| Chris McDonald wrote on Fri, 11 November 2005 22:16 |
Its been a few years since I've taken a look for an affordable video mixer/switcher. So whats out there today, last I really looked there was only videonics with their MX-1 and MX-pro. Now I see that Edirol got a v4 out which looks interesting on the low end of things.
In the past, I just used my PC and power point, load the incoming video feed from the live camera/dvd/vhs as video desktop, then make slides all pink when going live to camera or tape/dvd. Works ok, but I have to go back to a power point slide between live and tape/dvd, and everything has to be planned out exactly.
I need something to feed a few projectors for concerts, special events and press conferences. The local market is pretty small, only a few events per year and there is no one else to rent from.
Basicly I'm looking for something with 2 vga inputs and 2 composite inputs and both vga and composit outputs. I'd like to have scan converters and signal distro all in one box. I don't need alot of effects or anything.
What other low end video mixers should I take a look at?
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You market sounds very much like mine. I've been looking for a while, and I'm just about settled on the Kramer VP-725DS. It's a unique unit, in that it has four separate standard switchers (composite, s-video, vga, dvi), and an integrated scaler. Each section has it's own outputs, so if you are doing a composite-only event, you could leave the VGA cables at home and switch using that section. All of the inputs are also directly routable to the scaler (which has 5-wire, vga, and dvi outputs.)
I have not used one yet, so this is all just info I've found from the manual.
http://kramerelectronics.com/indexes/item.asp?desc=246List price is approximately US$3000.
Not much control over the switching method (cut only, from what I can tell) but good enough for the presentations my clients expect. One of the things that made this unit my top choice was it's ability to use an on-screen-display during setup, and then turn OFF the OSD during the event and still have an on-board LCD display available. Most small units have no on-board display at all, making them unsuitable for professional presentations, IMHO.
I haven't found much detail on the internal scaler's quality, but almost every comment I find about Kramer in general is good.
| Chris McDonald wrote on Fri, 11 November 2005 22:16 |
So how is everyone else feeding their projectors? Using long vga cables, composit or ..?
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Long VGA for now. I've got a nice Altinex 3-way XGA splitter that I use when doing multiple-screen presentations that involve any powerpoint. I've got a QuadscanPro scaler that I use to bring video sources up to VGA, but it doesn't switch sources well at all, hence my search for a new better-suited unit.
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Topic: Video Mixers (Read 5913 times)