Managing Teleprompter Scrolling Speed with Elgato Stream Deck and Pedal

In my experience, one of the most challenging aspects of reading from a teleprompter has always been controlling the speed. Unless you get the pacing right, you’ll have to either speed up or slow down your narration, and any editing will add pressure to your delivery that can result in glitches and retelling all over again. During my last visit Elgato Prompter ReviewSpeed ​​control was a problem. Although you can control the speed using the mouse wheel, I found this option difficult and difficult to use.

Fortunately, Elgato has two hardware options you can use to control scrolling speed; the Deck Stream + ($199.99) and Stream Deck Pedal ($89.99). Elgato was kind enough to send me both options to try, and I’ll briefly recount my experience here. Both devices provide versatility for many different applications, with only a small portion of their repertoire running fast. Let’s start with the Stream Deck pedal.

Stream Deck Pedal

The Stream Deck Pedal is a three-button foot pedal that you drive with your feet (Figure 1). Installation is simple and straightforward and is ordered via the card included with the unit.

Figure 1. The Stream Deck has three pedals that you drive with your feet.

Some software labels will help you with the installation process. First, you download and install the Stream Deck app (elgato.com/download), which is clear. Next, you need to download and install the Stream Deck add-on for the Camera Hub that runs Prompter (Figure 2). This is simple enough if you don’t waste time looking for a Prompter plugin because there isn’t one.

Figure 2. This plug-in connects Stream Deck devices to the Camera Hub software.

Once the add-on is installed, the Camera Hub appears at the top right of the Stream Deck (Figure 3) with a number of software functions that you can assign to the three pedals. If you do not see this group of functions in the panel on the right, the plugin is not installed.

Figure 3. Configuring the Stream Deck pedal to control router speed.

The interface is very easy to use and configure. As mentioned earlier, each control on the right is a function controlled by the Camera Hub software. To assign this function to a pedal, you can drag it into its designated slot in the interface and configure it using the controls shown in Figure 3, which will obviously be different for each function.

In Figure 3, I drag the vector control to the middle pedal to start and stop scrolling. I then dragged the router’s scroll control to the left and right pedals and configured the pedal on the left to speed up scrolling by 2%, and the right pedal to slow it down by 2%. While I’m reading my novels, I can tap left to speed up the scrolling speed and tap right to slow things down. This worked perfectly although it took a few minutes to get used to this approach.

The only fly in the ointment was the quiet click each pedal made when depressed, although Elgato offers multiple springs that I could insert to adjust pedal pressure and perhaps noise as well.

I went to YouTube University before starting to install any product, and the best YouTube video I found to help install and configure the Prompter/Stream Deck Pedal was this. Note that the manufacturer used a different configuration to control the router’s speed, highlighting the flexibility of the unit.

Deck Stream +

See Stream Deck+ in Figure 4With eight switches and four knobs. This translates to 16 keys and 8 knobs because you can scroll to a new page and get a whole other set of controls (see the Wipe Left command on the right of the LCD panel).

Figure 4. This is the Stream Deck+

Once the Camera Hub plugin is installed, you can assign functions to the Stream Deck+ using the same procedure as for the Stream Deck Pedal. If you have both devices installed, you can switch interfaces using the toggle button located at the top left.

in Figure 5I have configured the leftmost scroll wheel to control the Prompter’s scroll speed. This approach worked well and took no time at all to adjust, with the added bonus that adjusting the knob was soundless. Of course, if you talk with your hands, having to devote your hand to controlling the scrolling speed can be limiting.

Figure 5. Assigning functions to Stream Deck+, including controlling the PowerPoint slide show.

Control of PowerPoint

The other reason I wanted to evaluate Stream Deck+ has to do with the PowerPoint process. To illustrate, using the opacity control in the Camera Hub, you can display text via an app in the prompt window. So, in theory, you can read narration while viewing a PowerPoint slide (Figure 6). This sounds great, but once the text is displayed, the Camera Hub controls the screen so you can’t tap slides to advance them. Once again, Stream Deck+ to the rescue.

Figure 6. Displaying text on a PowerPoint slide

After loading the PowerPoint Stream Deck plug-in, I was able to configure the two switches at the bottom left in Figures 4 and 5 to start and stop the slide show and click through the presentation. Mechanically, this worked perfectly and would likely be a great approach for a short, polished presentation with minimal screen activity. I’m not sure I can read narration and click through a well-designed presentation, but that’s more my responsibility than Elgato’s.

Overall, the Stream Deck Pedal or Stream Deck+ can provide the scrolling control I found necessary to make the Prompter a complete solution. If I had to pick one, it would be the Stream Deck+.

For the record, the best YouTube video for playing Stream Deck+ with Prompter is this.

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