Lights, Camera, Stammer? Not Anymore with the Elgato Prompter!

Dave Jackson (00:00:01) - If you're doing video and you're struggling. I have good news and bad news today. I'm Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting. Welcome to the best podcast gear, where we help you sound great on a budget. And today we're talking about making you look great. And first of all, when it comes to video, I do get this question a lot. Should I do video for my podcast? And my answer is if you have the time and the budget. Sure. Why not? But just realize I see people that stop. They don't even start a podcast because they don't want to do video. And I've done an audio podcast for 18 years. So what I want to talk about today is a tool from Elgato. Now, if you're new to video, Elgato to a certain extent is kind of the Apple of video. And by that I mean they make great stuff. It works well together. They kind of have their own ecosystem, and you're going to pay a little more for it. And so I have two Elgato Stream decks.

Dave Jackson (00:01:10) - I have Elgato Key lights, I have an Elgato Facecam Pro for my camera. And so they came out with a teleprompter. And here's where we were with teleprompters. You can buy a teleprompter, you put it on a stand. You put your either your camera or your phone's camera on these things. And what usually happens is what a teleprompter is, is basically it looks like a mirror that you can see through, and so your camera can see through you. And yet the text that you're reading is scrolling up this piece of glass. And so the scrolling part comes from typically your phone or with bigger teleprompters and iPad, which looks really great. Now realize that every time you do this, now you have to find your iPad. You have to kind of clamp it in. You know, it's a little more work, but it works. Unless, of course, some of these will use your phone. And now you're like, yeah, but all my information is on my phone. And so consequently, teleprompters kind of have a love hate relationship.

Dave Jackson (00:02:27) - I have one, I bought one, I never took it out of the box. It was really inexpensive. I'll put a link to that out in the show notes. But I just realized this is way too much hassle. And so what I would do is I would look into the camera, I would kind of have my bullet points, and I would basically just practice and then fix it in the edit. Enter the prompter. They're just calling it prompter from Elgato. And what this does is it has a built in screen. So none of this. Holy crap. Wait, I got to get my iPad. I got to get my iPhone. I got to get my Android phone. Whatever you're using to be the the part that shows the words that then gets reflected in the nope. This comes with a monitor and that it sounds like, okay, no, no, they just eliminated half of the problems of a teleprompter because it is literally plug and play. And what's really cool about this? Now for the record, I don't have one.

Dave Jackson (00:03:32) - I did order one and that's the bad news. Remember I said good news and bad news? The good news is this is really cool. The bad news is it's not freaking available. You go to their website, you order it, and they're like, oh, thanks for the order. This is going to show up in a month, which it'll be here sooner than later. But I was really kind of disappointed with that. But what you can use this for is a second monitor or if you already have two, your third monitor. And so now if you're doing videos and you want to know what you look like on on the video, is my lighting okay, you can see that. And then if you have it comes with this software that works with all the Elgato stuff and you can easily switch between show me the text, show me what I look like, you know, show me what the camera is using and that's really cool. Or you can think about this. Are you tired of doing zoom calls where everybody's kind of looking ever so slightly left or right? Now you can stare right at your camera in your zoom meetings, which could be very powerful if you're using zoom for sales.

Dave Jackson (00:04:45) - So I like that. And then the other thing is that I've heard because I've watched about five videos on this before, I actually pulled the trigger. It is $280, and that's a lot of money. At least it is in my world. Not not a huge amount of money, but it's not 99 bucks. I think the teleprompter I bought was 80, so you're paying for that extra monitor, but it's pretty handy. And so what the the kind of weak side right now is the actual text scrolling part. Now again, I've not used one yet, but in terms of really having the flexibility, I mean, you can go in, you can change the font color, you can make it big, you can make it small, you can adjust your scrolling speed. In fact, you can actually if you have a stream deck, you can actually put the buttons there and control your your scrolling speed with your stream deck. And if you go, I don't have a stream deck, Dave, if you have your phone.

