Favored SSD for ATEM Mini Pro ISO?

Picked up an AMPISO (ATEM Mini Pro ISO) the other day from B&H. Slowly accumulating the various bits for the studio. Is there a favored SSD for this baby switcher? B&H offers me:

Angelbird 1TB SSD2GO PKT MK2 External SSD sustained read/write up 540 MB/s and 500 MB/s
Samsung 1TB T7 Portable SSD sustained read/write up 1050 MB/s and 1000 MB/s

. . . the Samsung 'should' be a no brainer - but - B&H shows the Anglebird associated with the AMPISO instead of the seemingly much speedier Samsung. Moreover, the Anglebird is significantly more expensive than the Samsung, which is usually a tip off of where I should go for the best. What am I missing?

The T7 flat out didn't work with the Mini Pro ISO until the recent 8.5.1 and 8.5.2 firmware updates. It would stop recording after approximately one second 100% of the time. Lots of people (myself included) reported that issue, although I haven't seen many people confirming my success with the T7 since the 8.5.1 upgrade. Most people seem to come here to report problems and are less likely to report success

Part of the problem is that BMD doesn't publish any sort of compatible or recommended media list for the Mini Pro or Mini Pro ISO like they do with many of their other products. The Angelbird at least appears on the Pocket Cinema Camera compatibility lists, which might give you more confidence that it will work with the Mini Pro ISO versus the T7 which doesn't appear on any of the lists last time I checked (unlike the T5 which did appear and which always worked fine).

T5 works with Mini Pro ISO . . . this is confirmed?

I wondered about this because the ATEM Mini Pro's manual cover photo shows what appears to be a T5 connected to the baby switcher. The T5 is considerably less costly than the Anglebird and while I am prepared to pony up for the Anglebird, if the T5 is confirmed to work, then I am loathe to spend more unless there's a purpose? Anybody have data? I wonder because elsewhere on this forum I read about a speed test available for Apple based machines but nothing regarding W10-based machines. Does anybody know anything about this? Anyway, I'll pony up for the Anglebird SSDs if someone can point to definitive data that they're better. The purpose is to record without trouble. I won't risk trouble to save a few bucks, so we're back to how I opened, is the T5 confirmed with the ATEM Mini Pro ISO?

I've certainly had no problems with the T5 on my Mini Pro ISO and I haven't seen anyone else have issues like what many people experienced with the T7.

I guess the main difference with Angelbird is that real-time video recording is their main focus so they test that extensively, whereas with Samsung the vast majority of people are just copying files to and from their computers where real-time isn't an issue. In other words, if there's a hiccup and the data transfer has to stop for a second or go through a retry when transferring files from a computer no one is really going to care or even notice. With the Mini Pro ISO, any kind of a hiccup could cause unrecoverable errors. In the old days, many spinning hard disks had to pause and go through "thermal recalibration" cycles every so often and you would try to avoid drives with long thermal recalibration periods depending on your use case for the drive. Similarly programs written in Java and some other languages often come to a halt for short periods of time for garbage collection, whereas programs written in languages like C++ manage their memory in such a way to avoid that.

I don't have any reason to believe the T5 suffers from any such issues and many people seem to be using it on video recording devices so most likely it's just fine. But if you're recording once-in-a-lifetime events and you want to be as sure as possible that the recording is successful then it might be worth getting a drive that's rigorously tested for video recording on BMD devices specifically. Of course in that case you probably shouldn't be relying on an ATEM Mini either . Another choice is the Wise drives. They're on the BMD compatibility lists for the Pocket Cinema cameras and they have a great form factor for those. They're specifically marketed for recording 4K video and they're not as pricey as the Angelbird stuff.

Once in a lifetime? Only insofar as it would be a pain in the hind end to do the work over again, meaning no, not life and death because they're YouTube how-to. Note, in poking around I've already seen one thing I like about the Angelbird and that's a recessed USB cable that will largely preclude accidental pull out. This may be worth a million! Anyway, regarding what you said about them testing for continuous video recording, I didn't know that. I suspect videographers are a pimple on an elephant's hind in terms of use cases for Samsung vs. general computer users. Yes, this is worth paying a premium for Anglebird or Wise over Samsung. By the way, for anyone who hasn't looked, the Wise includes a nice clip for mounting to a 1/4-20 on a cage - someone was thinking! So for my use case, with a switcher, I'm leaning toward 'hang the expense' and I'll either get the B&H recommended Angelbird or the BMD recommended Wise.

I do wonder, however, regarding the frequency with which BMD update their list. I can't imagine they have people sitting on their hind end with nothing better to do than buy stuff and run tests. Then again, maybe they do! Thanks for taking time to respond.

