- Posts: 73
- Joined: Thu Apr 18, 2013 8:57 pm
Hi all
I've been doing more livestreaming jobs, have an ATEM Mini Pro which I think is an amazing piece of kit for the money and have been enjoying it very much. I just had a question that I wondered if anyone could answer about why there are are such restrictions on upstream and downstream keys?
I do understand that higher end switchers have more upstream and downstream keys but I really don't understand why there is such a limitation on displaying graphics or split screen etc at all in any of the models, especially just one of each for the Mini Pro. It seems the sort of thing that is just a holdover from older, less powerful machines where a image of a couple of megabytes might take up a significant amount of memory. The inability to play video clips is also extremely surprising. I know there are other boxes like the Hyperdecks that provide video playback etc but is the only reason the switchers can't do it to protect the other product lines? I could probably understand the limitation on upstream keys perhaps as I'm sure real time processing of HD streams is still fairly intensive, but in 2021 is it really so hard to show two or three pngs on screen at the same time? I can get round it of course using OBS but then it just nullifies the benefit of being able to stream directly from the deck (and uses up the USB port than I could otherwise record to USB disk over).
I still love the deck and I know that compared with other systems the Extreme is still very reasonably priced which would open up more of these abilities, but it's still one of those things that just seems very odd compared with the other technological achievements we're used to seeing. I'm sure it's down to my just not knowing the technical challenges of this kind of operation but I'd still be very interested if anyone knows?
I've been doing more livestreaming jobs, have an ATEM Mini Pro which I think is an amazing piece of kit for the money and have been enjoying it very much. I just had a question that I wondered if anyone could answer about why there are are such restrictions on upstream and downstream keys?
I do understand that higher end switchers have more upstream and downstream keys but I really don't understand why there is such a limitation on displaying graphics or split screen etc at all in any of the models, especially just one of each for the Mini Pro. It seems the sort of thing that is just a holdover from older, less powerful machines where a image of a couple of megabytes might take up a significant amount of memory. The inability to play video clips is also extremely surprising. I know there are other boxes like the Hyperdecks that provide video playback etc but is the only reason the switchers can't do it to protect the other product lines? I could probably understand the limitation on upstream keys perhaps as I'm sure real time processing of HD streams is still fairly intensive, but in 2021 is it really so hard to show two or three pngs on screen at the same time? I can get round it of course using OBS but then it just nullifies the benefit of being able to stream directly from the deck (and uses up the USB port than I could otherwise record to USB disk over).
I still love the deck and I know that compared with other systems the Extreme is still very reasonably priced which would open up more of these abilities, but it's still one of those things that just seems very odd compared with the other technological achievements we're used to seeing. I'm sure it's down to my just not knowing the technical challenges of this kind of operation but I'd still be very interested if anyone knows?