Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Pro HDMI Live Stream Switcher (SWATEMMINIBPR)

These units are really amazing and have a lot of features. They're like a Cricket phone for audio-visual staff (volunteers) who are not technical or easily confused by too many tasks / demands during a livestream broadcast.Easy to accomplish the basics but has a lot of advanced features if you want to dig in and make things a lot fancier.One major note of caution: the picture in picture feature is essentially broken for practical use. The macro-workarounds are nice and all but the PiP has been lacking the feature to just save a custom sized PiP for a second HDMI feed to populate that PiP window. The PiP buttons cannot be re-programmed to run the macros for you either -- the buttons are hardcoded to the useless values supplied by the manufacturer -- these values yield a super tiny PiP box which is not broadcast ready. This issue has been known for years and is unaddressed by Black Magic.

I do live video for a living for large production companies, and bought this for my own small production company.Out of all the switchers I use professionally, the ATEM MINI PRO is, by far the best small scale solution at the pro level. We use them for video switching to projectors and monitors at entertainment and corporate events while simulcasting to live streams or tv.The learning curve is not difficult and operation is simple enough that a complete novice can take it out of the box, watch a couple YouTube videos and start streaming with it in a very very short time. With some practice, one could op it like a pro.Sometimes on corporate shows we leave these running for days at a time with no issues.With everything you need for polished, professional output, you can’t go wrong with this switcher, and you don’t even need to use software control from a laptop to do it. The Mini Pro can be used as a standalone solution. Transitions, audio mixing, and much more can be controlled right from the unit which is ready to stream via ethernet or record to any portable drive via the USB-C output.Use software control and you get some more cool features like drag and drop graphics and more. It also frees up an hdmi input if you were using one for graphics. You connect to the computer, phone, or tablet using the USB-C output AND either directly to the computer or through a router. Now the USB-C becomes two-way communications and using the ATEM Software Control, you send your graphics down that connection, freeing up an HDMI input! You can also set the colors, do more in depth audio tweaking, drag and drop graphics, up and downstream keying and more.Also he Mini Pro, unlike many of its competitors , has 2 stereo audio inputs, with noise reduction, eq, compression and more. You can also use the camera audio through the HDMIs. A very cool feature is you can set it to make camera cuts automatically to whomever is speaking, with it reverting to a different angle when no one is speaking.My typical small event and live edit set up is:ATEM Mini ProHDMI inputs 1-3: CamerasHDMI input 4: video playback, IPad. ( iPad can also be used as a camera)USB-C: graphics and Software ControlAll in all a great product.

So far I've had 3 cameras hooked up to it during a Livestream and works flawlessly

Needed to pick this up for a shoot that I had to stream via zoom and I’m not sure I would have been successful without it. It’s simple enough to use for someone who has never touched a switcher. The only complaint is that it doesn’t have an on/off switch

I recently used this to broadcast live from a venue during my music video release party. It worked well with OBS and allowed me to broadcast directly to Facebook! I ran it with a Sony Alpha 7 IV and a Sony Alpha 7 III. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for an uncomplicated way to do a multicam broadcast.

I liked everything... I watched a ton of YouTube videos on the Blackmagic Mini Pro. I learned a ton. I kept watching like I was going to college.. and I learned a lot. So much that I also purchased a second, larger ATEM switcher. Because they are HDMI based, you can plug one into another. These only produce 1080p output, so if you are using a 4K camera, you're likely going to get a great picture, but it will still be a 1080p video when you're done. Another thing that I've discovered is that moving up to 4K equipment becomes many times more expensive and complicated. I'm really happy that I did not decide to put together a 4K setup. There are several levels of this product depending on your needs. But I'm pretty sure you could run a small TV studio with this switcher. But if you need multiple screen views on one TV screen (called SuperSource) you might look at the Blackmagic ATEM Extreme.