Livestreaming samples Atem Mini Pro

This was our first day running 3 Mini Pros at the same time. Lots of boo boos as I'd just installed the last 2 on Thursday. This was our first run with them Live, and users were experiencing the new setup for the first time. I would like to run them all in High quality but we don't have the bandwidth at the moment and I'm not sure its worth the cost of upgrading. Most of the bandwidth is going to the Signing stream since that audience needs to see clean hand movements.

One of the objectives is to have each user run their own stream to offload the sound booth needs. It's hard enough to find volunteers for our current setup let along building a video "Station" and needing another dedicated person to run it. The Mini Pro meets that objective as it is trivial to use by anyone non-technical.

I'm still tweaking setups and procedures for the volunteers.

Low Quality 30 FPS HD

Sony a5100, X32 Rack
Low Quality 30 FPS HD

Panasonic AG-HMC40P, X32 Console
Med Quality 60 FPS HD

Sony a5100, X32 Console

Going to be moving to Vimeo this week for next Sunday's services.

HTH

It looks like Canyons provided you great quality samples direct out of the AMP.

I wouldn't say it's better than a computer but an alternative. I find the AMP to be quite optimistic in the bit rate selections and have made appropriate adjustments to the bitrates in the XML files. Not everyone has great internet and even those that have really good internet don't typically have a symmetrical connection.
I have seen streams struggle with a 10 meg upload connection on a broadband connection when streaming at 3-4 meg.

You definitely get more flexibility with a software encoder but it's at the cost of reasonably high performance PC. Additionally, if you choose to use the AMP only, everything has to be done in the switcher prior to the output. With software like OBS or Wirecast you can add layers, PIP, other sources and graphics after the switched input.

From a pure cost standpoint you can't beat the AMP because it will do switching, streaming, recording and graphics all in one 600.00 platform which is probably less money than a PC and capture card will cost you to do a similar function. The downside is the limited flexibility of the solution.

Hope this helps. Great samples Canyons! Personally I wouldn't waste bandwidth at 60FPS unless you're doing some type of sporting event where the additional FPS would help with a replay.

Best,

David

I have been looking for samples using the built in streaming feature in this unit but I cannot find them. A lot of people talk about it on youtube but there is no showing what it looks like and if it really is better at streaming than a computer. You probably need to bring at least a laptop with you anyway if you do mobile casts so .....

>>>Did you stream with a capturecard and computer before

I had been trying to setup Live Streaming for some time, but there was little support for it, keep in mind this goes back about a year ago when Live Streaming was not the issue it is today.

So the way I “sold” it was via security. That is, simplifying a bit, I was able to get the approval for some Ubiquiti Cameras with the understanding that they would eventually be used as building security cameras after I tried them out as Live Stream cameras and that failed because of lack of interest. The cameras:

https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi- ... pro-camera

I ran that through their server:

https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi- ... -gen2-plus

As well as direct through a PC and FFMPEG. I eventually found the server made things harder and so streamed direct from the camera. The camera support 3 simultaneous streams (!) at different resolutions. I had tried OBS and rejected it, too many issues and I knew I’d never be able to turn it over to a non tech person to run. Others I spoke to were having the same experiences with OBS. We need SIMPLE. The Ubiquiti solution is simply clicking on a batch file and you are done, and login to the built-in web admin to make adjustments if needed. Since Ubiquiti is trying to serve a wide market, their web admin is easy to use even by non tech folks.

Then Covid hit and approvals for Live Streaming was easy, then we move to the Mini Pro and the old cameras are now used as security cameras. No money lost / wasted. The Ubiquiti cameras work very well, only issue is sound via their built in mic which served its purpose very well.

The Ubiquiti camera also fits in your pocket. Another church asked what we were doing and I offered to bring the whole thing over and set it up at their church. They were a bit stunned thinking there was a lot to it. Then they were stunned by how easy it was when they were running live on our YouTube channel, at their church, in minutes. Its an unconventional solution, but it works very well. My only disappointment was I could never get the 4K stream to run clean to YouTube, there was always some stuttering, so I’d record 4K and upload it. Yes I said Live Stream at 4K, with ethernet remote mechanical zoom, for $500, that fits in your pocket.

Here is a 4K upload:

>>>>OBS to code the stream

Mini pros ONLY here. My personal requirements was NO software on a host PC and the Mini Pros did just that.

The objective is not perfection, the objective is to have the service run without needing me. Anybody can sit down and run it with ease. So we trade off some of the fancy stuff for always being able to find a warm body to serve.

>>>>swap over to the Pro the quality of the stream I get from it would have to be so much better

The Mini Pro is rock solid, not matter how much hardware I threw at FFMEG there were always some frame drops or artifacts. From what I see on the “Stats for Nerds” in YouTube, OBS has dropouts, the Mini Pro rarely if ever does. The Mini Pro HW architecture makes the difference. Also what happens when the gremlins show up the hour before service, as they often do? The fewer components and more simple the config, the more likely others can debug / isolate / and fix without me. So you can see my primary focus is making sure virtually anybody can run the setup, and the setup is extremely robust.

I’m trying to avoid working myself into a job and prevent myself from being “invaluable”. I want to be able to disappear and nobody will miss me. To be blunt, when I look at other churches this is not the attitude that I see, instead I see a lot of technical seduction taking place, building what looks like NASA launch control in their sound booths ..... Someone then becomes the "slave" to all that complexity, I'm not going there and I want to make sure that does not happen at our church. I'm a cranky old fart.

HTH

Thank you BM for the Mini Pro, we love it!

>>>>but you do need a computer that´s right.

Yes and No.

