ATEM Mini Pro 720p/30 stream output

I am a hobbyist documentarian and I specialize in live, on-location political events, demonstrations, and protests.

In many situations I do not have funds for a Live-U or despite having that device the network connection is poor enough that I would like to stream at a rate as low as 1 to 1.5mbps. In order to keep up with a moving shot this means that I cannot shoot 60 fps full HD.

In the product specs I saw that the ATEM Mini Pro is able to scale the camera output as needed. However it appears that the stream output selects the highest frame rate and resolution provided to the device. Creating a custom streaming profile does not reduce the frame rate or resolution as I expected.

The Mini Pro is a great product and it helps me get twice the battery life out of my mobile backpack than what I could achieve with an Intel i5 NUC. The cost is about the same, however without the ability to downscale the stream resolution the ATEM is a downgrade in capabilities for my use-case and will be left at home instead of providing me the more reliable and efficient mobile stream studio that I was hoping to achieve.

Please let me know if I've missed a setting in the ATEM control software or if I can use some method to constrain my stream output to 720p/30.

I found the Settings button, but unfortunately 1080p/23.98 is the lowest setting I can achieve.

I also tried forcing my cameras down to 720p/60 and that didn't change the resolution visible in the Settings Video Standard "Auto Mode".

Please consider this a feature request for 720p/30 outputs.

Sorry, 720p30 is not a standard video resolution, it is 720p59.84 (60).
Cheers

Sorry, 720p30 is not a standard video resolution, it is 720p59.84 (60).
Cheers

720p60 is not available in the ATEM Mini Pro's Settings menu.

No, and neither is 720p30. The ATEM Mini is a full 1080pmHD device. You need a Up/Down/Cross converter to get 720p60, or feed the HDMI output of the Mini into a WebPresenter which converts the USB output to a 720p webcam.
Cheers

or use the webpresenter: that is 720 max...

You need a Up/Down/Cross converter to get 720p60

You seem to have some problem understanding my post. I'm requesting 720p30 streaming output.

I am able to recover some bandwidth using 1080p24 but 720p30 would be much better.

I appreciate focusing on that as my use-case and helping keep that clear for Blackmagic developers reading this forum for feedback.

Bring it into OBS and stream from there setting OBS to whatever you need. Another option would be a Webcaster X2 as a streaming device.

I'm in a similar situation, where I am now streaming weekly from my church during the COVID pandemic, and the internet signal from their ISP is unreliable and often insufficient to support even the "low" (3500/Kbps) stream setting from the ATEM Mini Pro.

At the moment, we're bringing the signal over to my MacBook Pro via USB-C and encoding the stream with OBS. OBS can downgrade the signal to 720 / 30fps / 2000Kbps, but as anyone who has used OBS with a newer MacBook knows, it's a horrible experience.

What I think the OP is getting at, and I want the same thing, is the ability to output the encoded stream directly from the Mini Pro at 720 / 30fps / 2000Kbps (I think YouTube Live gives error messages when the signal is less than 2000Kbps).

Since the Mini Pro already has multiple encode quality options and frame rates, is it possible to write a script to create a "baseline" quality option? Forgive my ignorance - I'm a producer and not an engineer, so I'm not educated on how this works.

The whole purpose of trading our ATEM Mini for the Pro model was to use the built-in encoder and bypass OBS. It's frustrating that OBS gives options all the way down to SD but the Mini Pro does not.

As mentioned on the technical specifications page for the ATEM Mini Pro, only the following 1080p streaming output resolutions are supported:
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/produc ... s/W-APS-14

Video Streaming Standards
1080p23.98, 1080p24, 1080p25, 1080p29.97, 1080p30, 1080p50, 1080p59.94, 1080p60

If you edit the XML configuration file for the streaming settings, you might be able to lower the bitrate for one of the 1080p encoding levels to 2000 Kbps, although I'm not sure what the resulting video quality will be as 2000 Kbps is a bit low for a 1080p stream. Some additional information about editing the XML file can be found in this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=110844

It would certainly be nice if Blackmagic added support for scaling on the ATEM Mini Pro stream output, but this isn't supported at the moment and it's not clear if there is sufficient processing power in the ATEM Mini hardware to allow for output scaling to arbitrary resolutions and frame rates.

