Hollyland Mars 300 Pro Wireless HDMI Review
Check out how easily you can replace long cable runs with an inexpensive wireless HDMI transmitter and receiver kit from Hollyland called the Mars 300 Pro!
Hollyland Mars 300 Pro ➡️ https://geni.us/mars300 (Amazon)
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What is it?
The Hollyland Mars 300 Pro is an HDMI wireless video transmitter and receiver that can send 1080p 60 fps video signals as far as 300 feet away from a camera to a monitor with very low latency. It removes the need for running long video cables.
Besides just sending from the transmitter to the receiver to connect to a couple of production monitors, you can also send a real-time feed to 2 or 3 iOS or Google devices over an ad hoc wifi that the transmitter broadcasts. More on that, a little later.
This specific unit is the 300 Pro "Enhanced" version, similar to the "standard" version. But, this one has external screw-in antennas on the transmitter, which should give a stronger signal to the receiver. I never had any issues with that and was super impressed.
Both models cost close to $450, but right now, there are no other systems that can come close to competing on price and features.
The transmitter has a full-size HDMI loop out, which can go to an on-camera monitor, like an Atomos Shinobi, which is great because it doesn't have a loop through. Or another way I used it was on a gimbal to loop out to the DJI RS2 Raveneye gimbal to track motion. Essentially it's just great because you don't end up with a dead-end in your signal chain.
The receiver has 2 full-size HDMI outputs, so you could send 1 to a director (or a live stream) and then another to a client monitor in video village - someplace away from the camera.
How does it work?
The best thing about the Mars 300 Pro is that it's just easy to use right out of the box.
First, connect the camera HDMI port into the Transmitter HDMI input. You want to set the camera to output 1080p and not 4k. On my Sony FX3, I also turned off control with HDMI and HDMI info display to get a clean output.
Next, connect your monitor HDMI input to the receiver's HDMI out. The receiver works well on a light stand set about 5 1/2 feet high, which is also an ideal viewing height for the monitor, face the front of the receiver toward the general camera area and keep it away from any large metal structures.
And then plug in a battery, flip on the switch on both devices. They will find each other in a few seconds and smartly connect using an available wireless frequency. I did not need to do any channel scanning manually. However, if you want to scan manually, you can, so here's how you can do that.
Hollyland suggests manually scanning to use as many as three wireless systems in the same area, like for a Multicam production. You can work with eight different channels.
Press in on the thumbwheel on the receiver and choose "channel scan." Once it's done scanning, you pick a channel with a solid white background.
Image Quality and Latency
Well, it's not connected with an SDI or HDMI cable from the source, but unless you tried to record the feed, I don't think you could tell the difference. The wireless quality and latency are that good! It’s perfect for both monitoring and live streaming.
I liked using it ten feet away from the main set that had all of the bright lights so we could perfectly dial our exposure with false color and check for anything out of focus using the monitor's focus peaking features. It's so nice to see the image larger and away from distractions; however, one reason you might not want to record from this wireless feed is that it only sends signals at whole-frame rates like 30 and 60 fps. Not your typical broadcast video rates of 29.97, 50.94, etc.…
The latency is spec'd out at .08 seconds, and I didn't notice any perceivable lag using it on set. There, of course, is some, but it is very, very minor. The funny thing that most people never talk about is that every screen has some lag, including your editing reference display back in post-production. People stress over this with wireless video, but the Mars 300 Pro seems to do very well with this potential issue.
I've seen many people do distance tests, but since the results can vary so much - let me tell you that for three days of real-world shooting, we never had an issue as long as we remembered to put the antennas on the transmitter.
Battery Life & Power Options
To power the Mars 300 Pro, you will need 2 Sony L series batteries. Those are the NP-F style and you might already have some laying around. I did have some, but my monitor was using them, so I ordered a couple more. The NP-F550 size works, and it doesn't make the whole package too big and heavy. I used RAVPower batteries, which have 2900mAh. They ran from full to empty in 4 and a half hours. You're not going to get that apple M1 MacBook Pro type of battery life, but it's sufficient.
You can also run a USB c cable; they provide one of those to a power bank for more extended power. Or run a dummy battery, but both of these options force you to manage a cable, and the point of this whole thing is to use fewer cables, right?
The screen shows battery power in volts, and once it gets to 6.8 volts and flashes, it's time to swap it out for a freshly charged battery.
When to Use it?
I have used this for a small music video shoot to help get extra eyes on the camera, like a traditional video village or director's monitor would be set up. It can be super handy anytime you're filming in a small space like a bathroom or car and need to get more eyes on the scene.
But a few other clever ways you could use the system are to walk, talk, and show during a live stream.
If you're a photographer, you could connect this to a tethered computer and display the photos as you shoot them to a lobby or client area on a big TV.
Or, if you're producing an event with a live audience in a large space, you could use this for what they call "eye" mag, like eyeball magnification. Basically like a Jumbotron screen at the ball game, but only on a smaller scale, of course.
HollyView App
Everything seems to have an app these days. Some are better than others, but I gotta tell you that the HollyView app, which works on both iOS and Android is one of the better ones for sure. It's not like that imaging app from Sony.
It works over wifi directly from the transmitter. So after you download the HollyView app, you connect on your phone or iPad wifi settings to a network called "HLD…", the password is set to 12345678 by default, and then turn off your cellular if the device has it. This part stinks, but it won't work if it's on.
Open the app and connect.
It works like any other production monitor but with less latency. The app has tools like waveforms, histograms, focus peaking, zebras, frame guides, a punched in view to check focus, false color (with is one of my favorite tools ever), and a preview LUT to see log footage a little better.
You can even grab a photo or video clip, so you have a reference frame right there on your phone.
The "Gotchas" (Cons)
By now, I bet you can tell, I'm pretty excited about this new filmmaking production tool, but here are my cons.
The HollyView app needs to have cellular turned off, and it takes over your wifi, so you are pretty much off the grid when you use it unless you use a secondary iPad or even an old iPhone that you don't use as a phone anymore. The director on our last shoot forgot to turn the cellular back on afterward and never got a call or text for hours later. Maybe that's not a con?
The next thing to watch out for is with the Canon C200 and switching from playback mode to the record mode; we would sometimes lose the signal out of the HDMI of the camera. I think this is specific to the camera, though, because this hasn't happened on our R5, FX3, or Blackmagic pocket camera. Once the C200 rebooted, we got a 1080p 60 signal out of the HDMI port. The good thing is you can see on the transmitter itself on the tiny OLED screen if it has a signal or not.
Another thing to point out is that the battery status thinks everyone is an electrical engineer and gives you a volt reading instead of a percentage or how much time is left. You need to learn to swap batteries at 6.8 volts, but this is confusing if you don't read the manual or watch this video.
You will also need to buy some more accessories that I wish were part of the package.
There are no batteries included, so you need to plan to spend another $35 for NP-F batteries. There's no case, but I found an old Pelican 1120 that seems to fit nicely. No HDMI cables come in the box, so I linked some that I like from monoprice and Kondor blue if you want coiled cables.
And then you will, of course, need more 1/4-20 mounting screw options to attach these to your production monitor. Probably the best way to go is a small rig magic arm for about $10 or so. Inside the box, they give you one cold shoe to 1/4-20 that could go on the camera and then 1 "expansion accessory" if you want to mount either of the devices horizontally. I found those screws to come loose after a few hours of filming.
