Let’s take a dander through the fun and interesting things I discovered on the show floor of NAB 2025.
Transcript
The Show
I just got back from NAB 2025, the yearly show with all things broadcast, a huge Las Vegas trade show with booths on just about every brand that you’ve ever heard of in this space. I just wanted to make this rounding off video to show you some things I seen there, some cool things I got a hands-on with, and the people I met as well.
ATEM Mini Extreme ISO G2
First things first, the biggest booth I went to was Blackmagic Design and took a look at a few things that they had to offer. Of course, the ATEM Mini Extreme ISO G2 was one that was right there in front of me. I had a play with it. I really like the new buttons on there. I like the new HDMI output. So, it has three now. And I like the Thunderbolt connection on the back. Now, I’ll be sure to make a full video on this particular model if I get my hands on it here in the studio. I’m working on that. But, in the meantime, I have made some videos about it already, and I’m sure you can see some other content online. At least I went right there, grabbed it, and started pressing some buttons to see how it felt.
VideoHub Mini 4x2, 6x2 and 8x4
While I was at the Blackmagic booth, I also took a look at their new video hub mini series, which is the 4x2, 6x2, and 8x4. These are quite nice. I can imagine them being used in all sorts of use cases. And again, I’m trying to get my hands on these to see if I can play around with them, see how they work, and see how well they may integrate with my setup here or maybe your setup. We’ll see whenever we get our hands on them. But I imagine if you already kind of understand a use case for yourself, then these will be instantly clear. We’ll dig into that more in a future video for sure.
HyperDeck Shuttle 4K Pro
I also played with their new HyperDeck, the HyperDeck Shuttle 4K Pro. It’s sort of like the HyperDeck Shuttle HD, which I do have here somewhere in the studio. Ah, there it is. Hold on. Yeah, sort of like this Shuttle HD with a video assist. Uh, this is not a video assist. It’s just a random monitor strapped on the side. So, you can do touchscreen control, but also press the buttons and use the shuttle wheel as well. Quite a neat idea. 4K and Pro. I’d love to see a HD model as well, but I did play around with it on the show floor and I mean, it worked as I expected it to. I have played with the video assist before and I have played with the shuttle HD so it kind of made sense.
ATEM Micro Camera Panel
And then finally from Blackmagic I did run over to take a look at the ATEM micro camera panel which is a new way to control cameras on a sort of smaller scale. So it kind of fits in with the ATEM micro panel they released before but in this case for shooting cameras as a all Blackmagic 4K camera setup here in the studio. It’s definitely something I want to try out and see how well it works for me. But at least going to the show, I got to kind of play with the buttons and see how it feels, see how big it is, see how it works. You know, it’s such a different experience than looking at the website and trying to understand how it’s going to fit into my setup.
spacecommz.io, CloudFlex & STREAMannouncer
Another booth that I couldn’t help but go to was the purple tally productions and fibergu booths as they were showing off among other things spacecommz.io, a project that myself and Ununice are working on where I was able to talk to Yonas who couldn’t make it to NAB via Spacecommz solution over the browser and they were showing that in conjunction with their stream announcer product as well as showing off cloud flex broadcast. So basically here are some shots of me just watching myself on a screen as I sit on a show floor and playing with a tool that I built on a show floor. I couldn’t help myself. It was fun to see and fun to play with.
BirdDog MAKI Studio Control Surface
Something new that Bird Dog were showing off at NAB 2025 was their new Mackie Studio control software and hardware combination for the iPad. You can see it here. It’s a desktop small control device and it connects via USB to the iPad and the iPad is running their studio control software and effectively it gets unlocked whenever you attach this device to it. The iPad takes in NDI feeds from across the network and then you use the control hardware to jump between the cameras and to make transitions and all that good stuff. Does appear to be a lot built into this software. I’m quite impressed by how much they’ve built. I guess they’ve been working on it for a while, but I haven’t really got a chance to play with it myself yet. It’s sort of one of those things I need to get the hardware to unlock the software. So, I don’t know where it fits in in the market, but I’ll be interested to try it out. Might be good for like tiny little productions or some control surfaces in the studio here or in other places. Um, but I’m not sure yet. I need to play with that some more.
BirdDog KBD
And one other thing they’re showing off is their new keyboard. And this is much awaited. Just today while I’m recording this very video earlier, I was at a studio using the old bird dog controller. And if anyone has used it out there, you know it’s time for a refresh. So, they were showing off their new one. I only had a few minutes to play with it, so I can’t say how much better it is, but it’s certainly instantly better than the previous version of the bird dog controller. So, this is welcome device. I’m sure many people out there who have all bird dog cameras will be happy to see this new controller out in the wild.
Elgato Stream Deck Modules
Then, I swung by the Elgato and Bitfocus booth and specifically, I wanted to look at the new modules that the Elgato is showing off. So, you can get the 32 button, the six button, and the 15 button modules by themselves. And this means that you can then build your own control surface with 3D printed or whatever kind of parts you want, but effectively use the modules, drop them in, and then build a custom control panel just for your use case. They all have USBC connections on the back, so you will have to use some sort of hub to get them all connected into your computer. But from there, build your own custom panel and away you go. Seems pretty cool.
New in Central Control
Joel is showing off the new version of central control here where you can build your own web panel. So here you can use uh video feeds, you can set up buttons, you can do PTZ control, all that stuff all from an iPad where you just configure the panel on your computer and then open it via link on an iPad. Seems like a really nice addition to central control which already has lots of features built in.
The People
And of course, I walked around pressing lots of buttons on lots of different booths. But I really wanted to just point out that uh one of the best things about going to a trade show like this, flying all the way to Las Vegas for a few days. And really, the whole reason to go was just to meet random people that you know from online. You just want to shake their hand or give them a hug and say hello or thanks for what you do or nice to meet you. So, I really enjoyed that. Meeting the people from socially you from behind the broadcast from the Discord server. We had a meet up as well. Uh, a bunch of developers, a bunch of content creators that I know and enjoy. Uh, nice to meet them all there. So, it was worth the trip.
I’m Ready for the Next Trade Show
I’m not going to say I’m going to go there every year. I mean, it’s a long way to go for a few days. But, it was really important to go there, try it out, meet these people, and just say hello. So, totally worth it, I think. And maybe I’ll just stick to Amsterdam IBC from now on, and in a few years time when I’m fully recovered, I can go back to Las Vegas again. I hope you enjoyed this recap video. I didn’t want to make individual videos about all the booths this time because I just wanted to do something a bit different. So, if you did enjoy it, do let me know in the comments below. Otherwise, I guess I’ll see you in the next video, the next live stream, or at the next trade show. I’m already booked in for IBC 2025, so see you there. Bye-bye.