Finally, one last thing, and perhaps it was a flip comment meant to be taken humorously, but why not rely on an ATEM switcher for once-in-a-lifetime events? I've seen nothing regarding them being any less than serious gear, have you? And the only reason I bought the Mini Pro ISO instead of a more expensive unit from them was the lack of ISO recording. I know it's mean for streaming but this is a killer feature which has driven me into the BMD infrastructure to include Resolve Studio thereby abandoning my 20 year relationship with Vegas (which began when it was a Sonic Foundry product, all through Sony's stewardship, and nearly a decade of the new owners).

The point being, I don't leave one NLE for another, lightly (probably same reason I've been married over 40 years). Thus far, in addition, I've bought a Teranex AV, and have other BMD bits on my list and 100% of this is due to the Mini Pro ISO. So was it a flip comment, or have you info regarding poor reliability? And please note; I am NOT trying to paint you into a corner or be aggressive, just genuinely curious.

The recessed USB-C cable on the Angelbirds is nice but of course it can always pull out from the other end of the cable . I've only experienced it on the CFast card reader because originally I was using the Angelbird CFast cards and card reader with my Pocket Cinema cameras but I found it really annoying to insert and remove the cards without disturbing the cameras in their fixed positions so I switched to USB-C drives which are much easier to attach and detach while also being lower cost and higher capacity.

The clip on the Wise drives is nice although it bugs me a little that you have to snap the drive in and out of the clip rather than having a clamping mechanism with a thumb screw or something. I feel like I could damage the drive if I'm not careful, plus there's the same issue as the CFast cards of not wanting to disturb the careful positioning of the fixed cameras. What I like about the Wise drives is that they're so incredibly lightweight (29 grams or 1 oz!) that I feel perfectly comfortable just letting them dangle from the camera on a high-quality 6" USB-C cable for the easiest possible access.

I wasn't being that flip about the ATEM Minis not being the best choice for mission-critical work. You'll see a lot of reports here of various issues with recording or AV sync not always being reliable for example. For that price the hardware and software just aren't going to be as robust as higher-end stuff. Higher-end stuff also tends to use more reliable connections (like SDI vs HDMI) and have some redundancy built-in (like dual power supplies and dual media slots with mirrored recording).

Steve Kanefsky, in part . . . "dual media slots with mirrored recording."

Hmmm, perhaps better than a T5 or Anglebird for the ATEM Mini Pro ISO is a 10G dock. My reading is it can be split in two units of two. I will investigate. Much better to record to two disks in RAID 1, agreed!

I think the MultiDock requires software RAID in order to do any kind of mirroring. Needless to say the ATEM Minis don't have any kind of software RAID capability built in.

I have both a pro and ISO. With the pro I had trouble with the T7 but not the T5. BMD did a firmware update and now the T7 works fine, in fact I record to it in hour long increments each Sunday while simultaneously streaming to YouTube. If I were videoing a "one-in-a-lifetime" event, I would stream it, use a T7, and record to SD cards in camera simultaneously. Even if the switcher and internet fail, I still have my SD cards to re-build the presentation later with.

I use the ISO as my Zoom web cam so the usb slot is not available if I wanted to record something.

Shawn, thanks for responding with practical experience. I have not opened the box for the ISO yet but will perhaps update the firmware this very weekend. I am a bit concerned due to folks reporting problems with their ISO but i purchased from B&H and have confidence in them to back me up.

What you say makes perfect sense, a SD card in each camera is the ultimate backup if things go teats up with the ISO process out of the switcher to the drive whether it be T5/T7/Anglebird/Wise or whatever.

One question; is the project and ISO tracks on the drive 'full resolution'? What I am fishing for is, are these compressed for YouTube already, or full strength on the SSD? I know this is an unconventional way of asking about what's being recorded, but it's how I am thinking about footage rendered for YouTube (as less than full strength) because the files sizes are significantly smaller for streaming. My point is, if you recorded with the switched program with the Pro and with the ISO, is what goes to the drive the same size other than the additional tracks? Or do I 'only' get the reduced file sizes when streaming? Meaning, streaming weight files are not what's being recorded off the cameras to the SSD drive. Sorry for my muddled question but I hope you get a sense of what it is I am trying to learn.

What you say makes perfect sense, a SD card in each camera is the ultimate backup if things go teats up with the ISO process out of the switcher to the drive whether it be T5/T7/Anglebird/Wise or whatever.

In-camera recordings are a great backup strategy since they also protect against any issues with the ATEM itself. That assumes you're not using studio cameras or other cameras that don't have recording capability built in. You might also need to run your microphones through the cameras or use a standalone audio recorder if you want a similar backup for your audio.

One question; is the project and ISO tracks on the drive 'full resolution'?

