After a decade of writing, I’ve turned to videos in the last 12 months, often relying on scripts to do my short-form content, but have been hesitant to move to on-screen content as I’ve had no way to follow a script whilst maintaining eye contact but that all changes with the Elgato Prompter.
The Elgato Prompter has a 9-inch 600p display which we’ll talk a little bit later, but in classic Elgato fashion, the amount of cameras that come supported out of the box is absolutely mind blowing. There’s a huge amount of brackets in the box that attach to the back of the Prompter to ensure you get a snug fit and no light let in. If you’ve got an Elgato Facecam Pro, you’re in luck as there’s a camera fitting specifically for it, but otherwise, there’s 9 DSLR step-up rings to fit a variety of lenses ranging from 49mm to 82mm.
I rock the Sony ZV-E1 with an 16-35mm lens and all I had to do to get connected was screw the ring onto my lens, put my camera on a tripod, and then slide the Prompter with the DSLR bracket over the top of it, with no extra attachments necessary.
Elgato have been great to give you a shroud and a mounting bracket that will work with almost anything thanks to a clever screw system that allows you to put it into a number of areas so that if you’re using a camcorder, or another webcam, or even your iPhone, it’s almost guaranteed to work with the system, although if you’re unsure if the Prompter will work with your setup, Elgato has launched a compatibility website HERE.
Elgato has been very clever to even put a few hot-shoe mounts on the top of the Prompter, so that you can attach extra lights or microphones directly onto to the top of the Prompter as well. Again, it’s these little things that elevate the Prompter and Elgato products in general above other solutions.
Once you’ve got your camera locked in, and have checked that you’re not getting any shadowing, you then just plug the Prompter in via a USB-C to USB-A cord (I do wish it was USB-C to USB-C) and then use the Elgato Cam software which is super easy to use depending on the situation.
The Prompter works similarly to how most do, with a monitor on the bottom projecting whatever it is presented on the monitor into a one way mirror so that you can see it whilst looking at your camera lens, but your camera lens can’t see any of what is being projected onto the mirror from the other side.
The thing that I’ve always loved about Elgato products is that they make it super easy with both their hardware and software to use their products to get the most out of them and it’s absolutely no different with the Prompter.
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If you’re wanting to just follow text along the Prompter, you copy and paste your copy into the Cam software and split it into chapters so that you can go between them easily. You can easily change colours, size of text, font and more. I do however wish that there was maybe a way to save scripts within the app, but that’s a minor niggle. I also appreciate how easy it is to use, but I do hope there’s some kind of app functionality at some point to control it remotely without having to go back to the computer.
It would have been easy for Elgato to call it a day there, but there’s a lot more functionality in the app. Given the Prompter is literally just a monitor, you can send use it as an external monitor, both for the simple functionality of overlaying text with your camera, so that you can see what you look like as you read your script, but you can literally project anything else to the secondary monitor.
If you just want to put a YouTube video on the monitor, you can do that, but there’s far more productive ways to take advantage of it. You can use it for meetings so that you are looking directly at your camera whilst talking to colleagues or you can put your notes for a presentation on the Prompter so that it doesn’t look like you’re reading notes whilst presenting. It’s just a great thing to have if you’re somebody who does a lot of camera work.
If you’re a Twitch streamer, you can easily pop your Twitch ID into the Elgato Cam app and it will instantly pull your chat through. This is great as you can use it to talk directly to your chat and make it more engaging, and really that is the overarching theme of the Prompter.
There’s just nothing worse than talking to camera and reading off a screen, presenting or talking to your chat and you looking at another monitor or not making eye contact with your camera and that’s exactly what the Prompter allows for.
Elgato should absolutely be commended for how accessible they’ve made the Prompter. They could have easily just made it work with their webcam and supported a few cameras, but the amount of attachments in the box means that you’ll be able to make it work with most devices without having to fiddle too much.
