Best Video Switchers for Church Livestream

Count sources, not cameras. The slide computer is an input. A playback laptop is an input. A confidence feed from a second room is an input. Churches routinely buy a four input switcher for three cameras and then discover the lyrics have nowhere to go. The table below counts properly for the usual arrangements.

An HDMI signal from a camera carries embedded audio, which means that unless somebody deliberately changes it, the stream is carrying whatever the camera microphone heard: the room, the congregation, the air handling and the platform wedges, all at once. This is the single biggest quality problem in church livestreaming and it has nothing to do with video at all.

The fix is cheap and it takes one cable. The ATEM Mini range has 3.5 mm line inputs alongside the HDMI ones, so a line level feed from a console output can be patched straight in and the camera audio muted on every input. Better still, take a dedicated mix from a console aux or matrix so the stream gets a balance built for headphones rather than a copy of a house mix built for a room that already has acoustic sound in it. If the stream is going through a computer instead, the same feed goes through an audio interface for between $86.90 and $299.99. Either way, the camera microphones stay muted. The mixing question itself is covered in how to mix for livestream.

Buying exactly enough inputs. A four input switcher with four sources connected has no room for the guest speaker who arrives with a laptop, and that is the single most common reason a church replaces a switcher within a year. Leave one input free. Second, HDMI cable length: HDMI is not designed for long runs, and a camera forty feet from the rack needs an active cable or a signal extender rather than the longest passive cable the shop had. Intermittent video that works at rehearsal and fails at the service is nearly always this.

Third, the audio arriving embedded from the cameras because nobody muted it, which puts the room rather than the mix on the stream. Fourth, nobody watching the actual output: the multiview shows the operator what they are cutting, but somebody should also be seeing the stream as the congregation at home sees it, delayed and all. Put a phone or a spare tablet on the stream at the back. For the whole chain see how to livestream a church service and church livestream audio setup, and for how the switcher choices differ at the top end, ATEM Mini Pro versus Extreme.