1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,280 I host a lot of videos, and if you watch ShortCircuit and compare it to TechLinked or GameLinked, 2 00:00:05,280 --> 00:00:09,600 you might be able to tell, I do better when I'm reading. I'm like a Ron Burgundy type of situation, 3 00:00:09,600 --> 00:00:16,000 so I was really excited when Elgato announced the Promptor. It's an all-in-one teleprompter 4 00:00:16,640 --> 00:00:23,120 setup with a single cable that you can plug into your computer or phone, and immediately 5 00:00:23,760 --> 00:00:27,120 seem like you know what you're talking about. Now, if you don't know what a teleprompter is, 6 00:00:27,120 --> 00:00:32,480 it's just basically a screen that reflects a script up onto a piece of glass that sits in 7 00:00:32,480 --> 00:00:37,200 front of a camera so you can read the script as you're hosting. It's my whole life, basically. 8 00:00:37,200 --> 00:00:44,560 Let's move this to the other side and see what's in this box. Promptor. USB cable. 9 00:00:44,560 --> 00:00:51,360 USB-C? Ooh, a right angle. Okay, USB-A to USB-C right angle cable. I don't know how long it is. 10 00:00:51,440 --> 00:00:58,720 Seems pretty long, though. Braided. Durable. Universal Shroud and a DSLR mirrorless backplate. 11 00:00:58,720 --> 00:01:03,840 So this is going to let you use this Promptor with a bunch of different cameras, either a webcam, 12 00:01:03,840 --> 00:01:10,720 the Elgato webcams, or a dedicated camera that you bring yourself from home. I don't know how 13 00:01:10,720 --> 00:01:17,840 this works yet because I'll figure that out later. Step up rings to step up your hosting 14 00:01:17,840 --> 00:01:23,120 video to a streaming game. So these are rings that would basically serve as adapters to allow 15 00:01:23,120 --> 00:01:27,280 you to fit them into the Promptor properly, depending on what your camera and lens situation is. 16 00:01:27,280 --> 00:01:33,360 I like how the packaging is all cardboard, not a lot of plastic in here. Okay, let's get the Promptor 17 00:01:33,360 --> 00:01:42,400 out itself. At least it's key. Two pieces. Okay, this looks like the platform that the camera goes 18 00:01:42,400 --> 00:01:49,120 on. And sure enough, it's nothing. They can't slip it past me. Wow, okay. I gotta say, like, 19 00:01:49,120 --> 00:01:53,760 compared to the Promptors that we work with here and the Promptors that I've seen elsewhere, 20 00:01:53,760 --> 00:01:58,720 this looks slick. Like, this is a slick-looking Promptor. Maybe I'm being silly here, 21 00:01:58,720 --> 00:02:04,160 but I appreciate that there's sort of this, like, matte, nice finish on it. Like, it doesn't look 22 00:02:04,160 --> 00:02:09,760 like cheap plastic or anything. And they have this cool, like, design on the bottom, signifying brains 23 00:02:09,760 --> 00:02:16,720 because if you use one of these things, you're smart. Gotta say, that's a very, very small window. 24 00:02:16,720 --> 00:02:21,200 I don't see how you're going to put in a DSLR lens in there, but it's because this is a plate 25 00:02:21,200 --> 00:02:26,480 you can take off. It says for Facecam Pro. There we go. That looks like the Promptors I'm used to 26 00:02:26,480 --> 00:02:31,200 working with. However, we also have a mirrorless camera with a lens that we're going to try and 27 00:02:31,200 --> 00:02:35,840 fit on there and see how that works. It looks like you can take the tablet off. And sure enough, 28 00:02:35,840 --> 00:02:42,800 there are screws on the back there. So I'm guessing you can remove the tablet if you want, but... 29 00:02:42,800 --> 00:02:50,240 Now, the tablet itself is a 9-inch screen. It's a 1024x600 resolution. And you might be saying, 30 00:02:50,240 --> 00:02:54,320 that's too low for gaming? Well, yeah, no, you're not gaming. All you're going to do is, like, 31 00:02:54,320 --> 00:02:59,120 put text on here. So it doesn't need to be super, super high resolution. However, this 32 00:02:59,120 --> 00:03:06,080 mirrored display, hello. The glass portion of display is obviously, you know, it's a bit 33 00:03:06,080 --> 00:03:11,920 bigger than the 9-inch display. It's a bit taller and it's got optical grade 7030 beam 34 00:03:11,920 --> 00:03:16,000 splitter glass is what they call it, which just means, you know, it's mirrored. So you can see 35 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:23,760 what's on the display, on the mirrored glass. Now, as for ports on the tablet itself, as advertised, 36 00:03:23,760 --> 00:03:29,920 there's just this single USB-C