Our Stake's permanent camera setup

Discussions around receiving, originating, and holding Church broadcasts and conferences in meetinghouses including schedules, setup, equipment, and support.
danpass
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Re: Our Stake's permanent camera setup

#11

Post by danpass »

I just went looking for this page, but it is no longer available. I'm mainly interested in a couple of the items you had in a list of equipment. Any chance you could publish it again?

Thanks!
brad_p
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Re: Our Stake's permanent camera setup

#12

Post by brad_p »

danpass wrote: Tue Jan 10, 2023 4:48 pm I just went looking for this page, but it is no longer available. I'm mainly interested in a couple of the items you had in a list of equipment. Any chance you could publish it again?
Fixed. We just updated the website this week, looks like this page didn't get transferred over.

As a heads up, I'm now about a year into using this setup. It's largely held up. Some comments:
  • This camera is mostly good, but its focus is extremely tight and often loses its focus on presets. So the camera assistants have to do an extra step to try and focus in and out to get them right. I thought I saw someone else mention a quality sub $700 20x PTZ camera here last week. If you can find it, and if it has a serial connection for VISCA, consider it. (Edit: Found it: SMTAV NDI PTZ Camera 20x zoom)
  • The audio transmitter/receiver is sensitive to electronic interference combined with a room full of cell phones. We found we needed to move the receiver to the extension bar in between the camera and the mic, and also make sure to keep any other wires far away. Sometimes you also have to get the right channel to be good all meeting.
  • Use zip ties to organize cables properly. Also, make sure cords aren't hanging down from the PTZ camera, they can start to tug, and you want to use zip ties here judiciously to prevent that.
  • The cable sleeve organizer listed in the parts list is too narrow. Get one that's fatter so it easily holds all cords.
  • When you physically set the camera up, have the camera very lightly rest up against a wall. Stops all vibrations.
  • Use OBS and the PTZ camera plug in. Set presets. Make some object be your weekly calibrator (like the hymn numbers on the wall), and physically move the camera pole until fits the calibration. Then the other PTZ presets are dead on.
  • Don't get the cheaper mic in the parts list. It works, but it's got a narrow range where it sounds good, and a range where it can start crackling or popping. Good audio makes such a big difference.
Overall, I'm happy with this setup. Last month we had a building where the boiler died, twice. So they moved sacrament meetings to the gym. Both times I was given 20 minutes notice. I was able to drive down, move the entire setup to their gym, redo a few PTZ presets, and run the broadcast just the same.
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Mikerowaved
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Re: Our Stake's permanent camera setup

#13

Post by Mikerowaved »

brad_p wrote: Tue Jan 10, 2023 11:36 pm ...(Edit: Found it: SMTAV NDI PTZ Camera 20x zoom)...
Be careful when ordering any of these lesser-known brand cameras, such as SMTAV, Zowietek, Prisual, AVKANS, SZOOMSY, FoMaKo, TONGVEO, Vikery, etc. Some of their models support full NDI (125~200Mbs for 1080p60), while other models only support NDI|HX (12~22Mbs for 1080p60). NDI|HX can have as much as 0.25 - 0.5s lag time. This can be corrected in programs like OBS, but forum users say the lag time isn't constant, which really messes things up.

With that said, in extreme cases, NDI|HX may be preferable, where perhaps the wired LAN is limited to 100Mbs, or the signal must be sent over WiFi. Just keep an eye on the specs when ordering. I had to return a FoMaCo camera that claimed it was "NDI", but was really NDI|HX.

BTW, uncompressed 1080p60 over SDI (coax) clocks in just under 3Gbs, so to compress that down to ~150Mbs (NDI), or even 20Mbs (NDI|HX) and still have a pretty good looking picture at the end of the day is quite an accomplishment. NDI|HX2, and now NDI|HX3 promise better quality with lower lag time. That might be an option for some.
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brad_p
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Re: Our Stake's permanent camera setup

#14

Post by brad_p »

I've updated the parts list a bit with what I mentioned a few days ago.
Mikerowaved wrote: Sun Jan 15, 2023 3:50 am BTW, uncompressed 1080p60 over SDI (coax) clocks in just under 3Gbs, so to compress that down to ~150Mbs (NDI), or even 20Mbs (NDI|HX) and still have a pretty good looking picture at the end of the day is quite an accomplishment. NDI|HX2, and now NDI|HX3 promise better quality with lower lag time. That might be an option for some.
Can you give me a rundown of how you use NDI? (Or perhaps start a different post?) I've largely ignored NDI and stuck with tried and true direct HDMI for video and a serial cable for PTZ control. I started to go down the NDI road, but didn't like that it was a proprietary standard, and NDI / OBS support was lackluster, at best.

I'm just trying to understand where NDI is a great idea. I know people use it and swear by it, but I just didn't see it.
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Mikerowaved
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Re: Our Stake's permanent camera setup

#15

Post by Mikerowaved »

brad_p wrote: Mon Jan 16, 2023 3:27 am Can you give me a rundown of how you use NDI?
We're currently using the church's setup with their HDMI extenders. However, I've used NDI quite a bit for other events I've webcasted. One big advantage is if the camera supports POE and NDI, you only need to run ONE Cat5e/Cat6 cable to it. I found a dedicated cable is best, but 1 or 2 cameras can be run on an existing gigabit LAN.

With that one cable, you can power the camera, receive a nice video stream, control the PTZ operations, and get into the camera's built-in setup/configuration page(s). OBS natively supports NDI quite well and can do camera control with one of several plugins available. [Google search]

NDI uses an extremely good compression algorithm that in most cases is not visibly different from the original. SDI and HDMI carry uncompressed signals, so quality is rarely an issue. I guess it's the simplicity of running everything off one cable that's contributing to NDI's fast growth in the webcasting industry.
So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
brad_p
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Re: Our Stake's permanent camera setup

#16

Post by brad_p »

Mikerowaved wrote: Mon Jan 16, 2023 3:11 pm
brad_p wrote: Mon Jan 16, 2023 3:27 am Can you give me a rundown of how you use NDI?
With that one cable, you can power the camera, receive a nice video stream, control the PTZ operations, and get into the camera's built-in setup/configuration page(s).
Ah, that does sound nice, three cables get reduced to one cable.

I was in a situation where we asked for an ethernet jack and an audio jack for our wards buildings and was told no to both. So PoE was definitely out of the question.
OBS natively supports NDI quite well and can do camera control with one of several plugins available. [Google search]
Yes, OBS has camera control plugins, but their *NDI* plugins struggle. I use the OBS PTZ plugin by glikely and love it, I've had it work with three different brands of cameras without an issue. The OBS NDI plugin on the other hand I ran three issues: 1) the main NDI plugin was languishing without updates, 2) it about doubled the CPU computational requirements on some laptops that didn't have any CPU left to give, 3) people routinely complained that the plugin's audio/video desynced and progressively drifted off more and more over time with no fix available.

But man, if I could just plug in one cable to a camera on the wall, and just connect my laptop up to the network, and do everything to control that camera, I'd love it.
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