From StreamingMedia.com

After testing Roland’s new multi-format A/V switcher, the V-60HD, on three live events, I’ll be switching over to the V-60HD as my main video switcher for live event production.

In early December of last year, Roland sent me its new V-60HD Multi-Format HD Video Switcher (Figure 1, below) with the latest shipping firmware to test for live event production. This new switcher retails for $2,995, and it packs a lot of features for a very affordable price.

For more than a year, I’ve been using the Roland V-1SDI, a smaller video switcher which sells for half the cost of the V-60HD. I was anxious to see if the new unit would be worth the extra investment—and I wasn’t disappointed. After testing the unit on three live events, I’ll be switching over to the V-60HD as my main video switcher for live event production.

Overview

The V-60HD is not just a video switcher. Unlike its little brother the V-1SDI, the V-60HD features more input and output connections to meet the demands of a multicamera live event. Perhaps more importantly, the V-60HD has a separate auxiliary (AUX) bus to have a separate program output from the master output. The switcher can output video at 50 or 59.94Hz (fps) at 720p, 1080i, or 1080p. We’ll dive into more of these features throughout this review.

The V-60HD is very compact, with a tabletop imprint of 8.5″ x 11.5″—just slightly larger than a standard letter size piece of paper. The height of the console varies from 2” to 3” not including the video fader handle or knobs. The switcher and its power supply fit comfortably in a Pelican AIR 1485 case for transport and storage.

Another nice feature of this switcher is the 2.5″ x 1.5″ LED display at the top right of the console (Figure 2, below). You can review and adjust all of the settings for the switch with this display; you don’t need to reference a HDMI multiview monitor to access the settings. The knob to the right of the LED display allows you to quickly scroll through all of the major categories and enter new values…[continue reading]

The V-1SDI is a flexible and versatile four-channel video switcher that makes it easy to connect and switch professional 3G SDI cameras and playback sources along with HDMI sources including cameras, smart phones, computers, tablets, Blu-ray players. Compact and portable, the V-1SDI delivers professional switching results with its easy to use hardware interface complete with T-Fader and easy-to-see backlit buttons. With support for 3G-SDI, the V-1SDI can operate at full 1080p resolution and can take advantage of the longer cable distance of SDI making this compact solution suitable for events and applications in even large spaces with the most professional level of SDI camera sources.

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Video switchers have changed in recent years to where it was not that long ago, that the idea of video switchers delivering content directly to the internet was far-fetched. Now, it’s a standard sales feature that many end-users consider a “must have.”

Typically, streaming is a feature that is seen more on smaller video switchers, rather than the full-size production switchers. This is great for churches, because many churches don’t need a full-blown large production switcher to fulfill their needs.

Most of the streaming switchers stream one of two ways: The first option is for the switcher to have an Ethernet port that can directly deliver encoded web-ready video. The second option is a USB connection to deliver video in a format that a computer can ingest and then stream. For the purposes of this article, we will refer to these as capable or enabled, respectively.

[continue reading for switcher recommendations]