Blackmagic Design Video Assist 3G Monitor, 5 Inch

This is a wonderful product and it accommodates a variety of environments for recording. It has saved us the issue of having to use the recording from Zoom. You must purchase the mini xlr cables and the compatible SD cards but that was somewhat expected. My only issue (and the reason it didn't get 5 stars) is because on this model (3G) you cannot use the USB-C connection for a flash drive to avoid using SD cards. You can only use the 12G model with a flash drive.

This does everything it says it'll do. I'm not a professional. This was purchased to record a broadcast. The pass-through port is what went out. Quality is excellent. Room was warm and one of our cameras had some issues. However, this unit was in use for more than two-hours straight and did not complain at all. Image quality is insane. Glad I spent more for the 7 model.

I would really love to recommend this product because it does tick so many technical boxes but it simply does not perform well.First off, the display. It has a strong yellow color cast and looks nothing like what is being recorded, on the good side its fairly bright (yes you can see it in daylight, not well, but its there) and is good for frame reference but thats all. The screen out of the box has way too much contrast for sure, you can dial that back but it seems to affect the brightness a lot when you do that. You never really get a good idea of how its looking because the in camera monitor (FS5) is so much better at the color science. The color science of the the BM video assist monitor is just inferior, which of course is a shame.The touch screen is finicky ... MoreI would really love to recommend this product because it does tick so many technical boxes but it simply does not perform well.First off, the display. It has a strong yellow color cast and looks nothing like what is being recorded, on the good side its fairly bright (yes you can see it in daylight, not well, but its there) and is good for frame reference but thats all. The screen out of the box has way too much contrast for sure, you can dial that back but it seems to affect the brightness a lot when you do that. You never really get a good idea of how its looking because the in camera monitor (FS5) is so much better at the color science. The color science of the the BM video assist monitor is just inferior, which of course is a shame.The touch screen is finicky and takes a while to figure out how not pop up stuff that you don't want and get to what you do.The actual recorded video is fine, until the units starts to drop frames, of course the only resolution of this issue to restart the recorder. Not exactly a compelling feature, speaking of which don't ever try to format you card in the recorder, it simply fails and you will need your computer to reinitialize the SD card. Also take note it wont record full 4K, only UHD. This again is a problem.There are other recorder units out there that are simply better and more reliable than this one. The price is reasonable but the performance is not. After using both the video assist HD and video assist 4K, I simply cannot recommend these units in good conscience. For nearly 1000 dollars you should expect a unit to perform well in the production environment even if the unit is geared as basic recorder and monitor.