Office Hours | Friday | October 16, 2026

0:01 Happy Friday. It's Office Hours time. We're here to answer your media and production Q&A. We've got a nice little cozy panel assembled. We've got a double dose of Chris, Courtney, and Alexander all here to help answer your questions that you ask. But if you have questions, go to askofficehours.global. That's askofficehours.global and those questions will come in during the show and we'd love to see you here. Let's get started with the first question,

0:24 Alexander. First one coming in is from Rajan Shandell in Los Angeles. The The FX5 by Sony is delayed. A lot of questions online about the rear screen, and now many are canceling orders and heading to Blackmagic. What speculations might our panel have for the delay of this camera? It's a flood. They're running, Courtney. I was just briefly looking at this. I think, I mean, it looks pretty good.

0:52 Let's take a look here. These are the key features. Full-frame camera, compact design. I don't know if it's got a global shutter or not. Let's see, dynamic range, ISO 15 stops. But the price is like $5,000. What is it? $4,000. And looking at the 899, $4,900 without a lens. But it's styled like a DSLR, but it's full-frame, mirrorless. Dynamic range, 15 stops, has triple native base ISO of 800, 4000, and 12800.

1:35 Shoots in super low light, body and control share similar compact features of the FX3. With a 5% weight increase, 3.5 inch variable angle touchscreen. Maybe they have some problem, you know, with those connectors to the touchscreen. screen. Yeah, if you look here at the, if you look here is an image of it, it looks like it's got a little fold out. This is from imagingresource.com. They had a article out a few weeks ago that was

2:02 reporting that the device itself had been delayed. It was going to be originally out in August, then delayed to September, and now delayed to October. I'm not sure when. So not surprising. We've got in 2026 going into 2027, everybody's talking about production constraints and how many chips are getting built and how much components are constrained. And even if you don't directly use those components, all of the shuffling around of trying to source things for your product that aren't from your typical manufacturers creates a lot of uncertainty and a lot of kind of, it takes that still lake and makes it really turbulent, which can cause a downstream kind of hiccup in what would seemingly be an unrelated production.

2:56 Alexander? Yeah, we can sit here and there could be a lot of conjecture on what the issues are, but Sony's a big company. So obviously everyone knows they've released cameras for many, many decades. It would be very unlikely, I think, this late in the game that they're running into actual issues. Those things usually get ironed out pretty early on in early prototypes.

3:23 you know, once they start getting mass produced, I'd be shocked if there is an issue with the screen. I don't know what people are complaining about with why they think the screen is an issue. I'm sure there's a legitimate reason for the delay, but I'm sure this thing is going to ship. Sony, while they have cited production concerns, they have not cited a specific production concern.

3:46 So the conjecture part is that it is the screen. We know that there's something going on, but at the end of the day, we'd rather them do it. We'd rather them do it right than have to deal with having to claw back stuff and recall. And it very well could be, because remember, they are mass producing these, so it very well could be, well, the first batch, the first 500 or whatever that came off the production line

4:10 had maybe one too many issues, and so they're now trying to look at where did it go wrong in the production. So I'm sure they'll get it handled. Courtney? Yeah, I mean, they could be hung up by the chip shortages that are going on everywhere. It could be because it's got to have some local memory in it and or just chip, you know, large scale chip production is taken, is bought up by all the AI manufacturers.

4:36 Or maybe they went and looked at the Higgs field finalists in the short film competition this year for AI film generation and went, well, I think the writing is on the wall for cameras because you don't need cameras anymore to produce great looking cinema, you know, cinema quality images with just a prompt. So maybe they're looking at that and going, I don't know.

5:01 Cameras? Who uses them these days? I don't know about that. I think there's, while there are some really impressive kind of proof of concept demos out there, it's going to be hard to beat someone, you know, an artist with that in their hand. Yes, Chris? Someone take Suno away from that man. Suno, Chris. Next question. Okay, next question is from Guy Cochran in Seattle, Washington.

5:40 How does the Yamaha DM5 fit in the lineup over DM3 yet under DM7? I see in the Discord that the DM5 is shipping and being put into production by community members. I just want to, just as an aside, your incredible distaste for jingles is a little hilarious, Alexander. I've just got to say, it's great. I like jingles, I just don't like these ones.

6:04 Go ahead, Alexander. Anyways, the DM5. Yeah, so the DM3, you can't compare it to the higher-end consoles with respect to its capabilities processing. Yes, it's not really, I mean, it shares the same name, DM, but it is so far removed from any of the higher-end consoles, including this new DM5. It doesn't have the same processing engine. So you can't expect it to do the same kind of things just in a smaller level.

6:38 It only has two FX engines, doesn't have the same kind of processing power or nearly the same amount of bus power that the higher end ones. Doesn't have the same plug-in architecture that the DM5 or DM7 has. So where does it fit in the lineup? Well, it certainly fits in a much more affordable position. I believe the DM5 Compact, which is the smaller one, I believe the starting price is $10,000 US.

7:06 So for what it does for the size, considering what it can do, the fact that it has the Rupert Neve plugins and stuff like that, which is very appealing to me. I think for a lot of smaller productions, people that want a smaller compact mixer, but say didn't necessarily have the 20 or 25 or 30 grand to go up to the biggest DM7 model.

7:30 I think that's going to be a really attractive price point for a lot of people. So that's where I think it sits. Now, I will say the DM3 shares the preamp technology in the higher end models. But that's kind of where those similarities stop. And I own several DM3s. Actually, I own three of them. Two of them are being actively used right now, and the third one I'm not actually using right now.

