Review: Roland VR-5 A/V Mixer

PC Keying

The VR-5 offers both luma and chroma keying on one simple dial. As with most simple keyers, you have little control over the resulting image. While I was able to very quickly get a key, it's not the sort of polished alpha key you'd get with dedicated keying hardware.

When I tried keying the Windows XP logo over black from the computer over video, the edges were a bit ragged. You can tweak many of the parameters of the key in the menu, and I was able to clean it up a bit, but the keyer lacks the ability to add a border or "shadow" as you can with the built in PiP settings.

USB Port

Immediately, I started using the USB port to try and record and was surprised when the VR-5 would not use it as a destination for recording. You can use it for loading images-say, from a client's USB stick-and load them on to the SD card for playback, or to copy the final recorded program from the SD card and onto a client's USB stick. But you can't record the program to the USB. Go in the menu and set the USB port from Storage to Video Out and you're ready to stream.

When it comes to streaming, you'll really need the included USB cable because the VR-5 has the same flat USB "A" jack as a computer, not the square "B" jack as a hard drive or printer or other USB peripheral. The VR-5 comes with a USBM-A-to-USBM-A cable, but these are not as common as USBM-A-to-USBM-B cables. Best to make double sure you have the right cable if you intend on streaming an event, or order a backup cable, just in case.

I connected the VR-5 to an XP netbook and opened up Skype. Settng the USB on the VR-5 to Video Out instantly gave me the familiar tones on the Windows laptop and within a few moments I could select the VR-5 feed from the source menu. Interestingly, at first Skype showed a much smaller active area than the LCD screens on the VR-5. When I reset everything tried it again, the video in to Skype was perfect. I did not find any settings in the VR-5's menus to adjust the size of the USB Video Out.

Streaming via UStream with the video stretched to widescreen

Other streaming services offer downloadable applications that feature input settings to stretch and pull the video to fill the frame-also useful if you're using the 4:3-based VR-5 to produce 16:9 video. Just stretch it on input to your streaming service. The web interfaces of Livestream and UStream could not see the Roland VR-5, only the internal camera of the laptop. But when I downloaded the standalone application, the PC saw the VR-5 just fine and I was able to set it to take the square SD feed and stretch it to 16:9, no problem.

Video Recording

The VR-5 records standard definition material to the internal SD card (Class 4 or higher) at a user-selectable 2, 4, or 6 Mbps. I tested all three settings and found that the 6 Mbps looked nearly pristine. 4 Mbps is okay, and 2 Mbps shows clear visible compression artifacts. If your recording is destined for web distribution, however, recording at 2 Mbps gives you a file that's nearly ready to distribute on the web. I highly recommend using the 6 Mbps setting for anything that you might need to edit or distribute via another method, like DVD.

It's very important to properly set the date and time in the VR-5's menu system because the VR-5 automatically names your recordings as year-month-day-time.

While recording, you can't accidentally push the power button and turn the unit off—I tried. An alert comes up on the Output monitor—"Now Recording!"—so that's a nice safety feature.

There is one significant caveat to the video recording feature: You can't play back from the SD card at the same time. I was surprised by this because a Class 4 SD card is capable of reading and writing simultaneously at 6 Mbps. In fact, the specifications for Class 4 cards are 4 Megabytes per second. This translates 32 Mbps read and write, more than 5 times the speed we're attempting. So there is plenty of headroom to both read and write to the card, but the VR-5 is just not designed to do it simultaneously. When I spoke to a Roland engineer about this, he confirmed that it is a hardware limitation. A codec chip can compress video or decompress video, he said, but not do both at the same time.

I would have loved, absolutely loved, to have the ability to do both. That would have simplified portable usage of the VR-5 by having everything in one box. The way it is now, if you record internally, you have to bring along an external media player, and use up one of the three video inputs. I would highly recommend against trying to use the streaming laptop as your media player, as tempting as that may be. It always leads to potential mistakes and problems in the heat of live production.

The multicamera-switched programs I recorded onto the SD card played back in the VR-5 without issue. Trying to play them back on a computer resulted in an error about "Invalid Data." However, the free VLC Player played those files just fine on the Mac and a PC. This is most likely a "wrapper" issue with the files and not with the media they hold. The forthcoming software utility from Roland will also rewrap the files recorded in the VR-5 into a more easily playable format.

