YoloBox Extreme Review: Power, Performance, and an Intuitive All-in-One Design | By The Digital Insider
YoloBox Extreme Review: Power, Performance, and an Intuitive All-in-One Design
The YoloBox Extreme lives up to its name with serious performance and versatility packed into a portable, touchscreen device. Despite offering deep functionality and plenty of advanced settings, the interface remains surprisingly intuitive—making it accessible for both new and experienced creators.
In this detailed review from tographer, you’ll get an inside look at how the YoloBox Extreme delivers professional-grade live streaming and recording power in a truly approachable package.
Watch the review to see why it’s considered one of the most capable all-in-one streaming tools available today:
Learn more about YoloBox below:
Read the full transcript:
This is the Yolo Box Extreme. I'm really excited to open this up. It's a 4K switcher with eight HDMI inputs and ISO recording. YOLO reached out to send me this device for testing, and I do get to keep it. It's exactly the type of device I would buy myself. So, I'm looking it as a win-win, but I'm still going to give you my honest thoughts, feelings, and feedback who it's good for and maybe who it might not be so good for. It's like an iPad on steroids. You can stream in real 4K right from the box. You have external antennas for Wi-Fi and NDI. You also have backup ISO recordings for editing later. NDI SRT, multicam relays. This thing even has a built-in scoreboard if you're doing any kind of sports. Pan tilt zoom control. There's both web and app remote control capabilities. It's an 11.2 in OLED display. It is so crisp and so clear. I was really impressed with the screen on this thing. Right now, you're actually watching the Yolo Box Extreme. Yes, I've hooked everything up to the Yolo Box. Look at all those inputs. You have 1 2 3 4 five 4K inputs and three 1080p inputs and two HDMI outputs, Ethernet, USB, mic line, USB type-C for data, and USB type-C for power. My gut reaction when I opened the box was, "Wow, this thing is solid." You'll notice the screen is built right in. You don't need any kind of computer. The whole device is self-contained. My entry point into the industry was through AV. So, all of the inputs, outputs, plugging stuff in, setting it up, diving into the menus. It's just what I love. They even include a cold shoot a/420 adapter. It's nice. These look like external antennas. is they provide better Wi-Fi signal strength and range to enhance wireless connectivity for Alpha 1, Alpha Cam, NDI, and more. The Switcher is a computer. There's no external device necessary, so you can stream right from this. It's got a decentiz battery built in. Even if you have a power failure, this thing will stay on because that battery is right inside. All being powered by a Qualcomm 8 Gen 2 processor. When they say extreme, they mean it. What does it say on here? More power behind every capability. I think that sounds pretty true. Good tagline. I'm used to switching with the A10 Mini Extreme ISO, and this has eight inputs as well, but it's only 1080p. I do like the ISO recording, but if I get ISO here, and some of my inputs are 4K, that's even better. The other thing you need with the A10 Mini is a computer or a phone or a tablet or something to really configure and control it. With the Yolo Box Extreme, it's all right here. It does come with a power adapter that you can adapt to your region. So, here in the US, this is the one I'm using. You do lose all of the physical buttons that the A10 Mini gives you, which I do like. I love the ability to hit a clickable button. So, I'm going to see if the touchcreen works as well. A lot of the time, I would use both of these boards in a somewhat automated setup where the software is doing most of the switching. Buttons are a convenience, but not a necessity. I'm glad to see that what you need is here, and the way it's laid out really makes sense. This is one of those devices where there's a lot of menus to dive into, but thankfully everything is fairly well organized. It's really intuitive. So, even though there's a lot to unpack and dive into, it's very approachable. If you're familiar with cameras, production, audio, a general understanding of how these things ought to work, you shouldn't have any problems navigating the software. It's very intuitive. Look at that. You can just drag and drop to reorder. Oh man, that's awesome. In the default mode, a simple tap allows you to switch inputs seamlessly. Very little effort. You just tap and it goes. You can even use layouts as an input source. And there's some default presets, but you can really customize your own. I was able to rebuild what I normally do in post-prouction right in the board. So here on the left you can see your standard video sources but on the right you can see multiv- views which are these different layouts. You have full control over position, scaling, all sorts of cool layering that you can do with your cameras. It looks like you can even take it up to four views in one. From a technical standpoint, this is really impressive. Now I have this incredible four camera layout that I was able to set up in a matter of seconds. There's some different view modes between classic and director. Here you can tab through the different menu modes. So there's overlays, audio, background music, some kind of scoreboard if you were doing sports, a replay option, recording settings, auto switching. I'm most excited for video follows audio. If you've seen any of my previous setups of automating a podcast or a live switch, you need video follows audio. And I love that it's built right in. And you can even reorder these tool menus based on your preference. If there's ones you don't use, like background music for example, you can just remove it. Some disclaimers. This is a touch screen. So you will from time to time have that slight unresponsive little bit of a hiccup. You go push something, you got to push it again. So just be careful, especially on some of the smaller menu items. If you're the type of person that loves tactile buttons, this probably isn't for you. Although I'm