Adding to what Dave wrote, the ATEM Mini was designed as a 1080p device. For a 720p webcam output, BMD makes the Web Presenter. I agree with Dave, in I doubt BMD will downscale the Mini to 720p.

Cheers

Bring it into OBS and stream from there setting OBS to whatever you need. Another option would be a Webcaster X2 as a streaming device.

The ATEM Mini Pro provides me 6 hours of streaming. An Intel NUC i5 with 2 Cam Links will only run for a little over 2 hours.

Have a look at Unicorn Riot's broadcast today to get a sense of what kinds of situations this might be useful in.

If you edit the XML configuration file for the streaming settings, you might be able to lower the bitrate for one of the 1080p encoding levels to 2000 Kbps, although I'm not sure what the resulting video quality will be as 2000 Kbps is a bit low for a 1080p stream.

I have been able to test streaming at 1080p24 from 1.2 mbit to 2.4 mbit.

I use multiple sites, some which do not limit me to 2 mbit. Also when my data link is especially congested it would be useful to go as low as possible in order to maintain a connection. I have remote offline protection, but getting a continuous stream is more important.

I want to be able to stream to Facebook which wants 720P. Please give us an option for outputing that (in PAL - 25P)

Thank you!

Cheers,
Tim

+1 for 720 output please BMD!

Facebook does the downscaling for you, why the hassle? If the internet connection is too low for 1080 it might not be a good idea to stream anyway.

I want to be able to stream to Facebook which wants 720P. Please give us an option for outputing that (in PAL - 25P)

Thank you!

Cheers,
Tim

Make a half framerate option for streaming over Ethernet would indeed be a nice feature for 720p50 or 720p/59.94, however recording to the USB should still maintain full project resolution & framerate. Will try some XML editing as soon as the device arrives.

ATEM gives Directshow video over the usb-c. You could run ffmpeg, capture this video, encode to 720p and stream to YouTube/Facebook. For the first time it could be harder, than OBS, but if you have some problems with OBS on Mac - it could work.

Facebook does the downscaling for you, why the hassle?

So even though I get event log messages in the Facebook live saying resolution too high, Facebook will accept the stream without any problems?

Thank you!

Facebook does the downscaling for you, why the hassle?

So even though I get event log messages in the Facebook live saying resolution too high, Facebook will accept the stream without any problems?

Thank you!

Yes as far as I know. I streamed for my company on Facebook once without any problems.

So even though I get event log messages in the Facebook live saying resolution too high, Facebook will accept the stream without any problems?

Yes, I have done numerous multi-hour streams to Facebook sending it 1080p video up to 60fps from various streaming encoders. Even though the Facebook live monitoring console will report a bunch of warning messages about the streaming resolution and frame rate, I have never found this to actually affect the streams that viewers see.

Facebook's live platform does support 1080p60 streaming for certain gaming users, so clearly their streaming infrastructure is able to ingest incoming 1080p streams without any problems. Their platform also does live transcoding to lower resolutions and frame rates. So for most Facebook accounts that are limited to 720p30 video, the incoming video stream will automatically be transcoded from a 1080p source resolution to 720p for viewers.

I'd also like to put a vote in for 720p output over USB when connected to a computer (if it is even possible given the chipsets within the device).

The use case here is simple, and has nothing to do with whether or not 1080p at various framerates and bitrates are better or even supported by one platform or another. I use the ATEM mini Pro for video conferencing and presenting, and out of the box it does exactly what I need as a presenter, but is on the border of bing un-useable for live streaming.

Nearly every video conferencing application that I have to use (and no I don't always get to choose), Skype, Zoom, MS Teams, WebEx, GoToMeeting, Join Me, Google Meet, etc. has native support for 720p for participants, primarily because that is what resolution camera is built into nearly every laptop today. Yes, some of them support 1080p, that is not in dispute. It is important to note however, that the way many support 1080p, is often to down convert it to 720p on the presenter's computer prior to uploading the stream. This can put a huge CPU load on the host system.

