Hi,
What would be the recommended camera to use with MimoLive?
Highest quality of image, consumer price or above.
Thanks,
Tal
@Talmor, it’s not possible to make a blanket recommendation of camera without knowing more about what you’re doing. What is the use case? What kind of hardware do you have? Do you have HDMI or SDI capture cards? Do you have Thunderbolt or PCI-e on your Mac? All these things and other factors would influence what camera we could recommend to you. The lack of information you’ve provided is probably one reason that no one has responded to you with a recommendation yet. Please give us an idea of what you’re trying to do, and what you currently have to do it with, and maybe we can come up with a solid recommendation for you.
@madden64freak Thank you so much for your reply.
I’m using a rather strong hardware.
iMac Retina 5k,
4 GHz Intel Core i7,
32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
AMD Radeon R9 M295X 4096 MB
I would like to live stream fitness trainings. Live streaming is rather new area for me.
I have a beautiful home made set with professional lights.
Here is a video example of an edited (not live) version of what I would like to do live with Mimo: enter link description here
dont mind the Hebrew language 
I own a Canon 5Dmk2 & 7Dmk1 (both dont have an hdmi output) - I used them to film the video above.
I also own a Canon G7Xmk2 & Sony RX100mk4 - both are pocket cameras and have hdmi output.
The options I thought of are:
-
a webcam - the best webcams I managed to find are: Logitech C930e or C920, or, the Mevo Camera which looks very interesting. Any idea which one will be best?
I assume the image will not be as good as the video I’ve sent you. -
Another option would be to use my G7Xmk2 or RX100mk4 cameras as webcams. For this I will have to buy an HDMI external capture card. Though I’m not sure the hdmi output is a clean output (not sure I can live stream videos, perhaps only stills). Any idea? Can you recommend on a capture card? Will this be a better solution then the Logitech webcams I mentioned in #1 ?
So far I have a feeling that the Mevo camera will be my best option to start with.
Though I am not sure if MimoLive is compatible with this camera and its on-the-fly editing features (The mevo shoots 4k and with an iphone app allows to crop certain areas and by this edit on-the-fly)
- Any other suggestions will be welcome
Many Thanks,
Tal
@madden64freak In the video I sent, please wait for 1:08min to see the full shot I will require. Thanks!
@madden64freak If by any chance the link doesn’t work you can try this youtube link:
enter link description here
@Talmor, I agree. Your iMac should be a stout device for the purposes of mimoLive.
It looks like you have a substantial amount of hardware already, and that’s great. Based on the information you’ve provided, I’ll assume you have a little bit of a budget to work with to make this happen.
I would recommend to you that you obtain a Thunderbolt PCIe interface and an HDMI capture card. I’ve personally worked with the Blackmagic Design Intensity series of cards and like them a lot. Others may recommend Magewell or someone else, and they may be right to do so. But I can’t speak for the other cards because I haven’t used them.
There are also Thunderbolt HDMI capture devices. I imagine you’re already aware of those. However, many of them don’t support 1080p60 capture. Many of the ones that do, cost a whole lot more than buying the PCI-e HDMI capture card plus Thunderbolt PCI-e chassis. So, I find myself recommending the card and the chassis because it often works out to be cheaper, and some Clean HDMI outputs on cameras will only output at 1080p60 with no option to adjust the resolution/framerate higher or lower. So I try to play it safe and maximize my chances of my capture device working with more cameras rather than less.
However you want to go about it, get your hands on an HDMI capture device. Then test it with the two cameras you already have. If it works on one of those cameras and you’re pleased with the quality, then fantastic. You’ve got your camera and capture device. If it doesn’t, then I’ve personally used the Panasonic G7 micro four thirds DSLR and the Sony Handicam series of camcorders both of which gave me clean HDMI out when I’ve worked with them and mimoLive.
I’m sure there’s a whole bunch of other people who can also list other great cameras with clean HDMI out as well. So hopefully they’ll speak up. From the ones I’ve worked with, my personal favorite was the Panasonic G7 as the quality was amazing. There is a drawback though. The camera was amazing when stationary on a tripod. However, if you need to pan and zoom a lot, the autofocus doesn’t seem to work well at keeping up when you’re using the clean HDMI out on it. So, if the camera will be stationary the G7 is incredible. If you need to pan and zoom a lot, then you may want to look at a camcorder or a DSLR that handles autofocus better when using the clean HDMI out.
This is my two cents, I wish that I would’ve had the opportunity to work with more DSLRs and verify whether they have clean HDMI out, but I haven’t and that’s life. Hopefully there’s others who will share the cameras that they use so you have more choices than just the two I’ve mentioned. And perhaps someone else can recommend a better signal chain, but this is the one that worked best for me.
If your cameras can do video output via HDMI then they’ll be fine for use with MimoLive. i.e. if you can plug hdmi output into a TV and see live video on the TV then you can capture live video to be used as a camera in ML.
If you want to only capture from one camera, the Black Magic Intensity Shuttle will be fine. This takes a single HDMI input and presents it as a camera source that can be used iN ML. Incidentally, the shuttle also allows composite video input so if your other cameras output video using composite you could use one of those with your BMI Shuttle.
However, the main disadvantage of the BMI shuttle is that it can only capture a single source. As soon as you want to move to multiple cameras (and using ML to switch between them) you need to use a PCIe chassis with cards capable of capturing multiple cameras. Based on the recommendation of the Boinx team, I purchased a Sonnet Echo Express SEII. You can use this to install a BMI capture card like the Decklink Duo or Quad which will allow multiple inputs - ie multiple camera sources - in ML.
However, once you move to the Decklink cards you must have cameras that either output using SDI, or if you have cameras that output using HDMI you will need to get an HDMI->SDI converter for each.
The other option would be to use multiple BMI Shuttles. Each would need it’s own thunderbolt port, however, as they cannot be daisy-chained like other thunderbolt devices.
@madden64freak @chrisis Thank you very much for the detailed replies. It will take me some time to digest the information. But it was very helpful. Regards.
@Talmor, just to be thorough, I am also using the Sonnet Echo Express SEII. It’s been a very solid Thunderbolt enclosure for me.
An action cam would fit your needs as far as I can tell. When looking for the best action camera, make sure to read some reviews online.