7:56 And I love them. I think they're great consoles for people that have really stripped down kind of needs, a lot of house of worship needs, that kind of thing, small corporate production stuff, maybe podcasts, that kind of stuff. That's certainly how I use it. For me to use it, say, in a live environment to mix a band, I wouldn't use it. It doesn't have the processing power, the bus structure that I need to do that.

8:26 But I think for that target market, for that sort of $2,000, $2,200 territory for something that has Dante built in is very, very attractive. And coming out of the chat, Mickey McEacher says he finds the full-size DM5 to be lacking in processing capacity, given the channel count, though it may be a good sidecar or utility board to a DM7 or PM. The DM5C is better balanced.

8:52 Both do not steer me away from planning to get a DM7. Jeremy Horn gives that a plus one. Also, they found it limiting that there's only a single card slot. lot and uh and no aes out so there are some considerations that like anything make your make your wire diagram plug it in see if it works thanks alexander thanks chat next question

9:18 all right this one's from paul valhous in austin texas oc go stream deck versus black magic atem mini who wins on features reliability pricing and io courtney uh i saw this question come in the on the day. So I ordered one. Look, here it is. Came last night. I'm going to be running it through its paces today. It solves, this is the Ostrich

9:43 Go deck. I'm not going to go that deep a dive on it, but it does have a lot of features and it's $279. That's the main reason I ordered one. Now, the other thing is these have been out. Now, they just had a firmware update to 1.4.1, I think, which added I fixed a few features and a few bugs that were in the original release.

10:07 I like the T-bar. Unlike my Rodecaster Video S, which you're seeing me now on, this lets you go, like, do a split screen halfway between two things and hold it at a specific point, or a crossfade that you want to hold and dissolve two images, one on top of the other, if you want to match up something with a previously shot video.

10:29 The other neat thing that this has that the ATEM doesn't is it has an SD card slot here in the front, and it will record. It doesn't do ISO recording, but it does do records H.264 at variable quality, low, medium, and high. And the high, I think, is about 30 megabits per second. And it can play back off that same SD card.

10:54 So you have different folders in there. You can put media on there. You can put stills, video, and then it records to that card, and it can record to that card while it's playing back from that same card, which is quite an amazing feat. So you can play back videos on there. It has five inputs. It's got four HDMI inputs here plus a fifth AUX input that can be either USB.

11:21 So you can put a USB webcam in. That's something the ATEM doesn't have. Like the ATEM, it only has two mic inputs. Here they are over here. that can be the MicroLine 3.5 millimeter. But it does have a headphone output. So you can actually monitor what's going out over the mixer, which the ATEM does not have. And it has two rows of buttons in the front,

11:47 a preview bus and a program bus. So you can direct switch on the program bus or you can punch up your next shot on the preview bus and then hit auto, looking at it backwards. upwards. So that is handy. The adjustment of the audio mix here is a lot more intuitive than it is on the ATEM. You just select what input and then you use the little rotary knob

12:12 to set your level and hit the button on it. And that adds it to the mix. It, what else? It has eight macro buttons that can be pre-programmed to do any series of button clicks. It stores stores them in an XML file. It also now has a companion. When it originally came out three years ago, this one was from three years ago. That's why they're so cheap. It didn't have

12:42 a third party companion plug-ins. So you can now run it with companions. So you can automate made it over the network, which it has there. It has two HDMI outs and networking, and it takes NDI in. The NDI, I'm still, I haven't really figured that out yet. There's licensing issues with NDI and the original ones, you had to buy a license, but then NDI cut off the ability to do individual

13:14 licenses. So only certain serial numbers after a certain date, not including mine, were eligible to buy or grandfathered in to do the licensing. I don't know whether this one's going to work or not with NDI. The new version of this, which is called the Duet, I think, is exactly the same, except it has SDI inputs along this edge over here of four B and Cs. So

13:44 either HDMI or SDI for any of the four inputs that are there. So that's my roundup of features. It does a super source, something the ATEM minis don't do for $295. It'll do two plus a background. So it'll do three overlays plus a background. So it looks easier to use. It does chroma key, luminance key, all that good stuff. Benwick? Yeah, Courtney, I'll be very interested to hear if it actually does the recording and playback to that card at the same time.

14:18 I mean, I have hard enough time making a U-turn in my car while I'm listening to the radio. Also, the fader bar, do you think it's going to be powerful enough to, like, you know, destroy Death Star? Possibly, you know, if you intercut it with the Grass Valley, you know, that they used on Star Wars, it really will. And Aaron Parecki, if you're looking for a comprehensive run-through of its features, Aaron Parecki, when it first came out, he had an advanced copy and he just put the first version of the firmware in.

14:48 So there's still a lot of stuff that it didn't do at the time he made this live stream two-hour video, which is online. But he did play back a video and record at the same time. And it does record. and you can record and hit stop and then immediately go in and play that back on the unit itself, which is handy to have because a RODECaster, you have to disconnect the USB drive,

15:13 go plug it into your computer to play it back. It can't play it back off the recording, external USB recording deck. Make sure you get a card with a nice fat highway for the bandwidth. You have to have a high-speed card. It does say that. And maybe it has a problem. It's not recording ISO, so it's not recording six streams. It's only recording one H.264 stream.