Additionally, not all software is equal. For instance, Zoom manages this trick with 120% CPU usage, while MS Teams uses 280% on my older MacBook Pro. Both of these systems lag horribly, and participants see video on "satellite delay" while the audio comes through on time when using the ATEM mini as a webcam source. This delay is entirely because the computer can't keep up with the encoding.

Choosing to use a device like the ATEM mini means you get to offload most if not all of the video processing from your computer. You don't need software like EEcam, and you can use much nicer cameras. Unfortunately the value of offloading the video processing vanishes if your computer needs to re-encode the stream in order to use it. If the ATEM mini could output a 720p 30fps stream over usb to a computer, then a lot of us could have avoided buying a whole new computer just to handle what the ATEM mini could do. This makes the ATEM mini Pro valuable to an even larger audience IMHO, and may justify the development cost (again, if it's even possible)

Just my 2¢

Dont you still bring a laptop with you on the road. Im not sure how the pro version works but if nothing changed with an update I never did on mine at least the none pro wants a computer to setup the audio 100%.

I do not use a laptop at all. I operate the ATEM Mini Pro in headless mode carrying it in a wire cage over my shoulder.

Here's an example of my latest work during the Seattle protests: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/640742551

I will be trying to use an Intel Compute Stick to run ATEM Control Software over WiFi. Then I should be able to load settings and run macros to take full advantage of the ATEM while being in basically the same setup as my current headless operation.

In headless mode ATEM seems to save the setup parameters, the stream destination, but not much else.

The issue is the Mini Pro is sold as a way to encode directly to Facebook without a computer. It is a selling feature. Facebook states they want 1280 x 720. Their manual states it will. But there are no options in the Mini Pro to do that by itself at 1280 x 720 with it's built in encoder. Facebook complains with this error message:

"Resolution too high: 1920x1080 as opposed to expected: 1280x720
Resolution too high: 1920x1080 as opposed to expected: 1280x720"

If 1920 x 1080 does work with Facebook then BMD needs to tell us how to make it work with their product that they are selling advertising it WILL work with Facebook. If it doesn't work, then it is FALSE advertising.

So BMD, please either give 1280 x 720 as an option, tell us how to make it work at 1920 x 1080, or you need to refund money. That's where the rubber hits the road.

The issue is the Mini Pro is sold as a way to encode directly to Facebook without a computer. It is a selling feature. Facebook states they want 1280 x 720. Their manual states it will. But there are no options in the Mini Pro to do that by itself at 1280 x 720 with it's built in encoder. Facebook complains with this error message:

"Resolution too high: 1920x1080 as opposed to expected: 1280x720
Resolution too high: 1920x1080 as opposed to expected: 1280x720"

If 1920 x 1080 does work with Facebook then BMD needs to tell us how to make it work with their product that they are selling advertising it WILL work with Facebook. If it doesn't work, then it is FALSE advertising.

So BMD, please either give 1280 x 720 as an option, tell us how to make it work at 1920 x 1080, or you need to refund money. That's where the rubber hits the road.

As mentioned earlier in this thread, even though Facebook may report a warning when it receives 1080p streaming video as input, this doesn't actually cause any problems in the resulting video stream that viewers see. Facebook live streams work fine with this higher input resolution as Facebook will scale the incoming video stream to 720p for users anyway.

I agree that it would be nice if Blackmagic added 720p streaming support to the ATEM Mini Pro, but the reason I think this would be useful has more to do with network bandwidth usage than Facebook compatibility. A lot of people may be streaming on network connections with limited upload bandwidth, in which case it may be possible to achieve better video quality when encoding at say 720p30 @ 2 Mbps rather than being forced to use 1080p30 @ 2 Mbps. And this is especially helpful if you know that viewers will be watching in 720p anyway.

But this ability to do higher quality, lower bandwidth encodes at 720p would apply whether streaming to Facebook Live or another streaming platform like YouTube or Twitch.