I need the computer to setup each Mini Pro the way we need it and then "Save Startup". When the Mini Pro is power cycled, it will return to that customized state without any need of a PC.

At that point, those running the Mini Pro have no need of a PC for the Mini Pro, they just have the Mini Pro and the Multiview display.

Now that said, this is all new to people. So I'm trying to access each Mini Pro over the LAN to spot problems as the users are learning. This Sunday I had a person select the wrong channel (they don't understand the Multiview display yet) and had an audio level issue on the other (the stage that I'm trying to avoid creating a separate Live Stream mix for), both spotted while monitoring YouTube. So I guess you need a PC because monitoring the Live Stream output of the service provider is important, but its not for the Mini Pro.

In fact I really don't want anybody else going in through the network interface for fear of things being changed.

To review, for us after the Mini Pro has been configured, the Mini Pro is then standalone.

Does that make sense?

HTH

>>>>Every time I power of my atem mini (not the pro)
>>>>it looses the settings for audio
>>>>I even contacted BMD and asked if my unit was broken
>>>>but they said that is the way it works

Here is what I did:

Connect your Mac/PC to the Mini Pro using a USB cable, *DO* *NOT* connect via ethernet. The USB connection is more privileged than ethernet.

Now setup the Mini Pro as you wish, including the audio mixer settings. When you are finished, find the "Save Startup State" option in the app menus and click it. You will not find this option when connecting via ethernet.

Now whatever state the Mini Pro had at that moment, it will have on power up until you next use "Save Startup State" to store a new config.

I verified the audio settings are preserved this way.

At that point if you need more than the faders, for which the mini pro has buttons, then you will need a PC.

>>>>I am not a christian though so I forgot to
>>>>watch those channels on youtube I am afraid.

Love and fear are opposites.

Love is care selflessly pointed outward, fear is care selfishly pointed inward. That is how recent events are dividing us.

I promise there is nothing to fear in the videos, its all about love.

HTH

Hi Göran,

I must admit I am a little confused, sounds like you have a mini and a pro and I'm not clear on some of your points.

I did a retest (control SW 8.4) running all the audio channels in stereo and mono, all the pans settings were saved using "Save Startup". That was on our Pro's, we don't have any non Pros.

Now that said, there is an issue that I have seen before and this is the worst I have seen it. It was so bad it took me about half a dozen attempts to get the inputs back to stereo from mono mode.

When the Control Software comes back from the "Save Startup" click, the update seems not to have finished inside the ATEM. I must want perhaps 3 to 5 seconds minimum for the update to "take". When Setting back to stereo I had to wait far longer, in fact I was concerned at one point that it would not go back at all!

Again, I'm not totally clear on your comments, perhaps there is vastly difference behavior between the mini and the mini pro. But so far all available Pro settings seem to be changable on startup.

I say available as I wish the Inset Size could be changed. It is way too small and I'd like it bigger and the placement buttons to be available. As it is you can change the size and position, but the moment you touch a position button it reverts to the "as built" settings. I don't understand why we can't have access to the size and be able to change that default value. I've seen other comment about the inset default size being too small and also wishing the default could be change.

HTH

Charles

Hi David,

Sorry I missed some of your comments earlier.

Thank you very much for the compliments!

We continue to evolve. We had a hack'd system, then covid hit. Our pastor tasked me, and told me I had full support for, buying a very advanced high end multi camera system. But I took it slow and quickly realized how dangerious such a request is on one's bank account, and read nightmares of bad decisions by others.

What is interesting to me is how with each change to the Live Stream system there has been unanticipated changes in behaviors and processes of others. So its a constant moving target regarding what we are REALLY trying to accomplish. The Mini Pro gives a great low cost, and yet high performance, way to start without breaking the bank by making incorrect choices. Its been fascinating to watch the human behaviors part of this project.

Fairly quickly I said to my pastor that I thought we should not go to the fancy high end system route at this time. I think that was a great decision. Right now I'm in the sound booth with my MacBook, one Mini Pro in front of me, the others in different locations, and I'm running 3 streams for 2 different services. I think the total cost of the Mini Pro based 3 stream system is under $4500 thus far.

The Mini Pro has turned a huge challenge into a fairly fun and enjoyable project that just about anybody can sit down and run. My continued compliments to BMD for a great product! Thank you!

Charles

It looks like Canyons provided you great quality samples direct out of the AMP.

I wouldn't say it's better than a computer but an alternative. I find the AMP to be quite optimistic in the bit rate selections and have made appropriate adjustments to the bitrates in the XML files. Not everyone has great internet and even those that have really good internet don't typically have a symmetrical connection.
I have seen streams struggle with a 10 meg upload connection on a broadband connection when streaming at 3-4 meg.

You definitely get more flexibility with a software encoder but it's at the cost of reasonably high performance PC. Additionally, if you choose to use the AMP only, everything has to be done in the switcher prior to the output. With software like OBS or Wirecast you can add layers, PIP, other sources and graphics after the switched input.

From a pure cost standpoint you can't beat the AMP because it will do switching, streaming, recording and graphics all in one 600.00 platform which is probably less money than a PC and capture card will cost you to do a similar function. The downside is the limited flexibility of the solution.

Hope this helps. Great samples Canyons! Personally I wouldn't waste bandwidth at 60FPS unless you're doing some type of sporting event where the additional FPS would help with a replay.

Best,

David

I have been looking for samples using the built in streaming feature in this unit but I cannot find them. A lot of people talk about it on youtube but there is no showing what it looks like and if it really is better at streaming than a computer. You probably need to bring at least a laptop with you anyway if you do mobile casts so .....