15:37 Yeah, and when you're comparing it to the Blackmagic, it's easy to get kind of lost into the features and it's like, oh, well, this does this, but the other one doesn't. But everybody's situation is different. Your house of worship, your streaming setup, your desk, if you're trying to have better meetings, might be well served by one or the other. You don't know unless you're actually saying, okay, what's important to me?

16:02 Like if I look at all the things that I can do with Mix Effect Pro, I need to get an ATEM because Mix Effect Pro is really good at operating the ATEM. I don't have an equivalent for that on the OC side yet. If I want to be able to mix and match SDI and HDMI in the same workflow, okay, all of a sudden,

16:20 maybe the OC is a little bit more attractive to me. So both of these are a couple years old, except for the new one that Courtney just showed. And I'll be really interested to see what is, now that there have been a couple years for competitors to catch up, what is going to be Blackmagic's answer to their, you know, four-channel or six-channel switcher

16:40 that's kind of in there at the lower end of the price range of being around $300. Next question. All right, this one's from Rajan S. in Los Angeles. iPhone Duo pre-order sold out. Did you get one? Alexander? No, I think it's a really cool product. I'm actually really excited. I'd love to have one at some point and I definitely see myself switching away from an iPhone to

17:07 an iPhone Duo at some point. I love the idea of having the extra screen real estate. I think the implementation of that folding screen, that really cool animation when you have the screen close and you slowly open it up. I mean, it's just, it is so, it is so well done. But right now for me, it has too many compromises really with the camera.

17:29 And that's my main issue with it. I think for a lot of people though, I think the camera, unless you're a super hardcore camera nerd, I think for the average person, it's going to be good enough. From the samples that I saw, the photos still look pretty good. So I think for a lot of people, they're going to want this thing. even with the fact that it's more money.

17:52 So I'm going to wait. I'll see what the next iteration, next year's iPhone do or maybe the year after. Once they get a camera, the day they get a camera that is absolutely on par with the iPhone is the day I will switch. Fenwick? I don't think so. I've seen a lot of pictures of people already complaining about the hinge. you know and the fact that it's not very bright it's not very bright and i just i just think it's

18:23 it solves a problem that doesn't exist and that's why it is now moved to the center of fenwick's apple wall of shame of products that never should have been made right there in the middle Courtney? Yeah, Fenwick, but if you buy the new Tesla Roadster with the kickflip function, it's going to come in the glove compartment. It's going to give you a duo.

18:49 And the reason they don't put the better cameras in there, Alexander, is because of the thickness. And since it's a folding phone, they want to keep the thickness down to as thin as possible, and I don't think they have room for the cameras on both sides. And keep it thin and light. I am a sucker for the camera. I use the 8X telephoto with the digital zoom piece every single day.

19:14 Not for taking pictures even so much as it's like I need to see that thing that's far away. And it's incredible to have that just in your pocket at all times. That said, I'm very intrigued by what people are going to make with this. I don't think we even know the use cases yet. So while I did not get one, I did encourage my wife to preorder it so that we can have one in the house to play with.

19:40 We will see. Next question. Roland Booth in Jamaica asks, what desktop or web tools do you recommend for monitoring internet quality, latency jitter, packet loss, throughput over time? Chris Sabato. i if you want something that you can just buy or try it off the off the shelf product i would look at ping plotter um it's pretty pretty popular it's been around for a while um if you want something

20:07 more kind of hands in like you're actually like doing some of the configuration um there's a github if you search github for net monitor um it's a it's a pretty neat looking tool that you you know, uses Python and JavaScript to do some of this stuff. So it just kind of depends on what you want. And there are some options, you know,

20:35 I don't think anything's going to be as good as if you have like the, you're like hands deep into the config of your switches and whatnot. But these are both tools that are, should give you what you're looking for. And if you're in the position to upgrade your infrastructure with a little bit of budget, or if that kind of uptime and reporting is just essential for the business

21:00 and you need to know that it's just always going to be on, there's also the chance to look into at the hardware and the network level, whether it's with, like I've got some of the Ubiquiti Unified, one of those dream machines at the house. And it was crazy to me. I never even thought about some of the, like, when I had an issue,

21:28 like I had an issue a couple weeks ago on the show where I had a little bit of a dropout and all of a sudden everybody froze for a second and I panicked because I'm like, oh, I put all this investment into the network infrastructure in the house. We got the fat internet connection. Like, what happened? And I had the logs from my computer, but I also, for the first time, was able to look back at the logs from the network and say, okay, what else was going on at that specific time on my network that resulted in the outage?

21:54 And that made tracking down the answer a lot faster as to what was going on. Whereas before, it was always kind of this, it always felt like I was chasing a ghost. What was it? What was it? Your refrigerator was updating? No. No, there is no reason that a refrigerator or a toaster or anything else should be on the internet. Drives me crazy.

22:16 I was going to buy a fridge, and the guy in the store is like, I don't know if I've told this to Fenwick and he's teeing me up or if this is just my ADD today. But I'm in the store, and the guy's like, yeah, you got to have your fridge. It'll connect to Wi-Fi. And I was like, why would I want to connect my fridge to Wi-Fi?