It doesn't sound like you're really asking about resolution but I'll note that the recorded resolution will be 1080p which could be higher or lower than what your cameras record. You might have a camera that records 4K but outputs 720p over HDMI and then the ATEM would scale that to 1080p for example.

Your question is really about bitrate or compression ratio which is different than resolution. You could have two recordings with the same resolution but one might have a lower bitrate / higher compression ratio and have much worse quality than the other. The ATEM will record the program output using whatever compression settings you're using for streaming, but it will always record all the individual camera feeds using the highest bitrate and thus the best quality available. Basically there's one encoder that does double-duty for recording the program output and for streaming and then there are four more encoders that are specifically for recording the individual cameras and those always record at the highest quality.

Thanks for clarifying what I made a mess of asking without ripping me a new one as is the current fashion on social media like reddit, and forums. I also know resolution is 1080, 720, or 4K, and compression is data rate, bitrate, or compression ratio. I was conflating the ATEM Mini Pro ISO doing both while trying to figure out what is recorded for the ISOs. Came out muddled. Thanks for being kind.

Summary;
1. The ISO files will be 1080p30 . . . at the camera's bitrate, or re-encoded at some ATEM-bitrate?
2. Also, ATEM fed 720 will upscale to 1080. Presumably if fed 4K it'll also downscale to 1080, yes?
3. Stream from ATEM is 1080 at YouTube bitrates (user selectable).
4. Otherwise, move the disk and edit the ISOs within Resolve for full bitrate projects.
5. Camera originals save your ass if things go teats up with ATEM (especially if you get the project file).
6. Redundant audio through mics on cameras (but a separate audio recorder is just prudent).
7. Do you recall the file type of the ISOs?
8. Wondering because ISOs are scaled to 1080 so who knows if they can/do encode, also?
9. What SSDs will ATEM plug into with a cable that also go into MultiDock 10G at the Resolve computer?

FYI, my 'studio' cameras are actually 4K field-cameras (Sony FS700). Equipped with an APS-C class sensor and Sony or Canon EF lenses, they're overkill for my YouTube how-tos. A nice feature is they're capable of 4K at 240fps in 8-seconds bursts to the SD-card (or continuous if recorded via SDI to something like an Inferno). The HDMI-out is limited to HD. Note; these also record 960fps at a greatly reduced resolution, maybe 480p? Don't know but it's a nice arrow for the quiver within an overall quite interesting camera.

Note; if BMD ever offer the ISO recording of the Mini to the ATEM Television Studio Pro 4K, I'd probably buy one because it would make producing a 4K version of my program dead nuts easy! Yes, I'd still upload to YouTube at HD, but having 4K in my hip pocket for the price of added storage would be a worthwhile trade-off. Honestly, I'm kind of surprised they don't offer this. Maybe for Christmas?

1. The ISO files will be 1080p30 . . . at the camera's bitrate, or re-encoded at some ATEM-bitrate?

The ISO has no idea what the camera's compression bitrate is. It only sees the uncompressed HDMI output coming from the camera. Also the files won't necessarily be 1080p30 since you can also set the ATEM for 1080p60 and other frame rates. The bitrate for the ISO files will be the max bitrate that the ATEM supports, which depends on the frame rate you've chosen but maxes out at 70Mbps for 1080p60 I believe.

2. Also, ATEM fed 720 will upscale to 1080. Presumably if fed 4K it'll also downscale to 1080, yes?

I don't think it will accept 4K inputs at all. Note that many 4K cameras only output (or can be set to output) 1080p on the HDMI port which is the only thing the ATEM cares about.

3. Stream from ATEM is 1080 at YouTube bitrates (user selectable).

Right. Also the recording of the program output will be at the same bitrate. That recording is the 5th video recording in addition to the four ISO recordings and will be identical to what was streamed to YouTube.

4. Otherwise, move the disk and edit the ISOs within Resolve for full bitrate projects.

Not just full bitrate but full resolution (could be 4K, 6K, 8K, or more) and also some cameras (BMD cameras in particular) might be recording in RAW which is a vastly superior format even when the resolution is the same and the bitrate is lower.

5. Camera originals save your ass if things go teats up with ATEM (especially if you get the project file).

Certainly

6. Redundant audio through mics on cameras (but a separate audio recorder is just prudent).

Not through the actual mics on the cameras but using the camera's microphone inputs to route the audio into the ATEM instead of connecting directly to the ATEM's microphone inputs. This can also be a good way to correct for video delay that the cameras introduce since the camera can correct for that automatically whereas you'd have to set up audio delay manually in the ATEM if you plug mics in directly.

7. Do you recall the file type of the ISOs?

The files are mp4 using the h.264 codec.

