SPROLINK introduced a portable video switcher with a built-in 5.5-inch display, a T-bar, and PTZ controls.

Ever heard of Sprolink? To be honest, me neither. It’s a Chinese company based in Xiamen, and by the way, it’s pronounced “S-Pro-Link”.

On their website it says, they’ve “designed and engineered a wide range of audio and video solutions in the Rental & Staging, Corporate, Broadcast, and Boardroom, etc [field]”. It’s not their first public product in the video world, either. For a company this unheard of, they have a surprisingly large amount of video processors, video switchers, and more. Most of their products so far seem to be professional-grade rack equipment and the NeoLIVE R2 seems to be their attempt to appeal to content-creators.

The NeoLIVE R2 is a small portable video switcher with 4 HDMI inputs and 1 HDMI output. All in- and outputs are maxed out at 1080p/60. Even though this doesn’t sound nearly enough due to being so used to having 4K and UHD everywhere, but think of devices like Blackmagic Design’s ATEM Mini series, which are also limited to 1080p.

Audio ports

Continuing with the ports on the side, you have two 3.5mm microphone inputs, a headphone jack, and a line out. Right next to the audio ports there’s a LAN port which according to the marketing material is solely for camera control and remote controlling the panel, not for live streaming.

For that, you have a USB3.0 port, which presumably emulates a webcam signal when connected to a computer.
SPROLINK also built in a second USB port: “What’s more, through NeoLIVE R2 unique STILL|CTL port, users can add and edit picture, and connect with PC to present PPT or live Gaming interface during the live streaming.”

I’m not sure how the workflow will be for a computer screen, as I haven’t seen a plug-and-play method of sending a screen-stream over USB to another device. But if I read it correctly, you can add pictures and overlays by transferring images on the internal storage. PIP functions and overlays with alpha layers are also possible.

SPROLINK NeoLIVE R2’s screen

The biggest difference to existing portable video switchers is the presence of a screen on the device. The 5.5inch LCD monitor can display all available inputs, your preview and program feed, and some UI elements. That is quite convenient as even the ATEM Minis only have one HDMI Out (the ATEM Mini Extreme has two, but symmetrical outputs) which doesn’t allow for Multi-View Usage when using the HDMI Output as your output feed.

While the ATEM Mini range is able to control Pocket 4K and 6K cameras, the SPROLINK NeoLIVE R2 is able to control PTZ (pan, tilt, zoom) cameras. These cameras are common in conferencing applications as these can be controlled remotely to reframe your shot. These cams are usually connected to a LAN anyway, so you can control them via the RJ45 port.

Also quite rare on budget mixers are T-bars (a rocker for transitioning between two video feeds), which the NeoLIVE R2 has. With three dials the video switcher has also more varying controls than the button-only ATEM Minis.

The marketing page seems very similar to the style of Blackmagic’s website, the presentation videos on the other hand don’t seem as polished.

Price and availability

There is also no public information on pricing and availability. On their site, they ask you to contact their sales department directly.

The only price I could find is 790€, which was on an Italian multimedia shop site.

The biggest competitors are the ATEM Mini (309€), ATEM Mini Pro (525€), ATEM Mini Pro ISO (825€), and the Roland V-1HD (755€). As these are already very powerful devices that have been stress-tested, the competition is tough.

In my opinion, thinking of an environment such as live-streaming, you have to really rely on your devices as everything has to work smoothly for long periods of time, which is hard for brands you haven’t heard of before. I am curious to see how the NeoLIVE R2 will work in real-life situations.

Find more information about the SPROLINK NeoLIVE R2 on their site: SPROLINK

What do you think about this video switcher? Would you trust a device from an unknown brand? Let us know in the comments.

Read More: https://www.cined.com/sprolink-neolive-r2-portable-video-switcher-with-built-in-display/