22:31 And the guy's like, I don't know about you. Now, give it, I was in like Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, farm country. and the guy's like, I don't know about you, but when I get home from work, I like to have a really cold glass of milk. And so what I do is right before I leave work, I dial into that fridge and I turn that temperature down so that my milk is extra cold, but I'm not keeping it cold all

22:51 day. And I said, just give me what's in stock. But no, I'm never. Next question. this one's from fred par in denver colorado i have a mini pc i cannot get it to see my atem mini all of a sudden it was working last week but not now i have run all the updates and still not seeing it any ideas courtney well uh how are you plugging that atem mini in are you connecting to

23:19 it over the network or are you uh plugging into usb is it not seeing it on the usb bus or is it but not seeing it on the network. In any case, usually if it's on the USB bus, you should be able to plug it in and go, but look at your device manager and see if it's being recognized as a USB device.

23:37 If not, run the old ATEM setup, which is a separate program rather than the software install for the ATEM Mini Pro, and then go down to network settings and make sure you're on the same network as your router that the Mini PC has connected to the same router, and if it's connected over Wi-Fi, it could be connecting over 5 gigahertz Wi-Fi, which could be set up as a separate subnet on your router.

24:01 Ah, maybe that's just a theory. So check your router setting, your network settings here in the setup program for your ATEM Mini, and see if, you know, plug it in over USB, run the setup program, then run the network setup while you're connected over USB, if it is, does connect over USB. and then try and unplug the USB and see if it'll connect over the network

24:25 or it'll see it over the network. Also, this is your weekly PSA to reserve IP addresses on your network for your gear, for your computers and your ATEM or anything else that needs to communicate reliably every single time, not making it fight for an IP address or a companion thinks that your IP address is this and then it changes a lot of headaches get saved when you just pick the not everything don't get

24:54 crazy still have dhcp on your network but for the couple of things that matter reserve those ip addresses next question all right this one's from ryan thomason and broken arrow i'm assuming that's oklahoma did anyone see the graphics on prime thursday night football the only way to tell possession is they change the text color of the clock doesn't seem very useful who does the

25:18 the graphics best chris abato so this is the thing in question i'm not showing any moving videos nfl so whatever but this is what we're this is what we're talking about right here this is orange so it matches that um honestly like it's football right like you can just look at the picture and see who has the ball i think this that's super unimportant um and that i feel like that's one of the things in the score bug and

25:50 there's lots of things in the score bug where they they do it because they can right like it's just kind of this neat little thing um it doesn't it doesn't bring much value um but it's just a little flourish right that's all it is and i think this is one of those things um in terms of who does it best like that's all in the eye of the beholder um so let's look at like a handful like these are

26:15 all the NFL score bugs right now and they all kind of look the same they're just a little different flourishes here and there um except for the Fox one which is like insanely hideous but when I'm when I'm watching a game on Fox like I don't notice it right it's just the information is there I consume it and it is what it is like when you look at when you look at these

26:40 score bugs they all do what you need to do and i think very few of them like cause reactions during the game right you you just consume the information on them and and they're all set up in a way that you can get the information you need and you're not like fixating on how it looks right we can we can fix that not how it looks now like people dissect these things they're like oh this does

27:04 this and this does that and why do they do this why is that it's all personal opinion right um Um, uh, personally, I, I, I hate the Fox one. I think it's terrible and it's lazy, but it conveys all the information you need. So yeah. Fenwick. Yeah. I, uh, as you know, Sabato, I'm not a big sports fan, but I do think that it's a fascinating

27:29 problem to say, I have all these bits of information, you know, how many timeouts, how many seconds, whatever the stuff is, depending on what sport you're doing. And you want it to be informative, non-intrusive, stylish, but not overbearing. And yes, it's absolutely an opinion thing, but it's the kind of thing where sometimes you gotta reach out to the obsessive compulsive people, and I will agree that given that slide

28:01 that you put up with all the samples, samples. Do you do this every year? Do you go and get samples of them and examine them every year? No, I don't, but there are people that do. When this question came up, I knew exactly where to go to find that slide. Yeah. I think it's a fascinating problem. I agree that the Fox one looked really bad.

28:19 It was just some guy just dropping in icons that don't even line up with each other. I find it interesting. When I walk through the room and people are watching sports, that's That's what I do. I was like, oh, what does that little dot mean? It's an interesting problem. Courtney? And I might point out that using color to convey information in a little lower third can be problematic, especially if you're using team colors.

28:51 Because, A, you have to deal with the contrast of whatever the team's color is versus the background that you choose. and second, you know, a certain percentage of the male viewing public is colorblind or red-blue or red-green colorblind and they may not see that color contrast at all. They may not even be able to see the clock at all. So it depends on your level of colorblindness and it's – colorblindness is far more frequent in the adult male.

29:16 So, you know, you're dealing with that anytime you're going to use color to convey information in a graphic. But if you're colorblind, you're also probably left-handed, in which case nobody really cares what you think. So there's an interesting phenomenon about how prevalent red-green colorblindness is, and yet there are so many visualizations that use the analogy of a traffic light, the red-green-yellow. And you just realize, oh my goodness, there's a certain population that's just going to see these two as potentially the same thing.

