEM line and others.

What that means to you is that every source signal will have to be identical. So.....if every source signal is 1080P 60 for example, you will be fine. You would not be able to mix a 1080P 60 with a 720P 60 signal.

If you are just mixing camera sources this is usually not an issue as long as they have the same output settings. You will not be able to mix any other device that will not match your input setting IE: playback devices, computers (unless matched), older cameras etc.....

The Roland 4 input HDMI switch will probably serve you very well. All devices need to be the same resolution but it DOES have processing that will allow mixing of interlaced and non interlaced signals as long as they are the same resolution.

Steve

[Josh Hayes]

That's good to know. That worries me a bit because the number one reason I'm thinking about purchasing one is for filming conferences. While using the a switcher to edit the cameras (they'd all be shooting in 1080P so no issues there) in real time would be awesome and definitely cut down on time, the most time consuming thing I do in post-production is syncing the slides from presentations up to the talks. Often at a conference I can't get a straight capture video of the slides being presented, so I have to film the projector, then I'm sent the Keynote or Power Point file and I extract all the individual slides (and builds) and use the video of the projector screen as a timing track and adjust each and every individual slide. It's like living in the stone age.

I was hoping to have a switcher where I can get that video signal (either from the laptop itself somehow or from the house AV folks if I can push them into doing it) then I could mix the whole thing live and turn 3 weeks of work into 2 days (the day of and the following day adding/fixing anything needed). But now I wonder if that would be a scaling nightmare (especially if every presenter uses a different laptop and there's no way to try to make the video uniformly be 1080P.

[Steven Digges]

Josh,

I am glad you clarified your intent. You are in the dark ages. You are not going to find a thousand dollar solution for mixing the PowerPoint slides. Todays presenters use everything from a lap top to a phone to run presentations on.

To be able to handle it all you would need something like this:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ..._av_mixer.html


Steve

[Charles Papert]

It sounds like your cameras are not the problem but the projected media source is. Maybe consider adding a scaler like the $295 Decimator MD-HX which can convert a multitude of formats to match your cameras. I use these with an ATEM Television Studio to convert any given camera to 1080i.

[Steven Digges]

That Decimator is quit a device. And for that price it puts other converters to shame with it's multitude of options. In the corporate AV world it would help some of the time but not all the time.

Corporate AV is very slow to change. Believe it or not there is still a lot of VGA cable being used to project at resolutions as low as 1024x768 in 4x3. It is a mix of everything from that to full HD. There is also the variable of where Josh would be getting his feed from ie; the presentation device or an AV device (switcher, DA etc.). There is no single standard for cables, connections, or resolutions. That is why the Roland HD50 would be an ideal device, but maybe overkill for Josh. I should have mentioned they and others make scalers and switchers less pricey and less capable of doing so much. Maybe my post should not have gone straight to the top.

Thanks for the heads up on the Decimator Charles. I had never heard of it and am still in the BMD and Aja world of converters. They are costly and generally perform a single function.

Kind Regards,

Steve