port, which you can connect to your Windows PC, or your Mac, 37 00:03:29,920 --> 00:03:35,760 or your Android. First of all, let's connect the webcam. Elgato says that they have, you know, 38 00:03:35,760 --> 00:03:40,960 very wide compatibility for a lot of different camera setups. Hopefully the setup process 39 00:03:41,920 --> 00:03:48,720 isn't that confusing. Okay, so this is the camera platform, and then you can slide it up and down, 40 00:03:48,720 --> 00:03:55,040 depending on how big your camera is going to be. Oh, it's supposed to actually fit into that little 41 00:03:55,040 --> 00:04:02,400 window. Okay, yeah, yeah. Okay, see that, that's nice. Let me just say so far, this is real smooth. 42 00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:10,000 I mean, having a teleprompter made by a company that makes webcams is immediately nice because 43 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:16,080 they have this like perfect cutout for their webcam that they sell. Okay, and now on the bottom, 44 00:04:16,080 --> 00:04:21,600 we have these tripod mounts. So you can, I guess you could either use this one or that one, or both. 45 00:04:22,800 --> 00:04:27,440 Accessories. We also have these two cold shoe mounts on the top. So you have like a mini shotgun 46 00:04:27,440 --> 00:04:32,960 mic that you use for your setup, then you can just stick it right in there. All right, we are here 47 00:04:32,960 --> 00:04:39,200 with the Elgato prompter setup. It's asking me if I'm ready to roll the camera, and believe me, I am. 48 00:04:39,760 --> 00:04:47,120 Very exciting. So once you connect the tablet via the USB-C cable to your laptop, you can install 49 00:04:47,120 --> 00:04:52,320 the Elgato Camera Hub software if you don't have it installed already, because it's the same software 50 00:04:52,320 --> 00:04:57,440 that you use with your webcam. You go into the prompter section, and here you go. You got your 51 00:04:57,440 --> 00:05:04,880 script. You got some options on the side here for brightness. Yes, I can make it darker, brighter. 52 00:05:05,440 --> 00:05:12,160 You have the content window where you can change it to be either text showing your script that you 53 00:05:12,160 --> 00:05:18,640 wrote or whatever, or you can have it as a secondary monitor, or an even better option if it works. 54 00:05:18,640 --> 00:05:25,840 It's in beta right now is this chat integration, where you can give it your Twitch channel and 55 00:05:25,840 --> 00:05:30,560 an optional title, and then it will like display the chat in their own style. We're going to test 56 00:05:30,560 --> 00:05:37,360 this out by linking to just a random Twitch streamer that we thought of, Kit Boga. Okay, there it is. 57 00:05:38,320 --> 00:05:44,560 That's pretty cool. And now we're recording on the Elgato Facecam Pro, and indeed, I mean, you 58 00:05:44,560 --> 00:05:51,680 tell me, can you see the chat flipping by? No. Now, pretend this is a live stream, and I'm reading 59 00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:58,080 this comment from you in real time. So much sauce today. How did that feel? Felt pretty good 60 00:05:58,080 --> 00:06:02,960 to have eye contact while that happened, didn't it? Now, depending on how fast the chat is going, 61 00:06:02,960 --> 00:06:07,600 I'm not sure how engaging this is going to be for the people making chat messages, especially when 62 00:06:07,600 --> 00:06:11,200 it's going this fast, as like someone's looking at the camera, like, is it better to have somebody 63 00:06:11,200 --> 00:06:16,320 looking at the camera and trying to like read, or is it like, is it better to have them looking down 64 00:06:16,320 --> 00:06:21,040 here and trying to read? Because in both scenarios, if they're actually reading your comment talking 65 00:06:21,040 --> 00:06:26,560 to you through the camera, great, there's connection, there's parasocial dynamics going on here, and that's 66 00:06:26,560 --> 00:06:31,840 exciting. But if you're just looking up at the chat and just being like, oh, it's going so fast, 67 00:06:31,840 --> 00:06:36,640 there's got to be a way to like slow it down. Are there settings for the chat? Oh, font size. Okay. 68 00:06:37,360 --> 00:06:43,520 Yeah, you can make, you can change the font size down to 10 point, which is far too little to see, 69 00:06:43,520 --> 00:06:48,640 unless I mean, if this was right up here, I could, that's, that's readable, because that's 70 00:06:48,640 --> 00:06:55,600 one of the big selling points of this thing, because it's so