29:53 the you can look up the what is the book called it's like the quantitative qualitative display of quantitative information is i think the the original data visualization uh book that was written like a million years ago but uh the short version of this is blue and orange uh can be your friends not like a not an electric orange like neon but you know like a like an orange like you

30:20 would eat next question next up is from guy cochran in seattle washington alexander what do you think of the tc electronic clarity m and aes alexander yeah these are cool products so what this is is basically a loudness meter built into a piece of hardware from tc electronic very popular you see this in a lot of recording studios i do see some people using these live

30:48 as well especially if they have a live stream and they want to monitor the audio level a friend of the show james haldane bought one of these and i believe he's starting to use these to monitor levels in zoom and you know it's not i wouldn't call it cheap but it's not like insanely expensive i think it's i don't know what they sell it for in the u.s i think it's about 500 in canada it's

31:11 probably like 399 or something like that in the u.s and yes it does use aes so if your console has a yes you can just send that feed directly into it the you can accomplish the same thing in software so what I do is I actually have a dedicated Mac that basically runs as an appliance and it runs a audio meter program called a Ulean loudness meter and I run that full screen so I

31:38 don't really even think about it and it's it's on a dedicated monitor I can probably switch to it and show you it's because it's i've got the hdmi output of that mac getting piped into uh let me go back to me for a second i've got it going into my atem there's so you can see that now so this gives you all all the same kinds of telemetry that that does and yeah it works well

32:02 for me i mean having the dedicated appliance i think is pretty cool but you got to make sure that you have a console that has an aes output in order because it doesn't actually have any analog inputs for sending audio into it one of the things you can do though is if you have a console that has no AES output you can get one of those Alveo or

32:22 AVI o AES to Dante adapters and connect it that way although you're gonna you know you're gonna spend a couple hundred bucks on those adapters Alexander mentioned James Haldane's a friend of the show yeah if you're watching us on on YouTube, you could graduate into being a friend of the show if you go to officehours.global.com and come hang out with us. If you sign up there, you'll get an email every day that's got not only

32:48 who's going to be on the show we're talking about, but also gets you into the chat, which is really fun. There's a lot of very, very smart people in there and it's a blast. Also, we've got a Discord. We've got a 24-hour meeting where people just are hanging out and answering questions. It's a little more informal lots more to office hours go to office hours like global slash join next question

33:09 all right this one's coming in from roscoe jones in madison indiana are large media markets shrinking creative destruction is disrupting existing markets and industries paving the way for new products services and business models have you had to adjust as transmitters give away to two clicks. Courtney? Well, you know, there was this promise of the next gen broadcast, which is basically the next version of ATSC 3. And so it's been slowly rolling out and a lot of TV

33:44 manufacturers have failed to put the tuners into the modern TV set. So check your TV, see if it as next gen because this has the ability to add a lot of streaming components. But then it became corrupted by all the marketers out there that want to sell your data, that will spy on you, watch everything you watch, serve you up personalized ads over the internet

34:08 connection. So now they're already doing that on streaming for a lot of TVs, like Vizio was bought by Walmart. And so now Walmart controls everything you see on your Vizio TV. You can't even tune in the broadcast stations over the air without going through Vizio's tuner app, which shows you the guide and allows you to switch between the different channels on your built-in receiver.

34:34 So, yeah, is it getting better? No, it's getting worse because it's becoming enchatified, according to William Shatner. The process, you know, there's consolidation of all the media streamers, which is, we won't get into that because it's a lot of political stuff, but it's billionaires trying to control the media market and control the majority of the streaming markets out there. So is it getting better? Probably not.

35:05 Consolidation usually means reduction in consumer quality rather than an increase in consumer quality. So I'd say no. Broadcasters are competing for bandwidth. They're under the control of a government operation in the United States. So, you know, it depends on who's in charge of the FCC at this moment in time as to whether or not, you know, things will be on a level playing field. Let's just say.

35:31 Next question. All right, Guy Cochran in Seattle, Washington is asking, flying cars? Yeah, what is this flying car thing? If only we had someone here who knew about flying cars and could play clips of flying cars and cars that can do kickflips in Texas by a gentleman wearing a belt buckle and a T-shirt. Oh, look, it's Chris Fenwick. Chris? Here it is.

36:02 So this is using suction? Yeah, it has suction. the downforce created by the fans is 2 Gs, which is greater than the weight of the car, so it will stick to a roof. And there's other high-performance cars that do this already. If I go for every time I need to stick to the roof. Well, it'll also make you handle curves really, handle corners better, yeah.

36:29 Corners really well. But there's certainly problems with it on the open road, because it's sucking up everything on the road and it's gotta eject it somewhere. So somebody's going to get hit by it. But it also does this. Everybody's seen this by now, except CJ hadn't seen it this morning. I hear Alan Silvestri when I see the big smoke plumes like that.

36:54 That's as good as the first iPhone demo. If just one of those rocket jets fail, well, you know what's going to happen. There's ten of them. If just one fails, you go. spinning like a top into the asphalt below. I mean, it's not practical, but I will say it's an amazing bit of hype and demo. And Courtney said it this morning really well.

37:19 He said, you know, it was like six, seven years ago that they first announced the next generation Roadster. And those people spent money for one kind of car, and now it's a totally different car. and somebody said online this morning, they said, it's like going to a restaurant, ordering from a menu, ordering a steak, and then coming out later and saying, I'm sorry, which one of these cheese sandwiches

37:45 would you like to eat? So, I mean, it's a total, I mean, you could call it a bait and switch. There is another trick it does here. And this is, I mean, what's great about this, this is useful, by the way. I drive in a lot of traffic, like tonight, night getting out to the house in Sacramento will take some time. But if we had this, it'd be pretty cool.

