Norman,
short answer is budget for PC sounds about right, though the camera price seems low
Not sure what 'small' means in Ireland. Here (Southern Cal), my church's pre-COVID-19 regular attendance on Sunday (2 services) would have been 100-150 people). So use that to compare. We started using a borrowed workstation class laptop as it was the most powerful thing available, and a webcam (Logitech C920, again, was available). Due to corporate security software (more than a bit over the top) we had some issues streaming (brief disconnects ...few seconds.. every week. New PC - no issues).
So I bought a dedicated PC. I couldn't find what I wanted which was a small form factor PC with a nVidia 1650 Super (due to being the lowest end card at the time with Turing NVENC vs older Pascal based encoder in 1650 and lower. There is a brand new about to be released GTX 1650 v2 with TU116 which may work as well. But for $10 extra, 1650 Super is better value (but does require more than PCIe 75W power. Higher-end cards not likely to help materially for streaming). You can check these forums, but AMD drivers and encoder for streaming are usually ranked negatively (There's an in-depth YouTube video from a month or two that goes into detail on the background/issue). The Cliff notes version - yes you can stream fine with something lower-end than 1650 Super, and I doubt higher-end will benefit much at all today. Upper-end RTX card like 2060 might help in the future with offloaded noise-reduction, but TBD. Personally, I go for value over lowest up-front price, and properly maintained, a PC should last 5 years. I'd have preferred an AMD CPU at the moment (3600x->3800XT ie 6core / 12 thread), but the major business class OEMs offerings aren't AMD Chipset B550 or x570 based, so I reluctantly got an Intel i7-10700K, 16GB RAM, GTX 1660 Super (didn't offer 1650 Super); 256GB SSD for OS & apps; 1TB 2.5" HDD for archive, DVD+/-RW drive, keyboard, mouse, secure cable cover, no monitor, 5yr next business day onsite support for US$1,500 delivered. The warranty wasn't cheap, but local phone support and peace of mind worth a couple of hundred dollars.. just in case. I added the SSD myself (vendor profit margin seemingly entirely in SSD pricing.. and I had a spare unused drive laying around. And we have a donated monitor to use). Again, this PC is overkill for today, but should last for years, and also handle some video editing as need be. I've posted elsewhere, after decades of experience, I avoid consumer grade PCs like the plague [more than COVID-19] as they aren't built well enough to last, in general. In general, I've found the small price premium for business class PCs yield much better build quality, support, etc [and yes, I have specific thoughts on vendors, and specific models, but being a public forum, I'll not be sharing them here due to my work for a global company with many 10s of thousands of desktop and laptops.]
As for a PTZ camera, my research quickly showed issues with security based units (low frame rates, control limitations, etc)
- control functions are really important if you are streaming with camera on and doing any pan/tilt/zoom action. You want it smooth, reasonable movement, etc. Such control requires more expensive motors, better control s/w, etc... you get what you pay for
- I strongly looked at PTZoptics.com, and like what I saw, and they indicate a huge percentage of their business is Houses of Worship, so they get 'our' needs, and can support us accordingly. However, I also looked into other top PTZ cameras like Panasonic, Sony, and a few others. Again, I'm focusing on long-term value vs up-front price. The quality of Panasonic cameras, especially lens is nice, and there is a local company that installs/supports them, so that is another benefit. The local company offered to provide a loaner unit to check visual quality in advance of purchase. Consider not only your normal Sunday morning services (which will typically have more natural light) but also you evening services and low-light camera performance
- My recommendation is to
1. Measure and plan you video shots and camera placement, and therefore the zoom range you need. For us, we have a choir loft above front doors, and plan to face mount on the short wall the PTZ camera. The camera would be about 50 feet from the alter, and little further to lectern and pulpit. So for close-up (portrait view) video of speaker at that distance, you are looking at just under a 20x zoom camera, The 12x-16x camera likely to work, but be at max zoom most of time, and higher zoom would be wasted capability
2. PTX camera connection technology
USB for single camera and PC next to camera.. but that's it
SDI is well-proven and reliable... but old school, and requires multiple cables/connection (power, video, etc)
NDI - new player, PoE single cable= my choice (recognizing that there may be some stumbles along the way. Though if you have a networking background understand UDP vs TDP, VLAN, routing, etc.. then not a problem.
