Due to the pandemic still in full force in Thailand, I've been working on doing streaming for my tiny church and non-profit. Naturally I started with OBS, but after one headache after another gave vMix a try and am now in the trial period and loving it, thinking/hoping maybe we will qualify for one of the free church licenses. However the no-free-lunch reality reared its ugly head when I discovered that apparently many cheap generic HDMI->USB dongles, (I suppose all made in the same Chinese factory) that work just fine with OBS, drop frames like crazy in vMix at the input stage.

There is a thread here that addresses this problem inconclusively. I looked at the supported hardware page, and while I didn't check every item, I couldn't find much anything under USD2-300 per input. A search of these forums didn't turn anything up, so I thought I would pose a fresh question here that might help some other folks in the process:

What are some lowest-cost methods that folks have found to successfully bring video into vMix for 720p streaming? Ideally under USD50/input, or at least not over $100.

Such as:

• Specific cheap dongles/cards that have worked for you
  
• Settings in vMix (decoders?) and/or Windows drivers(?)
  
• Workarounds such as using OBS or other utility (VLC?) to capture from USB and output NDI
  
• Adding more USB3 throughput via PCI-E or SATA
  
• ??
  

I know, $50 is super cheap, and I've been around pro video for over 30 years so know very well what things used to cost and still can. But 90% of our viewers are teens/young adults using phones. We don't need broadcast quality, but we need 24-30fps at least fairly consistently.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

The new Elgato Camlink Pro (4x HDMI PCIe) works great with Vmix. It takes 4K/30 signals so you don‘t have to upgrade later when you want to go beyond 720p.