8. Wondering because ISOs are scaled to 1080 so who knows if they can/do encode, also?

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying there.

9. What SSDs will ATEM plug into with a cable that also go into MultiDock 10G at the Resolve computer?

I think you'd be better off just plugging USB-C SSDs (T5, Angelbird, Wise, etc.) directly into the computer and transferring the files to SSD drives in a MultiDock or whatever kind of storage you like. Otherwise you'd need another SSD dock connected to the ATEM to record to (which might work just fine but I don't see much point since you really want to make copies of your files ASAP anyway).

OK, Steve (and others), Q&A time!

The camera records in AVCHD progressive MPEG2, and the ATEM will record mp4 using the h.264 codec. I'm in no wise sufficiently versed in what's going on when the camera output goes through the HDMI port versus when it's recorded to SD media, do you know more than me? Please elaborate because my understanding is the format recorded AVCHD is a very difficult to edit format, e.g. difficult as in require a lot of computer resources. Does it even matter these days? e.g. are computers so much more powerful than when this format was initially deployed eights years ago that it doesn't matter? And in effect, what you're saying is the output is transcoded into mp4 using the h.264 codec, so it doesn't matter what the camera feeds, correct?

Meanwhile, I've found this, which is Sony FS700 HD AVCHD vs. 4K S-log2 via the SDI to an Atomos Shogun recorder (1:06)

Clearly the latter is better. But will it matter for my YouTube stuff? Probably not in this lifetime. Like I said, if BMD offer me their pricier switcher with the ISO feature I'd be hard pressed not to buy it because it lets me up my game to 4K so easily. In the alternative, not likely I bother with 4K other than field recordings.

Note; this is an other brief video showing 4:2:2 Prores at 220Mb/s vs. AVCHD at 24Mb/s


At some point I have the opportunity to do this with internally recorded footage and what the ATEM records to disk. This will be interesting for me if nobody else.

However, and quite honestly, I don't have any complaints with what the equipment I'm using is capable of doing. The weak link in the production chain will be me. By the way, here's a brief look at the cameras I use with the hindsight of 5 years at the time of writing.
https://www.redsharknews.com/production/item/4604-sony-fs700-camera?success=true

Picked up an AMPISO (ATEM Mini Pro ISO) the other day from B&H. Slowly accumulating the various bits for the studio. Is there a favored SSD for this baby switcher? B&H offers me:

Angelbird 1TB SSD2GO PKT MK2 External SSD sustained read/write up 540 MB/s and 500 MB/s
Samsung 1TB T7 Portable SSD sustained read/write up 1050 MB/s and 1000 MB/s

. . . the Samsung 'should' be a no brainer - but - B&H shows the Anglebird associated with the AMPISO instead of the seemingly much speedier Samsung. Moreover, the Anglebird is significantly more expensive than the Samsung, which is usually a tip off of where I should go for the best. What am I missing?

The Samsung T7 uses QLC flash, which can't sustain the necessary speeds
get a Samsung T5 instead

the ISO will record at whatever resolution/framerate/bitrate is set up for the stream.

The Samsung T7 uses QLC flash, which can't sustain the necessary speeds
get a Samsung T5 instead

The T7 can sustain around a gigabyte per second and is generally around twice as fast as the T5. That's around ten times the speed required by the ISO. There was some sort of compatibility issue but that appears to have been resolved in the latest ISO firmware and the T7 works fine now in the tests that I've done.

the ISO will record at whatever resolution/framerate/bitrate is set up for the stream.

That's only true for the program recording. The ISO recordings will always be at max bitrate regardless of the stream settings.

6. Redundant audio through mics on cameras (but a separate audio recorder is just prudent).

Not through the actual mics on the cameras but using the camera's microphone inputs to route the audio into the ATEM instead of connecting directly to the ATEM's microphone inputs. This can also be a good way to correct for video delay that the cameras introduce since the camera can correct for that automatically whereas you'd have to set up audio delay manually in the ATEM if you plug mics in directly.

Steve,
In this response are you suggesting that feeding the audio to the recording (via USB-C), and to a stream, through the camera mic inputs as opposed to sending good audio into the ATEM mic inputs makes for a better sync?
Thanks

Steve,
In this response are you suggesting that feeding the audio to the recording (via USB-C), and to a stream, through the camera mic inputs as opposed to sending good audio into the ATEM mic inputs makes for a better sync?
Thanks

Yes. If the audio is routed through a camera then the camera can automatically delay the audio to perfectly match the video whereas you have to manually determine and configure the appropriate amount of delay if you connect the audio straight into the ATEM. Many cameras also have balanced audio inputs which would potentially give you better quality than using an unbalanced audio connection to the ATEM if your microphone(s) or mixer are balanced.