38:08 Oh, traffic. No, not for me. Oh, my God. I reject your traffic on the basis of this premise. The watertight lids are going to be sales are up for that little. In L.A., they call it the 405 feature. Yeah. Yeah. So, what this demonstrates to me though is, if you put, even if it is an impractical, kind of fantastical, fanciful, whatever full you want to call it, if you put a lot of production

38:43 value behind the release and like give it a little showmanship and a little bit of drama, people are going to talk about it. And really, I mean, if you think about it, the business that you're in as a creator and and a communicator is how do I get to catch on and to amplify? And so even if you think the car is silly,

39:01 you've got to respect the buzz that it's able to create and the way in which it is presented. And you can only look at that car when it lands with all the smoke, and you can only think of two words, great Scott. Next question. Well, it's also a good demo for all of the proposed Artemis astronauts that are going to go to the moon and Mars one day,

39:26 it shows you that Elon knows how to land something. Well, I mean, we saw the chopsticks. Well, yeah, but there's not going to be any chopsticks on the moon when they go and land on the moon. But if they want to go to the moon in a Roadster, we know how to land it. Next question. I wouldn't mind having one of those for my community to work

39:47 because the amount of times I'm stuck in gridlock, man, that would just be awesome. Awesome. Paul Valhus in Austin, Texas asks, Courtney, can you kindly take us on a tour of the inputs and outputs of your Rodecaster Video S and ATEM and show how they interconnect? It's Courtney's corner. Courtney. No. I don't have a camera. I don't have a camera set up, but here's what I will do.

40:12 I'll show you the AI comparison of the inputs between the two. Here is the Rodecaster Video S. here on the left and the ATEM Mini Pro on the right. The RODECaster Video S, which I'm coming to you now on, has only three HDMI inputs to the four HDMI inputs on the Mini Pro. It has two USB inputs, and that's important because it says for webcams or USB-C sources,

40:38 which only has one output, and it has no USB inputs on the ATEM. So I have my ATEM plugged into the RODECaster Video S, but I was disappointed thinking I would be able to take the USB-C output out of the Blackmagic ATEM and plug it into the USB-C input on the webcam input on the RODECaster. But lo and behold, it is kind of picky on the RODECaster input.

41:08 And it doesn't – thank you for that, Sunil. It doesn't support the ATEM input. So I'm having to take up one of my three precious HDMI inputs to feed in the output of the ATEM Mini Pro. So bear that in mind. The USB output of the ATEM Mini won't work currently into the Rodecaster Video S. Maybe they'll fix that in the future.

41:32 Of course, audio inputs are a lot better on the Rodecaster than it is. It has a good, quiet XLR inputs, which provide, you know, phantom power. So I've got my mic plugged directly into the RODECaster. Has all those great AFX processing that I never use. And this one has two HDMI outputs, and this one only has one HDMI output. So there's a quick tour of the comparison between the ATEM and the RODECaster Pro.

42:00 And the Go-C, we'll go about that later. You do have to, one thing I don't like about the new Go-C is it has an HDMI multi-view output that is fixed. you know one of your HDMI outputs is set to multi-view and you can't change it you have to really see the multi-view to work with the menus because there's no LCD on the go V they go V video wherever it is there's the box there's no there's

42:27 no LCD screen on it so to change anything on the menus you need there have to run the software that connects to it or you have to have the multi-view up because that's where the menus appear only in the multi-view so you can't you You have to have a monitor hooked up to it to change the settings. Next question. All right. Matt Halvorsen in Brookings, South Dakota is asking,

42:50 can I use a circular polarizing filter through teleprompter glass? I'd like to get rid of the reflections on reading glasses. Thank you. Alexander. Can you? Yes. In my experience, I don't recommend it. Polarizing filters, I use these, you know, know if you're shooting stills outside and you're you're trying to shoot a sky or shoot water or something like that that can really help but i find that if you put a circular polarizing filter

43:20 and shoot someone inside i've i've never had good results with it it really messes with their skin tone uh so generally the correct solution my book would be repositioning lights getting the correct angle until you don't see those reflections. I mean I'm wearing glasses, I don't have a teleprompter, but unless I look upwards at my key and fill lights, you're not really gonna see reflections

43:45 in my glasses. Courtney, you know the thing about teleprompters I reckon. Yes, you can use a, I don't think it, not a circularly polarized filter, but a linearly polarized filter. It's what you need, because then the light all going in one direction, multi-directions. It filters out. That's the ones that filter out reflections. So use a linear polarizing filter. And he's right. It does make your skin look, you see the subsurface scattering,

44:16 but you don't see the highlight reflecting off the little sweat, the shine on people's faces. So it reduces shine if they're a sweater. I mean, if they're a perspiring person, then also the other thing to keep in mind is if you've got an LCD monitor behind you, let's say for something, you know, informational display on the background, if you put a polarizing filter on the camera,

44:39 you've got a 50-50 chance that that screen will just be black. Even though it has something displayed on it to your eyeballs, it'll be black when it comes into the camera. When you said sweater, I was thinking, what, like a cable net or a cardigan? Sorry. I filter it filters out sweaters entirely well AI can do it right now you just say take me out of

45:01 this cardigan and put me in a three-piece suit next question all right this one's from Rajan Shandell in Los Angeles any use cases for meta glasses in hands-free demos would we ever see this on the panel or after hours so this is interesting I don't know what the I don't know know what the ability to get live video out of it is but i do think if that that point of view