Dave Jackson (00:05:49) - And again, because it comes with a monitor, you can use your phone to control the scrolling. And that's what I was with. That is pretty slick. So there are all sorts of little features. And this is just now starting out. Elgato updates their equipment on a regular basis. I have the Facecam Pro, like I said, I have a stream deck and on occasion they'll be like, oh, there's this new feature that they added and if you. Jump into the Elgato ecosystem. Now for the record. This teleprompter will work with anything. But if you're in the Elgato kind of ecosystem. So like I say, I control my lights, I control my cameras, I control everything now with a stream deck. Now, if you're new to stream decks, stream decks are basically a little box with buttons. They have another one with knobs, so you can kind of turn and adjust things. They're really handy. And if you kind of want to take your video to the next level, like I set my stream deck up.

Dave Jackson (00:06:54) - With a free software called OBS, and I set up these what are called scenes. And so when I clicked on one button, it would put my lower third on the bottom of the video automatically. And when I clicked another button, this little animation would pop up and say like and subscribe and smash the bell, all that whole nine yards. And so going back before I had a teleprompter, I was just practicing. And so I was doing it all live. And now with this teleprompter, I'll still be able to do everything live with my stream deck and throw up my scenes and have now share the screen and all this other stuff. But I'll actually be able to have a script now for me. I personally am not a fan of scripts. If you are going to use a script, here's my advice to you. Right? Like you talk like throw grammar out the window. Just write like you're talking to your invisible friend across the screen. Or I guess in our case, across the desk, just right.

Dave Jackson (00:07:55) - Like you talk for me, I think what I'm going to do is have bullet points to just keep me on line. I think that's how I'm going to use it. I'll try a script, but I just wanted to let you know if you've ever thought of getting a teleprompter. I have one. Like I say, when I finally saw what it was going to entail, I was like, and it's super easy to set up now it comes with these back plates so that if you have an Elgato camera, super simple. Well, I don't have an Elgato camera. What if I have a like I have a Sony VZ or Zv-e10? Okay, it'll easily clamp onto the lens of your dSLR camera. It's got a slider in the back so you can adjust things for for less than $300. I was like, it was a no brainer for me because I've always kind of wanted a teleprompter. I bought one and went, oh, and everything that made me go, yeah, they have eliminated with the Elgato prompter.

Dave Jackson (00:08:54) - So like I said, you're probably sitting there going, thanks, Dave. Thanks for getting me all hot and bothered about this, I want one. Well, the other thing, it's kind of a bummer if anyone has ever thought Dave's just a shill, it wants to just pimp affiliate stuff. The only place you can buy this right now is on Elgato website, and they don't have an affiliate program, but I wanted to share this with you, especially if you're getting into video. You kind of just heard my video setup I use. I actually use the Elgato Facecam Pro more than I do my Sony ZV ten, because it's just simpler. The Sony ZV ten is a ZV or visa I can ever remember. But anyway, I. I have to sounds. I know this is a first world problem. I have to get out of my chair. I have to turn on the camera, go through the menu system and go make this a streaming camera and then plug the camera in. Now I realize I know I have to get out of my chair, press a couple buttons.

Dave Jackson (00:09:56) - With the Elgato Facecam Pro, I just go into whatever I'm using, whether that's OBS, Camtasia, zoom, whatever, and I go turn on the camera and it turns on and it's it's a beautiful camera, does 4K if you want it. I personally don't want to see myself in 4K, but that is there. So in terms of video production, Elgato has some really great tools and I am chomping at the bit for my prompter to get here. When I comes here, I'll probably hop back on the microphone and let you know what it's like once I finally have it in my hand, but I've watched five videos from people I really trust their opinion and they've all said this is great. The only downside is if you're going to be moving this around a lot. That's one hand. It's very light and very easy to set up, but from what I understand, it's so easy to put it on and off that sometimes you can actually bump it off your camera. But for me, it's really designed for people that are sitting at a desk.

Dave Jackson (00:10:57) - If you're going to be standing a bit away, you can do that. Realize the screen I believe is nine inches. So depending on your eyesight, it might get a little tough to read that, but I've heard the actual monitor is very clear to read. So again, if you're thinking about getting into video and you kind of stammer and summer and you're like, you just seems like you're spending more time editing video because you can't get the words out of your mouth, you might want to check out the Elgato prompter. I can't wait for mine to show up. I'm Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting. I help podcasters, it's what I do, and if you want to come check me out, go over to School of Podcasting slash start and let's start working together today.