If your message, brand and audience are important to you, then you need to create regular video content and possibly even be live streaming. That being said, anyone who has run a business knows that content creation can be time consuming and expensive. So, in order to get a steady flow of content out to your audience, you have to work smart.
What’s the answer?
Let’s get straight to it. Bring your video production in-house. This may sound like a fairytale but hear me out.
There is a simple piece of equipment that will change the way you think about creating videos and live streams. It’s called an A/V streaming mixer. With an A/V streaming mixer you can use multiple cameras, computers, smartphones and microphones in your presentation, and add a professional’s touch, using great effects, to your final product.
It’s like having a media studio at your fingertips!
What Can I Use an A/V Streaming Mixer For?
For the typical business, there are probably four key areas.
These are:
- Video content creation for digital marketing
- Live Streaming ‘what’s new’ and ‘how-to’ product demonstrations
- In-house training videos
- Delivering engaging Investor & Stakeholder presentations
What this means is that you can create a dynamic presentation using live footage, videos, PowerPoint slideshows, graphs, animations, branding etc. You can easily transition between camera angles, add a graph to half of the screen, place your logo at the bottom… the list goes on.
What’s more, you can live stream and/or record the presentation. That’s it. No post-production. It’s in the can!
Once you are done, you are ready to start thinking about your next video. Sounds too easy to be true? I assure you, this gets even better…
How to get started
Let's Take a Quick Look ...
You have probably seen video mixers at large events. They are used to project the presenter’s image on to the main screen, stream the show online, create video walls and control the videos and graphics on the large monitors.
What most businesses don’t know, is that you can buy a smaller video ‘streaming’ mixer to start creating your own in-house content and live streams.
The layout of the new ‘prosumer’ streaming mixers is very simple to understand. In my experience it takes less than 30 minutes to get comfortable using a model like the VR-1HD.
As you can see from the image above, all of the controls are very well laid out. There are three audio sliders on the left to mix your voice and backing music and three Input buttons on the bottom right to ‘transition’ beautifully between your cameras and computer graphics. It also comes with professional visual effects (scenes) like picture-in-picture and split screens and ‘keying’ for your logos.
Picture-in-Picture
Split Screen
The VR-1HD has a USB 3.0 output for streaming and recording. All you have to do is connect it to a computer with internet access and press the red ‘On Air’ button.
Let the streaming begin!