small, yet so clear, and so easy to use, 71 00:06:55,600 --> 00:07:01,280 and so built for wide angle cameras, you can bring this thing right up over your monitor, 72 00:07:01,280 --> 00:07:05,520 as opposed to like big giant teleprompter setups, which are like way more clunky, and you have to 73 00:07:05,520 --> 00:07:10,160 have like heavy monitor arms and stuff, and whatever, you could just like put this thing on a box, 74 00:07:10,160 --> 00:07:15,040 don't put it on a box, you're better than that. Oh, you can bring it more into the center or over 75 00:07:15,040 --> 00:07:20,880 to the side, you can have the text to be, oh, you can have completely custom colors for the text 76 00:07:20,880 --> 00:07:27,600 and background, red on white, if you want, let's see if the background color affects the actual 77 00:07:27,600 --> 00:07:32,960 video, but yes, and it does, so that's somewhat unsurprising, if you make the background color 78 00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:39,600 white, you can, but it will affect, you'll be able to see that your recording is a little bit more 79 00:07:39,600 --> 00:07:46,800 washed out, so just be aware, you can also change the font, ooh, if you want impact, but no, no 80 00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:55,040 comic sans, there's no opacity slider as well, if you want to have something behind the actual text, 81 00:07:55,040 --> 00:07:58,560 I can't think of an example off the top of my head that that would be useful for, but there 82 00:07:58,560 --> 00:08:02,640 definitely is something, and the last section here is called scrolling, you have an auto scroll 83 00:08:02,640 --> 00:08:08,160 chapter button, which basically means, is it gonna stop after it finishes the chapter, or is it gonna 84 00:08:08,160 --> 00:08:12,640 keep scrolling through each of these chapter sections you have in your script? Okay, let's see 85 00:08:12,640 --> 00:08:19,040 how this goes, Scripts.com, Bee Movie by Jerry Seinfeld, narrator, black screen with text, the 86 00:08:19,040 --> 00:08:25,120 sound of buzzing bees can be heard, according to unknown modes of aviation, what's the deal with 87 00:08:25,120 --> 00:08:32,720 bees? My main complaint so far seems to be that when you can scroll in the software here very 88 00:08:32,720 --> 00:08:39,280 easily and kind of see, oh okay, I see at a glance the whole script, but I can't see an easy way to 89 00:08:39,280 --> 00:08:45,040 scroll on the tablet, unless I'm just like, you can split it into chapters, and then you can hit 90 00:08:45,040 --> 00:08:50,080 the skip back and skip forward button to like jump to certain chapters, but with our prompter 91 00:08:50,080 --> 00:08:56,000 software that we use, you can scroll up and down, like it's a, this is not a touchscreen, right? No, 92 00:08:56,000 --> 00:09:01,920 it's not, so you can just scroll up and down either with the touchscreen because we use iPads for that, 93 00:09:01,920 --> 00:09:07,760 or we have remotes that you can scroll up and down on the script, as a video host, I really 94 00:09:07,760 --> 00:09:13,120 appreciate that, and I can't see an easy way to do that unless I'm tripping. Now you don't have to 95 00:09:13,120 --> 00:09:19,040 use the Elgato Camera Hub software, if you just plug it in and don't launch the app, or if you 96 00:09:19,040 --> 00:09:24,000 select display in the app, it just shows up as another monitor, so you can throw anything on there, 97 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:29,920 you can even play a game on there, which I, now that I've said it, I want to do. This is not a good 98 00:09:29,920 --> 00:09:36,240 idea, so yeah, you can play a game on it, you can do anything you would do with an external display. 99 00:09:36,240 --> 00:09:45,520 Playing with a laptop trackpad and a teleprompter as a display. I can see a whole new genre of 100 00:09:45,520 --> 00:09:52,640 video game streaming, where you still see the game is still the majority of the screen for the viewer, 101 00:09:52,640 --> 00:09:59,840 but then the Incept webcam is you looking, wow, do you feel like you're there? Yeah, when I'm 102 00:09:59,840 --> 00:10:05,440 watching the streamer, I really feel like I am his computer. Okay, the last thing that I wanted to 103 00:10:05,440 --> 00:10:11,280 see was how easy it is to connect a mirrorless camera with a big old lens on it, as opposed to 104 00:10:11,280 --> 00:10:17,440 just like plugging in Elgato's own webcam. They include a bunch of these adapter rings, so let's 105 00:10:17,440 --> 00:10:25,760 check it out. Okay, let's take this, the adapter plate for the webcam off, and put on the adapter 106 00:10:25,760 --> 00:10:37,840 plate for mirrorless lenses. Okay, and now this, what is this camera here, Glenn? It's a Sony A9 107 00:10:37,840 --> 00:10:45,840 with a 24 to 105 millimeter lens, but the mount on the front fits 77 millimeter adapters, and the 108 00:10:45,840 --> 00:10:54,480 Elgato prompter comes with nine sizes from 49 millimeters to 82 millimeters, and we have a 77 109 00:10:54,480 --> 00:11:00,320 millimeter adapter right here. It's just got a little bit, it's like, it barely looks like anything, 110 00:11:00,320 --> 00:11:07,520 but there's a little bit of a lip there that's going to allow you to slide it in to this adapter 111 00:11:08,320 --> 00:11:14,320 so that it stays in place. So there it is, that's not going anywhere. A specific issue that we're 112 00:11:14,320 --> 00:11:20,240 running into here is that this is kind of a long lens, the 24 to 105, and most lenses that you're 113 00:11:20,240 --> 00:11:24,400 going to use with a teleprompter are going to be on the wider side, which means that they're going 114 00:11:24,400 --> 00:11:30,960 to be on the shorter side. Now, because this lens is long, the included mount doesn't let us, 115 00:11:31,760 --> 00:11:36,160 you know, it doesn't let you connect from the mount to this part of the prompter, you can connect 116 00:11:36,160 --> 00:11:40,000 it to the camera just fine, or you can connect it to the prompter just fine, but not both. 117 00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:46,560 So in this situation, if you really needed to use this lens, then you would have the camera mounted 118 00:11:46,560 --> 00:11:51,200 on a tripod and then have another tripod or a C-stand or something connected to the bottom 119 00:11:51,200 --> 00:11:56,800 thingies there. So then you'd have two things, you know, two supports for your setup. A better 120 00:11:56,800 --> 00:12:03,680 solution would be just to, you know, use a shorter lens that actually can work with this mount. 121 00:12:03,680 --> 00:12:09,600 It doesn't give you a ton of room, depending on your camera. Like, you need to have a pretty 122 00:12:09,600 --> 00:12:15,440 short lens for that to line up properly. You know what, scratch that, I have this the wrong way, 123 00:12:15,440 --> 00:12:20,320 so it's supposed to go this way, and that leaves you more, you know, a little bit more room, but 124 00:12:20,320 --> 00:12:26,080 it's still, this lens still doesn't cut it for this setup. But just be aware, if you want to use 125 00:12:26,080 --> 00:12:32,480 a mirrorless camera or another camera with like a big lens on it, this may be an issue you could 126 00:12:32,480 --> 00:12:37,440 run into. But the mount not fitting isn't the end of the world as Elgato does show that you can hang 127 00:12:37,440 --> 00:12:41,600 the prompter off the end of the lens. If you're comfortable with that, I'd still prefer to set 128 00:12:41,680 --> 00:12:45,920 up an additional support for the prompter just to be extra safe, but it's not 100% necessary. 129 00:12:45,920 --> 00:12:52,480 Now, all that said, for an all-in-one solution with a tablet included and software that makes 130 00:12:52,480 --> 00:12:59,680 things pretty easy to use, this thing is $280, ships in March. You know, that's not bad for an 131 00:12:59,680 --> 00:13:04,400 all-in-one, easy-to-use setup. I think there's a lot of teleprompter setups that you have to 132 00:13:04,400 --> 00:13:10,720 like supply your own tablet or whatever. Overall, pretty happy, nice job Elgato. I don't want to 133 00:13:10,720 --> 00:13:15,840 switch to this for our videos because it's a little small and we have our cameras far away, 134 00:13:15,840 --> 00:13:20,800 but I think for independent video creators who are kind of making videos on their own and you're 135 00:13:20,800 --> 00:13:24,960 in your, you know, personal studio in your bedroom or whatever, I think that having something like 136 00:13:24,960 --> 00:13:29,840 this where you can have a wide angle setup with a easy-to-use teleprompter or for Twitch streamers 137 00:13:29,840 --> 00:13:34,880 or whatever, doesn't seem like too bad of an idea. Hey, that was a ShortCircuit. Thanks for watching. 138 00:13:34,880 --> 00:13:38,560 Subscribe to the channel. And if you're looking for something else to watch, I got a hot tip for 139 00:13:38,560 --> 00:13:46,000 you here. This PIKTO wireless gaming thing that I took a look at, that was pretty crazy. Wow.