45:29 is really interesting if you look at um if you look at there's a guy on youtube that's a builder uh his name's kyle stump and horse he's from rr buildings he does these great construction videos where he like he builds like he's he's framing a building he's putting siding on he's like flashing out stuff doing really intricate details and he's got a gopro strap to his head uh which

45:52 which I commend him for, but the point of view is really, really interesting because you're seeing, like, as if you're seeing his direct point of view as he's doing a thing, and for something that is, something that needs to be done with your hands, there's, I don't think there's a better way to show someone than, okay, this is what I'm seeing, this is how I'm reacting, look it over, the trick

46:13 is getting a person who is operating the camera, aka doing their normal thing with a camera, is strapped to their head to remember that a camera is strapped to their head and to like you know turn with basically look with your eyes and not with your head because if you if you're doing this all of a sudden you're you're you're gonna blend you're gonna put the person's field

46:36 of view in a blender courtney yeah you could another thing is you know you could use it i don't know how you'd get it in there but somebody's bound us someday soon uh go code a uh ai app that's a teleprompter app that puts your teleprompter in your glasses. So there's a guy now that does a lot of YouTube videos that has one of those displays that goes over one eye

46:59 and his teleprompter is in that, and he looks like, you know, the Terminator trying to do, because he's reading his teleprompter off his glasses and he looks stupid doing it. So, you know, bear that in mind. At least the new meta Ray-Bans, you know, don't, they look like, you know, So who's that? Elvis Costello glasses? Yeah, something like that. You know, they look like Ray-Bans but with clear glasses on them.

47:27 And they do have cameras built into them. So don't wear them outside or to a bar because you will be punched in the face really quickly. He's resorted to violence. Chris? Yeah, Rajan, if you can get a live feed out of the camera, as CJ mentioned, mentioned, it is a useful point of view, you know, I mean, if it looks good. And Kyle, and this guy,

47:53 Kyle, R&R Construction, he does a lot of GoPro stuff. There's another channel I watch, which is the Perkins Builder Brothers. And he made a comment in his show just the other day, their show the the other day that he gets a lot of comments from viewers. They like just the point of view. Don't try and cut it up. Don't make it highly polished. They want to see the whole process.

48:21 And it's interesting. These guys are just building custom homes in Western North Carolina. And there's a lot of people like me that are just fixated on watching people do this. And I think that you know from a point of view standpoint like you would get with this meta glasses Raj is there is a satisfaction level that is hard to quantify it's just very satisfying to watch somebody who's very good at what

48:52 they do do what they do and so yeah point of view is a very powerful tool I I also think that in a time where people are so – have such a – I don't want to say a violent reaction, but a strong reaction to AI slop and generated video that is not done thoughtfully, something with authenticity is going to resonate. And that's where what is more authentic than, hey, this is uncut.

49:27 This is what I'm looking at. And now in order to make that compelling, you're putting a lot on the talent. You're putting a lot on the performer. And if they can do it, it's kind of magical. Next question. This question is coming in from David Brady in New York City, New York. Thoughts on the Apple HomePod thing. Buy or pass? Myself, I'm a homey pro user and love the flexibility of it compared to other ecosystems.

49:51 systems. Yeah, and this is something that I know a lot of people that have tried to get into the home control, smart home sort of thing I have taken a look at. And where it's relevant to our discussion, I think, is that whether it's in a home studio or a home office, or if we're trying to build something for someone else to use on a day-to-day basis,

50:16 one of the most powerful things you can do is get all of the thinking out of the way ahead ahead of time and program a macro or program a series of some sort of multi-action so that all you have to do, like, for example, when I walk into this office, I say the magic words, you know, hey, I can't say it, turn CJ's office on, all of a sudden, boom, boom, boom, boom, the lights turn

50:41 on, the computers turn on, everything connects, and then I'm, it's ready in 30 seconds. That's That's really powerful. And so while it's not a professional show control solution, there's also a market for people who either don't have the budget or the experience to get into that highly technical solution that these sorts of home control devices can start to approach. Now for this particular one, I don't think it's extensible enough or customizable enough

51:11 to put it into a solution like that. But I wonder what some of the other folks on the panel think or if Chris's slide of Apple shame is going to grow. Chris? No. You know, I like the little speakers. I have two of them here at the apartment. I have one of them at the house, I think, which is my – you know, the whole thing about the smart stuff is it's fun.

51:35 It's great. When it doesn't work, it's infuriating, and all it takes is the slightest sun flare to disconnect your house from the world. It's just – I'm not a big fan of it. What I'm most interested in the new HomePod thing – The HomeView with the screen. The HomePod is the little screen thing, right? The HomeView. Yeah, the thing with the screen.

51:59 Listen, there's no way in forever my wife and her sister would allow me to put something that recognize who they are when they walk in the room, even if it doesn't have a camera on it. The little speakers, though, the new speakers, you could do four of them and do surround sound. Kind of cool. Kind of cool. And if there's enough smarts in it that it actually will, I think it could map it.

52:28 I think Apple could do a good enough job of having the onboard microphones listen to the output of all the speakers and figure out where they are in the room and then have it show up, but I'm not sure. That's what it does, and it figures it out, and it, like, adjusts some. I'm super interested to try. So the Apple magic, which drive?

52:46 Courtney? Yeah, it depends. You know, if you live in the Apple universe, it may be great for you because it may require connecting to your iPhone and not your Android phone to get some of its functionality. I think the new Home View, which mimics what Amazon has had out the Echo Show for six years, seven years. So it's useful in the kitchen, a lot of people are saying, you know, because it will present recipes.

