With internet culture and entertainment bigger than ever before, the live-streaming sphere is as popular and accessible as it’s ever been. Just look at how successful platforms like Twitch and Facebook Gaming were last year. But that doesn’t necessarily mean getting stream-ready is easy on a purely practical level for your average Joe. Far from it.
Once you’ve got the hang of them, things like OBS and Stream Labs (i.e. the switchboard, production studio and broadcaster for the vast majority of live streams) are easy enough to use, but they’re particularly daunting for newbies. And setting them up for streams where you’re on the go is a whole new nightmare.
The YoloBox Pro is the perfect all-in-one alternative, and makes streaming easy for everyone.
Dream stream
The YoloBox is, in essence, everything you could need to manage a stream packaged into an easy-to-use, simple pseudo-tablet, with a suitably friendly user interface. It’s a portable video switcher (for if you’re streaming with multiple cameras), monitor, recorder and audio mixer all in one. It’s essentially plug-and-play too, making it the perfect present for anyone looking to get into streaming but lacking a little technical know-how.
The YoloBox comes with ports galore: 3 HDMI ports, USB-3 and a Type-C inputs, an SD card reader, a mic input, an instrument input (if you’re musically inclined), an additional Audio-In port, a 3.5mm audio jack (for headphones) a SIM slot and, naturally, a USB-C charging port. Plus an ethernet input, though wireless options like Wi-Fi connectivity and the aforementioned SIM slot for 4G are available too.
That’s a lot of ports, more than enough for all your audio kit and several video options. You may have noticed a mild lack of output options, which might have you wondering how everything captured by your arsenal of inputs might make its way online. Well…
The YoloBox has all the major streaming platforms (YouTube, Twitch and Facebook) fully integrated. All you need to do is login to your channels on the device and you’re set to go. What’s more is you can stream to them simultaneously. Hooray for multitasking.
YOLO, so why not stream it?
The main selling point behind the YoloBox is portability, functionality and user friendliness. See, once you’re live you can easily and instantaneously switch between several audio and visual inputs via the touchscreen. Say, if you want to switch out your face-cam for the camera you’ve set up for your virtual concert or something similar. You can also set up split view and picture-in-picture streaming if you’d like.
All of this, along with your overlays, captions, watermarks and the like (all of which can be edited from the YoloBox in an iMovie fashion) is controlled simply and easily via the Box’s touchscreen. You can also drag in pre-recorded videos, b-roll and other video or images via the SD slot, or you can simply use it as storage to record your streams into.
Something that gives the YoloBox a particularly strong leg-up on its competition is its battery. It sports a 10,000 mAh battery, which should last you between 2 and 3 hours, making it perfect for professional streaming on the go. Try doing that with a PC tower.
On the more technical side of things, the pro supports video input resolutions in 720p and 1080i/p, and streams at 540p, 720p and 1080p in 60fps. It’s worth noting that more demanding input/output resolutions take a toll on the battery, which is fine if you’re streaming sitting down but should be kept in mind if you’re out and about.
Bottom line: the YoloBox Pro makes it possible to host high-quality streams without needing to know all the ins and outs of traditional (and often pretty daunting) broadcasting software. At around R25,000, you definitely get what you pay for as it features portability, as well as high-tech features that means you’ll be ready to stream right out of the box. If you’re looking for the perfect gift for a burgeoning live-streamer, look no further than the YoloBox Pro.