The $295 ATEM Mini switcher— Is it any better than OBS or Wirecast?

2020–04–06 Update: There is now a $595 ATEM Mini Pro switcher. It adds the much-needed multiview, built-in streaming output (via a wired network connection), and recording of the program output (in streaming quality) to a USB drive. I have not tried this device, but it does not appear that my criticisms about the PiP or lower-thirds functionality have been addressed.

I gifted myself the $295 Blackmagic ATEM Mini for Christmas this year. My use case is quite straightforward: I live stream events that consist of a presenter’s laptop output and their talking head fed from a camera. I’ve been using OBS and more recently Telestream Wirecast due to some stability issues with OBS to produce the event and deliver the live stream to YouTube.

For the event, I have two picture-in-picture (PIP) layouts: one with the presenter’s laptop overlaid on the talking head, the other reversed with the talking head overlaid on the presenter’s laptop. I also have some lower-thirds for each presenter and a walk-in loop that plays while we’re waiting for people to assemble.

I use a couple of game streaming devices that connect via USB to the host computer and provide an HDMI input for the camera or presenter’s laptop. One of them has an HDMI passthrough and I use that to connect the presenter’s laptop to the projector in the room — after all, those in the room can see the presenter and don’t want to see produced live stream. All of this is pretty easy to set up in OBS or…