I agree that it would be nice if Blackmagic added 720p streaming support to the ATEM Mini Pro, but the reason I think this would be useful has more to do with network bandwidth usage than Facebook compatibility. A lot of people may be streaming on network connections with limited upload bandwidth, in which case it may be possible to achieve better video quality when encoding at say 720p30 @ 2 Mbps rather than being forced to use 1080p30 @ 2 Mbps. And this is especially helpful if you know that viewers will be watching in 720p anyway.

But this ability to do higher quality, lower bandwidth encodes at 720p would apply whether streaming to Facebook Live or another streaming platform like YouTube or Twitch.

I agree. And this too is my reasoning. If you are selling a product for streaming, you need to make it compatible for streaming, ie, the ability to keep the quality as high as possible while keeping the bandwidth to a minimum for the very reasons you state. Not everyone has a Gig-E pipe to send streaming. Most are lucky to have 5Mbps up, if that much. So I don't understand why a box, that is advertised as a streaming box, can only do it somewhat efficiently with a hack?

What am I missing here?

I just had a fantastically successful mobile shoot with the ATEM Mini Pro.

I tested all week at 2 mbit and upgraded to a 4 mbit signal because this was going to be a huge deal. I think I'm glad for the additional quality. 720p30 would not have been bad at all for the show. Less bandwidth would have made the initial setup slightly more reliable (my host gave up using an RTMP pull from restream and switched to a Twitch window capture).

+1 for 720p30 output please.
I need it to stream to MS Stream.

I also would like to see a 720p/30 output option. We aren't always blessed with super awesome available bandwidth and 720p is pelenty sufficient for most of my needs.

Last night I had a torture test for the ATEM Mini Pro - a march in Seattle from the Madrona cricket field (2 bars LTE) up to the street (full LTE) down into Windemere (2 bars LTE). The buffering kept up for a bit, but soon enough it failed and started spitting out 5-35 second clips (Restream -> Facebook).

Even at 2 mbit / 1080p24 my connection wasn't able to keep up. a 720p30 stream at 1.1 mbit would have been better quality and maintained connection for the majority of this event.

Unfortunately i am in the same boat, while some lucky people may be able to stream to FB live in 1080, i am not, as you have to be leveled up to do it. So i am stuck with streaming at 720, and an atem mini pro that is advertised as able to sream to FB, but it seems, only to a select few. So to me its useless, untill facebook lets every one stream at 1080, i am stuck.
In 1080, i cannot stream, preview is ok, but never lets you go live. How about it blackmagic lets have 720 for us all to stream to FB

Please add 720 30/60 especially for the USB output to slower computers, not having a 2nd hdmi for preview is a real problem too.

Personal note: when the webpresenter launched everyone 'complained' it didnt give a 1080 out, now we have the minis the 'complaint' seems they dont have 720

Now your question... not certain if the Atem minis usb output is compatible with ffmpeg (i guess it would be given its a webcam feed) if so an Atem mini connected to a Raspberry Pi3b+ or Pi4B SBC might be a solution. Low power 5v 3amps. Onboard wifi, rj45 port or usb mobile broadband.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

+++++++ for 720p stream option!!!!! and lower bit rates

Have been using a teradek for streaming for 6 years, running at 720p, 2-4mb upload. It looks fine, sounds fine. Not as majestic as 1080p, but the important thing is CONSISTENCY of a stream. If it looks a little grainy, or audio is artifacting, that's not a big deal. But when a stream cuts out entirely, or buffers, that is when people notice. That is when you lose clients.

We have been running live streams in venues for nearly 10 years. Even hard wired, you will seldom find an upload over 5mb up, at a typical hotel, conference center etc. My basic home internet runs around 4. At the office it is 8-12.

As such, the ATEM mini pro is essentially useless in most streaming applications (for me). When it works, it works SOOO WELL, and I love the price and simplicity. So many awesome features packed into the unit.
It was sold as a standalone switcher/encoder. Which to me, means you should be able to use it, out of the box, without addition hardware.

An output option to 720p and adjustable bitrate would make this device much more friendly to more users.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!!

I too ask that 720P streams be enabled.

+1 for 720p

There's a whole other thread on here for why this resolution is not just a nice-to-have, but required by some software: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=108170

Is the downscaling possible given the hardware? Can Blackmagic please comment?