53:19 And the Siri AI, and I seriously doubt it, is going to take you through step-by-steps through a recipe in preparation of a meal perhaps. perhaps, but my problem is when I go and buy smart lights and things on the internet, I look at what it works with as far as remote control, and it always says works with Google Home and works with Amazon Echo. I don't see Apple on there anywhere in the it works with,

53:52 because most of those, all my lights. Oh, you muted Courtney. Sorry. Went the opposite there. All of my lights connect to both of those platforms, and I have those different platforms in different rooms. And so if one fails, I can ask the other one, and usually it'll work. So to turn on lights, turn off lights, turn on the air conditioning, set the air conditioning to a certain level,

54:20 all that stuff works over Wi-Fi, 2.4 gigahertz Wi-Fi. but it all works with both of those platforms and none of them work with any of the Apple platforms. So I'm worried about that. So Apple's a little more particular in terms of the communication protocols and the security settings. And it's extra hoops that the other smart home platforms aren't making them jump through.

54:48 So I understand why there's more availability. I will say I've got some hue lights, a thermostat, blinds, and a door lock that all work with the home. And it works a lot better than it, I mean, it works really well, actually. Five years ago, I wouldn't have said that. Today, things are a lot tighter. I am going to I'm very curious to see if this home view thing is a fit for that

55:25 but it's I think it's inexpensive enough that if you're already going down that road and it's gonna make your and it's gonna make that experience better it might be worth the shot so I will report back mid-november next question of all Valhus in Austin, Texas is asking, are wired headphones hot or not? And he's posted a link to a Yahoo article. Welcome to Office Hours.

55:50 Hot or not with Alexander Knight. Alexander Knight, what do you think about wired headphones? Well, I haven't read this article, but based on the URL, it says something about Kylie Jenner and celebrities using wired headphones. I could not care less about whether or not someone is using wireless or wired headphones. So I use the right tool for the right job. So I love my AirPods Pro, but I would never use those for mixing.

56:12 And I only use wireless for consumer stuff. Like I don't like for, you know, if I just need the convenience, if I'm on the go and I need noise cancellation. But for anything that matters, I always use cabled headphones. And I don't need more of a reason than that. I just – I want the kids to have the joy of having to untangle their headphones that they threw into their bag without a lot of thought.

56:40 And then all of a sudden they're on the bus like – Chris? Alexander, of course. Kylie Jenner, who cares? I did read the article, most of it, a lot of it. And basically they're saying that there is enough of a fear, whether it is real or not, that their AirPods could be hacked and somebody could listen in on a conversation if they were having a conversation as they were walking down Rodeo Drive to the next boutique to go buy a $3,000 purse.

57:11 So that's what it's about. So that's the question. Can you hack into and listen to somebody's conversation if they're using a Bluetooth headset? Courtney? Good point. I hadn't thought about that. The other advantage of the wired headsets is you can hide the wires a lot easier if you're on a phone call or on a Zoom call. And I wish I had a dollar for every Zoom call I see which people had the AirPods with the little white boogers sticking out of their ears.

57:41 and suddenly in the middle of the hour-long interview, their battery goes dead. And son of a gun, they have to either have another pair handy or, hey, end the interview. Battery management, it's a thing. Wired headphones don't have that problem. So that's a good thing. Also, if you're jogging like Kylie Jenner and you're not going to lose – it's not going to pop out of your ear and end up on the track where somebody else steps on it.

58:10 But these will just hang by the wire if they pop out of your ear. And when you open the door and the door handle grabs the bottom of the wire and they get ripped out of your ears, it feels great. Enjoy the – it's a fashion trend. At least you don't lose a $300 piece of plastic. I hope the kids learn something.

58:30 Hey, everybody. That's going to do it for us. Thank you so much for coming in today. Thank you to our panel for not only being really smart, but also, you know, when it comes to musical numbers, it's a good-looking group. I mean, look at these guys. They're all just ready to go. Okay, Fenwick, play us off, will you? Also, thank you to our great producers

58:56 for asking such wonderful questions. Sorry, that was on a loop. I was going to say it. And we're doing this with an outro. And also thank you to the crew who's putting up with our antics today as well as making us look and sound good and keeping us organized moving forward. Can't do it without any of you. To log traversal, had we gone out and asked these questions in person today,

59:16 we would have went 24,000 miles. That's 38,000 kilometers, 189 million bananas for scale. We'll see you in after hours. On the bus. Had we taken the office hours? The office hours comm truck. Yes. Alexander, do you need your own jingle? It's the short bus. I was on the short bus. Yeah, you should. I think Alexander's jealous. Come up with a song about how this guy's incredibly bitter and a curmudgeon.

59:44 Get off my lawn. I like, we even got Office Hours Global on the marquee. I mean, it's looking good here. Is it the Pentatonix? It did a better job when it wasn't trying to redress us. I had last week's, and it got the outfits down. Even got Chris's Area 51 shirt. Chris looks more like Bruce Willis there. Dude, I've had people say that.

1:00:08 Hey, do you think it's possible that you could hack into somebody's Bluetooth signal? I can't get them to connect to my devices. Maybe that's why. Because your neighbor's trying to hack into your Bluetooth. That's too funny. Zoom in, rotate, enhance. Yeah, this is a CSI primetime drama. Zoom into Fenwick. Does he look like Bruce Willis in that? I think he does.