Podcasting is an area where churches are putting a great deal of effort, and online social media and video platforms are only making this easier for both audio podcasts and video podcasts. As churches increase their online presence through podcasting, they also oftentimes desire to do more than the basic one-camera shot. However, a full-sized video switcher may be overkill for their needs. Roland recognizes this, and recently introduced the V-02HD video mixer with this purpose in mind.
Overview
The V-02HD is a two-input switcher/scaler that’s designed with simplicity in mind. Most cameras, especially those often used for podcasting, have an HDMI output, and therefore the V-02HD uses only HDMI as its input connection format to keep things simple and small. In addition to the two HDMI video inputs, it also has a stereo unbalanced audio input via a 3.5mm TRS jack.
The switcher has preview and program output HDMI jacks, with the preview output receiving on-screen display of the system menu when in use, as well as audio level meters. A headphone jack is provided to monitor the program audio output.
Most cameras, especially those often used for podcasting, have an HDMI output, and therefore the V-02HD uses only HDMI as its input connection format to keep things simple and small.
The top panel provides the bulk of the controls for the switcher, including the T-bar fader control, buttons for input one and input two, controls for selecting and adjusting the video effect to be applied to the input signals, controls for accessing the system menu, and controls for fading the output to either black or a previously-captured still image.
There is also a foot-pedal input for connecting a supported foot pedal to the unit so you can operate the switching via your feet. If you are trying to both run a video camera and switch at the same time, and you need your hands free to follow the talent, this is a great option for switching between camera and graphics.
The V-02HD’s small footprint and simplified set of controls belies its feature set, however. A good variety of wipes are available in addition to the standard cuts and cross-fades. For example, Picture-in-Picture (PinP) is possible for presenting one input as an inset over the other input, and both chroma- and luma-keying allow for doing lower thirds and other graphics treatments.
Several options are available for audio switching, as well. Audio switching can follow the video switching, for example, or audio can be set to be always present or turned off for a particular input. You can apply EQ, a high-pass filter, gate, and compressor to each audio input.
The V-02HD is a scaling switcher, so inputs are scaled appropriately to the output resolution. A frame synchronizer is also built in, eliminating the need for genlock between sources.
Video formats supported range from 480p through 1080p or 1080i, both on input and output. The preferred video output format is selected from the system menu (or selected automatically based on the device connected to the output), and the input will be scaled to the output format set. You can also scale both inputs and the output to account for over/under scan of the output device being utilized. Common video attributes can also be set for the video input and output, such as brightness, contrast, and saturation, as well as adjusting the individual red, green, and blue values.
PinP is quite flexible, letting you scale the inset frame, crop if desired, position it freely, and add a border to make it stand out better.
PinP is quite flexible, letting you scale the inset frame, crop if desired, position it freely, and add a border to make it stand out better. All PinP parameters can be adjusted via the preview monitor, and then go live when you drag the T-bar or trigger an automatic transition. The PinP effect fades in and out cleanly.
The keyer provides the ability to do either luma-keying or chroma-keying, both in blue, green, or a custom key color.
The switcher can be used with High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) sources, as well, by turning on a menu option. This applies HDCP content protection to the switcher’s outputs, enabling the use of Blu-ray players with the switcher. However, this also means that you can’t feed the output of the V-02HD into a recording device with HDCP support turned on.
Evaluation
I am impressed with the V-02HD and could easily see it finding a home in churches. First, for a church with simple video needs, it would be a great way to switch between a computer for graphics and a camera for occasional IMAG. And for a church that does podcasts, using this to add graphics support and lower thirds to a video stream would be great. In fact, with the help from Larry Leake at Crossroads Fellowship Church in Raleigh, N.C., we did just that—we utilized it for their weekly video podcast with their senior pastor.
Despite being a very small unit, it felt very well constructed and all controls felt like they would hold up well over time.
Despite being a very small unit, it felt very well constructed and all controls felt like they would hold up well over time. The T-bar operation was very smooth, and the switching/crossfading looked great.
The keyer was a nice surprise. First, keying graphics from a computer worked great, both with luma-keying (based on brightness) and chroma-keying (based on color, typically green or blue). When I changed over to keying a live input, I had low expectations given the price point of this switcher (and also as I didn’t want to take the time to set up a nice, properly lit green screen). But I was very surprised—once adjusted, the green screen keying actually looked very good despite mediocre lighting—possibly even better than what I sometimes see on our local TV stations when they do the weather.
I did have one moment of confusion. My laptop, which I was using to generate my background input for the keyer, put its video display to sleep. I woke it back up, but from that point on the chroma-keyer did not appear to work. I tried everything I could think of, but no joy. Finally, I realized that when the laptop display went to sleep, the V-02HD saw that the signal from that input (input 1) went away and changed the input to be used as the background video to be the video camera input (input 2). So, it was keying the camera input just fine, but compositing it on top of the unkeyed camera input. After waking up the laptop I merely needed to press the large button corresponding to that input on the switcher panel and it was re-selected as the background image for the key. Most people wouldn’t experience this because, in a real production environment, the graphics computer would be set to never allow the display or computer to sleep.
The only other thing I ran into was initially, the preview monitor squished the video into a 4:3 format. I needed to change the output type for the preview monitor to “DVI” from its standard “HDMI” to fix it. And I’m not sure why that would have mattered, as it was an HDMI input of the TV that the preview output was connected to, but it took care of the problem.
Summary
The Roland V-02HD is a solid switcher and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it for a church’s video podcasting/webcasting setup. It provides a lot of great options for doing small video production work, and at a street price of about $675 that includes a foot switch (MSRP is $865), it’s a good deal.
