The ATEM Television Studio is Black Magic's lowest cost TV studio in a box (scroll half way down the page to find it). The ATEM has a switcher with up to six camera/vtr inputs, 2 still store channels, and 8 channels of digital audio. The output of the ATEM is mpg4 and quality of the mpg4 file is adjustable for live streaming or recording to hard drive. There is also an HDMI and SDI output for monitors.
I spent a day working with it and although you can use the mouse I found myself using the keyboard as the switcher, using the number keys to set preview and the enter key to make transitions.
The actual hardware is single space rack mounted unit that's just an inch thick not including the heat sync. It has four HDMI inputs and four SDI inputs, although only six are usable at a time. And the output can be HD (both flavors) or SD.
So what's the downside? The audio seems the weakest part. It has no analog inputs so you need some kind of analog to digital adapter. When I used it this created a four frame audio offset (audio first) so everything is barely out of sync. You have to use some kind of audio delay device.
But the image quality is good, we were able to use 3 different model of cameras and they matched well plus the ATEM didn't seem to mind different camera frame rates. In a test we had one camera shooting 24p and the rest 60i and the switcher cut beautifully.
This is the future of multi-camera TV, it's just that 5 years from now we'll have it built into all our laptops and be able to use our wireless iphones as cameras. Here's a great blog about the for you potential webcasters.
http://www.studiotech.tv/studiotech-the-television-studio/
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/atem/models/
I spent a day working with it and although you can use the mouse I found myself using the keyboard as the switcher, using the number keys to set preview and the enter key to make transitions.
The actual hardware is single space rack mounted unit that's just an inch thick not including the heat sync. It has four HDMI inputs and four SDI inputs, although only six are usable at a time. And the output can be HD (both flavors) or SD.
So what's the downside? The audio seems the weakest part. It has no analog inputs so you need some kind of analog to digital adapter. When I used it this created a four frame audio offset (audio first) so everything is barely out of sync. You have to use some kind of audio delay device.
But the image quality is good, we were able to use 3 different model of cameras and they matched well plus the ATEM didn't seem to mind different camera frame rates. In a test we had one camera shooting 24p and the rest 60i and the switcher cut beautifully.
This is the future of multi-camera TV, it's just that 5 years from now we'll have it built into all our laptops and be able to use our wireless iphones as cameras. Here's a great blog about the for you potential webcasters.
http://www.studiotech.tv/studiotech-the-television-studio/
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/atem/models/