sure you could get used to it if you're familiar with any kind of smartphone. It's very similar, but it just has that little bit of imprecision that you get with a touchcreen. But that also comes with so many advantages because of all the menus and layering and customization. I do believe they sell an external button device that you can plug into the Yolo Box Extreme. So that is an option if you want to take this to that next level and have those physical inputs. You can run a video from an SD card, images, PDFs. You've got HDMI inputs, USB inputs, and these built-in multiv- views. I love it. One of the things that's always on my mind these days is that cameras have gotten incredibly powerful, and they've gotten really affordable. It's very easy to have 1 2 3 four or more cameras, and then you're wondering, what do I do with all these cameras? This is the perfect way to manage all of them. Whether you're doing a podcast, sporting event, even a wedding, conference, whatever it might be, if you need multi- camera coverage, you need a good way to manage all those devices. Traditional broadcast switchers are still outside of the price range that I think most people would be comfortable with, but in the age of Instagram, YouTube, Tik Tok, streaming everywhere, it's kind of a necessity these days to be able to deliver a quality product in a live environment. There's a few different products out there that'll handle these types of productions, but I think the Yolo Box Extreme hits that perfect balance between price point and functionality. I think a lot of people will see the value once they realize what this is truly capable of. So, I want to show you guys NDI cuz this is pretty cool. This is what blew my mind. Take over any phone that has the ability to download the NDI app. And pairing it was probably the easiest thing I've ever had to do from a technical standpoint. It just connected seamlessly. What's great is that you can run around with that and as long as you're connected to the Wi-Fi router, you have signal anywhere. It's not from the phone to the board, it's from the phone to the Wi-Fi to the board. So, you could run throughout the whole house. You could even probably a backyard, front yard. You could go all over and still have really good, clean signal. It is so cool. Based on my current settings, it does look like I hit some kind of encoding limit with all the ISO tracks I'm trying to record at 4K. So, it seems like you kind of have to mix and match and balance exactly what you want to record. A point of caution, it's very easy to take this to the extreme. But at the end of the day, it is a computer of sorts and you can definitely overdrive it. If you're trying to do too much, get too much out of it. It will give you an alert. That warning is good and bad. I appreciate that it's there letting you know, hey, this thing we it's reached its limit, but also I kind of wish I could push it to that absolute limit recording all of my inputs all at 4K. It's kind of crazy, kind of an extreme, but it's in the name. So, just be careful. You might go a little bit overboard because the options are there for you to do so, but just know you can push it a little too far. So, you got to find that nice balance. What's what do you need? What's right on the edge? what's going to check the most boxes without breaking things in the middle of your stream or production. So, it is good to note that even though there's eight inputs and five of them are 4K, you can't record everything at 4K ISO. That's just a little bit too much. Maybe there's a way to expand the CPU in this some kind of upgrade that I don't have. But currently, I can't record everything ISO 4K. I would have to pick three tracks and that'll work. One thing that's a little off-putting and I don't know, maybe it can be fixed via firmware, maybe we'll see an update eventually, is that the preview boxes have a slight stutter to them. They're a little choppy. Once you're in program mode, everything is smooth and crystal clear, exactly like you'd expect. But all the preview windows tend to have a slight stutter to them, which might make you think, "Oh no, something's broken." It's not. It's just kind of that lower frame rate preview mode. So, I wish that could be a higher refresh, more accurate to the realistic frame rate that every camera is sending. But, I do understand that that's a lot of inputs to manage. That's a lot of processing power. So, again, it's one of those balancing acts. How much do you want? How much do you need? And what's acceptable? You may be familiar with other devices, switchboards, etc. that show you previews where everything is is in real time. And that's really, really nice. This isn't quite there yet. Maybe one day they'll get it there. Or it's just a limitation of the processing power. Don't worry, it doesn't affect your final recorded content. It doesn't affect the program, but your small lowresolution, low frame rate previews, eh, it could be improved. Now, one thing I don't see is a headphone. H audio out. There it is. Just on the other side. Had me worried there for a second. and I wasn't going to be able to do headphones. I'm still just scratching the surface. Like any new product, it really takes time. You got to dive in deep, play around, experiment, try stuff out, see what works, how it operates. And I love that about new tech and new gear. It's so fun for me to explore and try something and learn something and realize, oh wow, I can do a lot more than I ever thought using this device. So, I have a lot more testing and triing, but I am absolutely excited to have this in my kit. It's one of those things I can leave in the studio or take with me if I need to do some kind of traveling live production or just multi- camera production that's going to be edited later. It's still helpful to have that central hub where everything is going versus everything recorded internally and you got to sync it all up later and deal with all that. This is kind of the brains of the operation and so far I'm really impressed.
Published on The Digital Insider at https://is.gd/hqq2Ir.
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