Indicator lights for cameras

wilderf353

wilderf353

Member
We have 3 cameras in our sanctuary and use OBS Studio to stream our church worship services on Sundays. We are using 20x PTZ cameras that when zoomed in can easily see where the speaker's eyes are pointing. Our minister would like to know which camera is streaming, so that she can look at that camera so that the streaming audience feels that she is looking at them.

I have a plan:
  1. Write a lua script to watch for scene changes. When a OBS_FRONTEND_EVENT_SCENE_CHANGED is triggered, log a custom message in the OBS log file (complete)
  2. Build a breadboard with a circuit to power on a LED strip, and connect it to an Arduino (working on this)
  3. Attach a 1' segment from a 12V single color LED strip near each camera. Run a 2 conductor wire from each strip and connect it to the breadboard (working on this).
  4. Load Firmata onto the Arduino so that I can use a Python program running on the OBS computer to control the Arduino (complete).
  5. Write a Python program to watch the OBS log file. When a custom message is logged (complete) :
    1. send a command to the attached Arduino to turn off all camera indicator lights
    2. parse the message using camera details stored in an INI configuration file. Some scenes only have 1 camera, others may have multiple. The configuration file has the name of each scene, and a comma separated list of pins on the Arduino to turn on/off.
    3. send a command to the attached Arduino to turn on all the camera indicator lights that are now in use
    4. sleep for one second, then look for a new custom message. If one found, go to step 1
Has anyone done anything like this? If not, is this something that others are interested in?
 
wilderf353

wilderf353

Member
Version 0.1 is done. All I need to do is install the indicator lights by each camera and run some wires.

IMG_20211023_143528.jpg


Here is a short demo video:


Is anyone else interested in doing this in your church?
 
L

Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
Others are bound to be interested. However, there are other Tally (indicator) light plug-ins already. Have you looked at any of them?
 
wilderf353

wilderf353

Member
Lawrence_SoCal said:
Others are bound to be interested. However, there are other Tally (indicator) light plug-ins already. Have you looked at any of them?
Click to expand...

I did look at few, but none of them was what I was looking for...maybe I missed it?

Some of the Raspberry PI wireless Tally system were close, but it didn't make a lot of sense for us: we are using 3 PTZ cameras that are connected via USB cables to our OBS computer.

With this solution, we now have a $5 Arduino UNO connected to our OBS computer via a USB cable. The UNO is connected to a bread board with the circuitry needed to drive three 12v LED strips (for each LED strip you need one MOSFiT, one resistor, and a few breadboard jumper wires). You could easily add more circuitry for additional lights if needed.

I went into church early and installed it this morning. Here is a short video of the tally lights from the pulpit. The two PTZ cameras are mounted near the lights on the balcony and the center camera is mounted under the balcony, in the middle. The OBS computer and sound board are located just below the tally bar.

 
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