For me the benefit of NDI is scalability - ability to add additional cameras in the future (if requested and funds made available) without charging anything else. No need for capture cards. extra cabling unusable for anything else in the future, etc. For me... for slight price increase of NDI model over others is a welcome trade-off, even for my non-techie church leadership.
I would have preferred to get an NDI camera to start, but use USB to start (as cameras have both connections) BUT turns out despite marketing over-simplification, the cameras hardware is different, so you get trade-offs to try this. So we are going NDI camera, and simply setting up NDI to start, even with single camera
The camera is going to be around US$2,000.. ouch... Both PTZOptics, Panasonic and Sony cameras are all in the similar price range
There are cheaper options, like a nice DSLR with clean USB 3 video output. But buying that, along with a decent low-light lens ... you end up not that much cheaper, and lack the PTZ controls (ok if static shot, but otherwise, you now need an extra volunteer)
Now, we've held off on camera purchase until now as local regulations forbid in-sanctuary worship at this time. And as a congregation, for health and safety reasons we will probably wait well past allowed time-frames before going to hybrid in-person and live stream services. Considering crazy US reluctance on vaccines, I can easily see most people not attending in person for most of 2021.. anyway, separate issue, other than the likelihood of need for long-term live streaming for you community, due to at-risk members, etc. means a justification for doing the tech setup right if you can. We are getting the PTZ camera now as I'm sure there will be a learning curve. As we are starting with single camera, no control deck planned at the moment. And even in the future, I'll have to see if s/w PTZ camera controls on streaming PC or maybe a tablet suffice, vs getting another device.
Next steps for us (just food for thought)
- We have a Presonus sound board, which we currently run a 75ft XLR breakbox from the sound closet to the streaming PC. Once ready for PTZ camera, streaming PC will be placed into closet with sound board, and be USB connected. Also to be added to sound closet is a UPS/battery backup unit (donated from a recently closed business). And some minor construction to vent the closet due to extra heat generated in there
- At some point, we will need to add microphones, and connect to sound panel for organ and choir
- From the sound closet, we will run Ethernet cable to office for Internet, and another as a KVM cable extension to streaming PC control station in choir loft area.
- and then do an in ceiling Ethernet cable run for the PTZ camera to sound closet (and install PoE switch in there)
Due to age of building and nature/style of construction, an Ethernet cable from the office to the back of the sanctuary is not going to cheap (I've done a SWAG of at least $1,000 to do it right, but maybe we'll get lucky??). I suspect we will 'punt' initially and simply lay a long Ethernet cable thru the sanctuary along edge of walls, up and over door, etc to sound closet to start until fund-raising can pay for construction/conduit/cable. We could try WiFi but reliability considerations mean I'm not seriously considering such
Other notes/thoughts
- our church is too small to hit YouTube's 100 subscriber threshold, so Scheduled Facebook Live it is. The benefit of Scheduled live event from a PC (vs Mobile device) is the URL that non-Facebook users can watch live stream, see comments, etc. Works for us
- folks will put up with poor video more that bad audio. So put effort into making sure audio is clean. And that isn't easy as mobile device watchers audio is different than smart TV, computer, external speakers, etc. and I'm not aware of a single audio mix that sounds good for both...so just beware audio mix can be a tricky compromise. We started by making sure mobile device users can hear OK, then as people adjusted, we focused on a better mix overall, which meant mobile users will hear better with a headset, external powered speakers, etc
From a budget perspective, our fundraising goal is US$6K, of which we raised over $4,500 so far. Which covers the PC, camera, and some cables, audio adapter, etc.
Other considerations is having a digital usher. Many members, especially the elderly, won't know online etiquette, including security considerations (like the other day when I had to hide/delete someone posting their personal ph#). And many folks have tech issues and don't know enough to determine whether issue on streaming end on theirs. So I found it really important to have someone else handling 'usher' duties while I focused on stream. And then the usher would SMS message me if there was something I needed to know.
- side thought.... depending on local considerations, you might be able to 'fund raise' by recording special events. For us, many priests don't
video cameras, etc during weddings, etc. The PTZ cameras provide a discrete option for video recording such events, and maybe you can 'charge' for that service to help offset cost of equipment purchase?
Ah the joy of having spare time, and having spent a LOT of time on this over recent months. Anyway my 2 cents,
I've actually got more, but this is WAY too much already...
