TEST AREA
router is placed or if the HDMI cable would be long enough. At the front part it includes some lights which inform us of the state of the device, switches to start the broadcasting and recording, as well as the ports to do this. It has two USB ports and one SD slot, but they don’t work simultaneously. Although from some time our camcorder records in a card, we will save time if we configure the Monarch to record in MP4 what we are broadcasting. We can do this in a disk, a pendrive or in SD card. It could also be useful when we work for a third party and the client directly takes the content to its device. Configuring the device is easy. We had some problems at the beginning, but once we introduced correctly the web addresses, the device connected both with the PC and the tablet we used to test it. Streaming can be done in many resolutions and file sizes with a maximum of 30Mbps in the sum of streaming and recording. Nowadays a streaming of 10 Mbps shouldn’t be used on a modest connection, nor in a low budget project. I always try to be coherent with the things that we do and what it costs regarding the budget. For example, to transmit at 2 or 3 Mbps and store it in a MP4 at 25 Mbps, is easy regarding the edition of the content in any edition
software and this could be one of the many combinations. It can handle an input of up to 1.920 50/60p present in the last HD camcorders, which offers enough resolution for the great majority of projects and even more for web broadcasting. The recording options are MP4 or mov and its selection will depend on the use of the file. Without a doubt, our camcorder offers us that bit rate, but maybe the goal is to do a simple editing of what we have recorded on the location, or simply leave everything on the file for the future and save us the time of capturing the card afterwards. Once our Monarch HD is detected by the tablet, we just have to define in a menu the video and audio qua-
S TREAMING
CAN BE DONE IN MANY RESOLUTIONS AND FILE SIZES WITH A MAXIMUM OF 30M BPS IN THE SUM OF STREAMING AND RECORDING
lity both for the uploading content and for the stored material, if that is what we want. It’s easy and we can create different templates to use it afterwards without having to select options again. This also happens when detecting the device. This part of the device is well designed. Before ending this article I want to say this device shouldn’t be compared with video mixers that include streaming because they are different products. It’s true than in many live broadcasting, as small as they can be, it’s necessary to work with at least two camcorders, therefore we should complete our system. Not all the mixers include the streaming function and it will be an interesting option to connect directly the HDMI output of the program (what we are mixing in real time) to the Monarch and that from there we could get the final copy an upload it to the web. This combination is cheaper than buying a device which can do all the functions and at the same time. What can we ask of Matrox? A more adjusted price, a Wi-Fi connection, despite of the lower upload resolution and the inevitable App to control it from a tablet in an even simpler way. The Matrox Monarch HD is a strong product in the growing market of uploading web content in real time.
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