For so many churches, the desire for quality video on their live stream is real, but the number of people and the knowledge of the few people serving might not be where it needs to be in order to create the desired results. The pursuit of excellence also spills into the desire for quality archives of the services or for marketing and social media content. If these desires were present five to ten years ago, the solution would have required a fairly significant price tag --- anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000.00 for video switching. However, thanks to Blackmagic Design’s mandate to bring professional-quality features to video switching for those who are running small teams, there are now affordable solutions. This article is here to help highlight what can be accomplished for less than $800.00. While the Atem Mini line of switchers range from $495 to $1295, we will primarily reference the Atem Mini Pro ISO which is priced at $795 in most places. This video switcher has the most features while still having only four inputs. Let's look at some of the features this switcher line has that will help churches with small production teams.
- Isolated Recording. The ISO part of the name in Atem Mini Pro ISO stands for isolated recording. This means the switcher has the capacity to output a multiview screen, a master output, and additionally take individual recordings of each camera and two different audio inputs. This is extremely helpful in settings where a church may not have enough people to switch live each week, but has a desire to edit the archive video to give the highest quality to those who may check the church out online. All that is needed is a recommended external SSD drive. These recommendations can be found on Blackmagic’s website. So, someone could easily take these videos, dump them into a video editor and re-edit how the switches between cameras, either for message archives or social media content. This is especially helpful for social media content because it might be appropriate for a 30-second clip to have more switching than what is desired on the Sunday morning live stream.
- Macro Recording. This is probably the greatest Atem Mini tip of all. All Atem Mini Software (that comes with the switcher) gives the ability to record macros (predetermined movements/button pushes) and then recall them and set them on a loop. How is this helpful on Sunday? Let's say a church has a four-camera setup, which can require five people -- four camera operators and someone on the switcher. But what if only three people show up on Sunday? In this example, a church could design a macro for worship that switches the cameras automatically on a loop so one of the three people who showed up doesn't have to be stuck switching. While automated switching isn’t perfect, it can be very helpful when a team is short-handed. It is also helpful for training purposes. A macro could be made to run for worship the first time a new person is running the video switcher. The brilliance of the macro system Blackmagic has created is that when the person running the switcher overrides the macro, it simply waits until the next step and continues to loop the macro.
- Lower Thirds Without Wasting an Input. If someone has been working in video production for a while, they might remember the days when a four-input switcher was really just a three-input switcher plus the lower third or slideshow. This is now a thing of the past. With Blackmagic’s Atem Mini software, the video feed can receive full slideshow or lower third overlays via NDI (video that essentially travels over wifi or an Ethernet cable from an external source to the switcher). Now an $800 switcher can handle four inputs and whatever digital graphics are required at the same time. While NDI is not native to Blackmagic, this integration is incredible.
- The Multiview Function. This might be one of the most obvious features, but it is worth mentioning. The ability to view all camera shots simultaneously, as well as the master output and preview camera angle simply by adding an external monitor is huge. This feature was not existent for less than $5,000 just a few years ago and now it's available for a fraction of that amount. The multiview can also be seen on a computer through the ethernet port by using the Atem Mini software if there isn’t space for an additional monitor. All Atem Mini Pro’s have this feature.
Whether a church is trying to create more content throughout the week, or they are simply trying to make live streaming happen more efficiently, there are so many features available with the Atem Mini line of switchers for a price range that is very responsible.