Audio Follow

The VR-5 has a feature called Audio Follow. Audio Follow is a simple concept: Whatever video is on screen, you hear the companion audio. On the VR-5, however, it is a bit more complex. First, you have three other audio inputs that are not controlled by Audio Follow. There are two microphone/line inputs that are separate from the Audio Follow system. The PC audio is a dial, not a slider, and the entire PC input section is in a separate area of the VR-5. In fact, when you call the PC input up on screen, you still hear the audio from the video input you were last using. This is accurately reflected by the fact that the red indicator for the video input stays lit.

I believe this is primarily because the PC input is intended to be used as an overlay or key. While you can have a PowerPoint full screen, and the audio from the PowerPoint will always come through the VR-5 if the PC audio dial is turned up, you should not consider the PC input to be just like the other inputs on the VR-5.

A potential bug/or feature, depending on your viewpoint, is how Picture In Picture (PiP) ignores Audio Follow. If you want to have a feed from a person speaking-a talking head-appear over a fullscreen background, the audio from the PIP will not turn itself on when you activate the PIP and the video appears on the screen, despite Audio Follow being activated. Nor can you turn it up manually when Audio Follow is engaged. You have to turn off Audio Follow to hear the audio for that second source. Of course, turning Audio Follow off means you will instantly hear the audio for whatever sliders are "up" for all four of the video inputs. As convenient as it to have an Audio Follow feature available, I suggest keeping the audio on manual to avoid any surprises during a live event.

Also, take note of the separateness of the PC input from the other sources. You cannot do a PiP of a person speaking over a PowerPoint. The VR-5 is designed to put one video source over the others, and then overlay the PC input over everything. You can change video overlay and background sources during the PiP with just the touch of a button. But nothing can layer over the PC input.

Audio Features

Despite the simple-looking audio controls, the audio in the VR-5 has lots of features in the menu. There are filters and EQ settings for each of the mic inputs. The stereo audio inputs (with the video sources) can also be internally bridged to mono. They can even be broken away from the Audio Follow to avoid the PiP issue I noted. But I find it still better to operate the entire audio mixer in manual, as opposed to partially automated, partially not. There are even some mastering filters you can apply to the output.

I found the sliders long enough to offer good control, and they had good resistance to them during actual use. There's also a master Audio Out Level knob to raise and lower the level of the entire mix-very useful for feeding streaming computers and the like. The VR-5 even puts the Audio Out Level knob right next to the Video Out knob so you can execute a master fade-everything-to-black by turning both dials counterclockwise at the same time. That's a thoughtful design touch.

The meter is a bit short, with only 6 LEDs between -48 db and 0 db clipping. I would have liked more, but this meter works well and has a bit of a peak hold that makes it easier to catch the peaks in your audio.

When I fed the audio out of the VR-5 to the UStream application, the level UStream saw was considerably lower than the VR-5's meters. The VR-5 offers the ability to really crank up the output past "unity" and the streaming app offered the ability to crank up the input gain as well. Best to always check your levels on the laptop to make sure you're not clipping and distorting the audio at some point in the chain.

Using the VR-5

I found the VR-5 easy to set up and use. It has only composite and "S" video in and out so there's not a lot of unused connectors on the back when you're all hooked up and ready to go. The buttons are big and very tactile. You can easily feel your way around and punch a show on the mixer while looking at notes or the preview monitor. My hand rested easily over the big buttons to punch the sources, and my fingers were ready to manually adjust the audio as needed. For kicks, I gave my 3-year-old daughter a shot at TD'ing a show and she was able to take my directing and punch the show with the VR-5, no problem.

The VR-5 is so intuitive, even a 3-year-old can punch a show on it. Photo my Maria Rothe

I didn't see any technical glitches in the output. This is the nicest feature of dedicated hardware. It does what it does. Nothing more, but certainly nothing less. There's a growing dependence on computers to perform the work of dedicated hardware. I'm one of those that prefers a dedicated piece of hardware gear over dealing with computer OS issues, on top of potential software and hardware issues.

Getting fluent with the VR-5 doesn't take long and it's clearly designed for the single operator as everything is easy to manage and the jacks on the back are even labeled on top of the unit for someone who has to reach and peer over the top to quickly adjust something. It's clear that Roland is rolling convenient user design into each new product they make.