As is my wont, I tend to skim through the documentation for products prior to any review process. This especially applies when something is new; think a new genre in software such as OneNote is/was, or indeed the very excellent original Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Pro.
But of course, the RØDECaster Video is not a new item in the sense of a never-been-seen-before-type -product and any knowledge of something like the Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Pro is a good starting point.
Getting Started Guide
I do stress however that I found it useful to go through each of the buttons and each of the various connectors in conjunction with the RØDE Getting Started guide, which is an online document only.
When I queried as to why there was no PDF download of this, it was explained this is a “live” document always in a state of flux as things are updated, modified or indeed bugs fixed which is a fair answer, although as I have always stated, I do like a big beefy manual to thumb through.
The Basic Stuff
Consequently, the basic plugging in of mics, Ethernet cabling, and basic USB-C stuff was pretty straight forward. I did get a bit tricked for a moment as I was using the Getting Started guide as a reference, and overlooked the HDMI outputs, mistakenly then thinking only USB-C video out was a monitoring option, when in fact there are a pair of HDMI out ports for that very purpose.
Next was tackling the USB options. My Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Pro has only a single USB-C and this is used to capture the footage and audio for later editing (if not streaming live).
USB-C Ports – All 5 of Them
The RØDECaster Video has no less than 5 USB-C ports though and these can be used (or not) in various ways depending on your needs.
USB-2 is reasonably dedicated and in my case, is used to connect the unit to my PC and hence to the RØDECaster app for setup and finetuning purposes. A word of warning here; the RØDECaster Video comes with a specific USB-C “SuperSpeed” cable and it is very advisable to use this as against any old USB-C cable. I tried a few I have here and none would work.
If not being used for this purpose, you can slo use USB 2 for connection to a computer, or as many will I suspect, to connect an Android or iPhone based smartphone to the RØDECaster Video
USB 3 is used the same way I use the sole USB port on the Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Pro, that is, for connecting a Samsung T5 SSD for recorded video/audio. It will accept either single or multi-track files by the way.
USB ports 4 and 5 at this stage will initially remain unused on my setup. They are designed as inputs primarily but as I don’t use USB based mics, or a webcam, they are right now a little superfluous.
Having said that, as I also use a RØDECaster Pro II mixer, this can be connected via USB and this in effect should allow you to maximise the number of audio inputs due to the RØDECaster Pro II capabilities.
Additionally, I have in transit to me an Elgato 4K X video capture card, and in theory and to be proven, could prove invaluable for video capture for creating training videos. I’ll keep you posted on that one.
Using Non-RØDE Mics
A quick note on the audio input ports, and this applies equally to the RØDECaster Video and RØDECaster Pro II alike.
In the onboard setup interface on the RØDECaster Pro II, the preferences for mic type revolve around brand RØDE with choices for specific RØDE mics along with generic Condenser, Dynamic, Instrument or Line. Conversely, the RØDECaster Video only has the latter generic choices.
But if as in my case you don’t use RØDE mics, which should you choose?
I posed the question to the excellent RØDE tech department and was advised, that in my case, as I was using Sennheiser Profile Wireless mics, it was best to use a Pro XLR adaptor to give phantom power and set mic type as condenser. If it does not require phantom power, use dynamic instead.
Note by the way the mic connectors on the RØDECaster Video are dual input suitable for either XLR or ¼” jacks.
microSD Slot
In addition to the USB-C slot to connect an SSD drive, the RØDECaster Video also offers a single microSD card slot. As I mentioned in the part 1 of this review,, this is akin to the Media Player on the Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Pro, but in reality it is a Media Player on steroids and then some.
The Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Pro media player has space for 20 images. Note this is images not audio or video. The RØDECaster Video however in conjunction with the microSD capability allows storage of video, audio, images and graphics that can be used in your production.
It is not too much of a stretch of the imagination to see how you could build up fodders of files that each relate to a different circumstance – travel documentary, corporate video, holiday footage, music video or whatever, each with their own logos, stings, sound tracks, interstitials, lower 3rds and so on.
Input and Scenes
Along the main body of the RØDECaster Video is a double bank of buttons. Then top row labelled A-G correlate with scenes you have setup. I’ll cover scenes in depth in Part 3 of these reviews.
The bottom row labelled 1-6 are connected to the input being used – 1-4 are the HDMI ports and 5 and 6 USB ports 4 and 5 respectively.
Whilst I’ll be leaving these at their default for my use, they are of course customisable to whatever input ports you want. I don’t why you would, but you could set button 1 to camera 4, 3 to 2, 2 to 3 and 4 to 1 for example.
The final; button on the bottom row is the fade to black button. This will transition to a blank screen, overriding the current Program feed, and will also fade out any playing audio. This is useful if you quickly need to cut a live feed or wish to fade to black to end a show or segment.
The time it takes to fade to black can be user defined.
Eminently Customisable and a Bit More Besides
Under the skin, the RØDECaster Video is a complex beast capable of a lot of tweaking to best suit your needs as well as having some genuine whizz-bang (a technical term you understand) technology and smarts.
Just covering these alone will probably take a few instalments and I want to become a bnit more au fait with their use, and actually put the RØDECaster Video through its paces in a real live environment.
In the next part of this series on the RØDECaster Video, I’ll cover the various other buttons and dials such as the Encoder, the Touchscreen display, Media, Overlay, Multisource, Keying, Inspect buttons, Cuts, Auto and Transitions and other more advanced topics.
Stay Tuned.