BlackMagic ATEM Mini Extreme: One Device To Do It All
I have done product reviews for several years and usually, I spend the time allotted with the equipment, use it all I can, then move on. There are very few products that I have reviewed that for all intents and purposes haunted me. I could either afford them or not and that would determine my next step with them.
Until the ATEM Mini Extreme…. This post isn’t something that I am obligated to do. As a matter of fact, it will probably be a surprise to the people at BlackMagic Design that I write this because it’s not something that I typically do.
When I tell you that this device haunted me, it really did. There were nights I laid awake thinking about how I could implement it into our broadcast plans and more importantly if I could afford it. I watched ALL of the reviews and walkthroughs. I tried to talk myself out of it - “An Atem Mini will be enough”... “Do you really need 8 inputs?”... “Can you justify the money?” I reached out to others to ask their input. I watched as many of the “things wrong with the ATEM Mini Extreme” videos that I could but I could not shake it.
Here’s the deal - my plan is to use the ATEM Mini Extreme as my switcher for our road games or games that we can’t do NDI broadcasts with. Which would actually make it more useful than our NDI set up because two of our venues are not networked so NDI is out of the question and sending several feeds from our road games back to the studio is out of the question. That was my first justification for the buy.
Will I ever need all 8 inputs for road games? No. Never. But, I will have at least three cameras and could use an upgrade in our graphics for road games. So three cameras and a graphics input would have been covered with an ATEM Mini but… I would not be able to do a lot of the things that I need to do without the Mini Extreme. I don’t know how someone would run a multi-cam broadcast without multi-view. I know there were technically some ways to hack together a multiview but hacks break and are simply more work. I also would like to use different graphics on the road that I can put in media players and use one of the four downstream keyers to make our shows look better - not available in the Mini.
The biggest selling point for me was the idea that I could use my phone’s hotspot in order to get a connection to stream our content no matter where we are. That’s HUGE! I will still travel with the hotspot. I will still ask if we can get a hard line connection when we are on the road but if all else fails, I can plug in my phone and get something out to the world.
This year we performed over 180 live shows. 92 of those shows were either on the road or at one of our non-connected venues. For those shows, we typically did a single camera production or used a lot more gear than I would like to carry up and down stadium stairs. This year, I will have a case that will have my ATEM Mini Extreme, monitor, and power in something not much bigger than a briefcase. I will also be able to maximize our graphics and build elements of our show that we have not been able to in the past.
As you close out your school year, ask your director if there is any money laying around and pick yourself up a BlackMagic Design ATEM Mini Extreme. It will be a game-changer for you - I didn’t even get into the picture in picture, super source, audio features, or any of the other things that make this awesome…
Meet the Author, Tom White
Tom White is the digital media instructor at Morgan County High School in Madison, GA. Currently teaching TV production and animation pathways, Tom's programs have received state and national honors including the 2016 NFHS Network School Broadcast Program Of The Year. Prior to teaching, Tom was a marketing, promotions, and online content director for a major radio corporation in Atlanta. Tom studied exercise science at High Point University prior to his radio career. Despite his winding career path, his mother still thinks he is special.