I concur, can you give us a 720p option BlackMagic? Like many I bought the device based on the promotions about web streaming compatibility. It's more than a little strange that FB and YouTube's standard stream resolution isn't supported and I'm supposed to buy another device to make that happen.

In pandemic times, there is a high demand for streaming here in Germany. Luckily I got my Atem Mini Pro ready to go. However, the Internet companies can't keep up with their infrastructure and fixed-line Internet in the countryside often is below 4mbps, while LTE mobile broadband is not available at all, or at below 1mbps.

In this situation I'd really be happy to have 720p @ 30fps.

Well, I'd be even happier with 25fps, but YouTube has kicked the support for this, they will recode live to 30fps using the crudest algorithm. Quality really drops when you don't feed YouTube with 30fps.

I tried yesterday to trick the Atem Mini Pro into this by editing my streaming.xml, but it doesn't do it. I think my client will find the 1080p at 2mbps not very acceptable. Looking into OBS now, which unfortunately isn't too realiable for me.

+1 for 720p streaming from the Atem Mini Pro!

Best
Schwob

If I am understanding the documentation correctly, the ATEM Mini Pro sets the resolution/framerate for all HDMI inputs based on HDMI input 1. If I set the camera to 720p/30, will that be the streaming rate?
Thanks for the clarification.

If I am understanding the documentation correctly, the ATEM Mini Pro sets the resolution/framerate for all HDMI inputs based on HDMI input 1. If I set the camera to 720p/30, will that be the streaming rate?
Thanks for the clarification.

Are you thinking of Page 75 with this?

The video standard is set automatically when you plug in the first HDMI source, however if you ever need to change the video standard you can use this setting to do that. All video sources will then be converted to match the set video standard.

Yes, Paul. Thanks for finding it for me. I couldn't quickly recall where it was.
The question is, if I plug in a camera set to 720p/30, will the switcher use that setting?
I not at church right now to verify, but I don't think our software control program has the 720 settings.

...
The question is, if I plug in a camera set to 720p/30, will the switcher use that setting?
....

Nope it will upscale to 1080p30 or other 1080p "selected" framerates.

Thanks Paul and Walter.

+1 for 720p

Hello LAD's, +1 for the option to rescale to 720p. I'm streaming to Vimeo mostly, it is possible the viewers to do it from the player when watching, but it's still annoying - to announce it, to make them reduce the quality, to wait 5-10 seconds for the buffer to load properly.

Another user here looking for 720p/30 streaming output! I would, also, add that we need 720p/30 HDMI and USB output as well! Why upconvert all 720p sources to 1080p just to send them into another computer or device to downconvert everything back to 720p!?!? That is just a recipe for poor production quality.

Love the Atem Mini workflow, it makes everything so easy.

However, the constant aggravation of having to pull out OBS studio on a regular basis so we can lower the resolution/bitrate to 720p/30 is a pain in the butt.

If the Atem mini offered such a simple addition that would solve a lot of problems for us. Even if it was an upgrade, just offer it man.

If I'm not mistaken the Atem 8.6 video from yesterday did mention lower resolutions up to 240p for streaming directly via connected smartphone on 4G network?

Have you tried 8.6 released yesterday already?

The video mentioned reducing FPS to 24. Not 240p.

If I'm not mistaken the Atem 8.6 video from yesterday did mention lower resolutions up to 240p for streaming directly via connected smartphone on 4G network?

Have you tried 8.6 released yesterday already?

The video mentioned reducing FPS to 24. Not 240p.

If I'm not mistaken the Atem 8.6 video from yesterday did mention lower resolutions up to 240p for streaming directly via connected smartphone on 4G network?

Have you tried 8.6 released yesterday already?

You're right, it was framerate 24p mentioned which is not a new feature. So I guess its still not possible to downscale resolution or work in 720p natively which could be usefull for mobile 4G streaming.

If it were possible to enable via a firmware update, adding the option to use 720p streaming output would be an incredible upgrade (downgrade - ha!). So many users seem to be having the same issues with degradation of their net connections. Better to have lower quality stream than no stream at all.