Our church is growing and changing cameras ! Need some help !

M

merlin02131

Member
Good Morning Folks

Out with one video Camera connected via an HDMI to a pc thats worked for over 2 years !

Moving up in the world here as my Church client wants to run a Sony 300H or a PTZ Optics on Blue Iris software

Camera # 1 SONY 30X PTZ DESKTOP/CEIL MNT CAM/BK HOUSE/REG

Or

Our second choice :

Camera #2 PTZ Optics PTZOPTICS 30X OPTICAL ZOOM SDI HDMI IP STREAMING

Anyone know of any issues ? ?

We rebuilt the network as these will be hardwired back to the PC then over a wireless or wired connection ( Want to test out a wireless downstairs about 10 feet form a gig Access point then out to a 300 meg down / 30 meg up via a Peplink Router with the comcast router set as a modem only . ( I dumped the comcast router asits really bad in managing the network .. I cannot see anymore than 5 meg out at broadcasting one camera at a time ( Mind you we can now increase possibly to 1080P with 60 FPS !

I also purchased a new high end pc built especially for gaming and video for this as well as new cameras with hardware and want to continue using OBS as I love the product !

SDI/HDMI will be the new stream to the PC as we purchased all of the hardware to equip the new pc , boards cables adapters SDI to HDMI Converter etc.
ALL new hardware package from B and H Video in New York City !

Any help would be greatly appreciated !

Thanks

Regards

Rich
 
With all that, why in the world stick to SDI/HDMI? granted tried and true, but really limiting and end-of-the-line tech
I went with NDI PTZ as I could then run a single cable for video and power (PoE/Power-over-Ethernet) in a cable run up to 100m. And then you can add cameras and all on same network, etc. It does help to be network savvy when dealing with NDI, but nothing that complicated

As for PTZ cameras, I made the same eval 18 months ago. At that time, I went with Panasonic AW-HN38 (1080p) for the following reasons:
- lead time on PTZOptics was much longer, and for basically same price the PTZ Optics had lower quality PTZ motors (unable to move diagonally, not as smooth/quiet, etc). Pro to PTZ optics is plug-in for OBS, and support that can really address HoW environments.
- Sony PTZ units are more expensive and I could NOT find anything that justified the extra cost for a HoW scenario.

If you can go into B&H to their PTZ demo center (which I've seen online), and see difference in camera controls, movement, low light image quality, then I'd advise that. Typically a HoW is not that well lit, so image quality in lower-light is an important factor. Then do they really need 30X? At 50ft from camera to alter [liturgical style environment], a 20/22X zoom is plenty (which is what we have).

A nicety with Panasonic is their free Virtual USB driver that takes camera's NDI video feed and makes it appear as locally connected USB camera, so I don't have to deal with NDI Tools or other plug-ins to get native NDI feed into OBS.
There are now a number of no-name NDI PTZ cameras for about 1/2 price. For me the real concern is likely lack of support/firmware updates? And I'm assuming PTZOptics, prior generation, quality mechanicals and optics. so depends on budget. We are tight on funds and would love a 2nd camera, but mixing PTZ vendors at this point complicates stream operator's job (or costs money to get a nice PTZ controller than can handle both vendors at same time).

so, that's my $0.02
 
I started with a PTZ @ 1080. Replaced it with a 4K and use pieces of the image for different views. My suggestion if you're going to go PTZ, get 2. Don't pan and zoom live. If the pan is too fast, it will make people sea-sick. If it's too slow, it looks bad. And then after the camera finishes panning, it needs to set the zoom and refocus. it's distracting.
 
AsherN said:
I started with a PTZ @ 1080. Replaced it with a 4K and use pieces of the image for different views. My suggestion if you're going to go PTZ, get 2. Don't pan and zoom live. If the pan is too fast, it will make people sea-sick. If it's too slow, it looks bad. And then after the camera finishes panning, it needs to set the zoom and refocus. it's distracting.
Click to expand...
We have a single camera and we do pan/tilt/zoom live... agreed, not ideal, but I came up with motion settings that my viewers tell me looks professional.
Without an expensive memory tracking preset PTZ controller, my solution was to create wide angle presets for Lectern, Alter, Pulpit, etc, and then matching zoomed in presets. Going from zoomed in at lectern, for example, we zoom out, then pan/tilt to new location, then zoom back in by selecting presets, and selecting the next preset before motion finishes until in desired position (so a continuous motion).
As for setting zoom and focus, for us (on the Panasonic, the zoom is handled as part of the PTZ move, and auto-focus is instantaneous, even in low-light. It did take me a while to find the right Pan/Tilt motion speed to look good. And trying to adjust/fine tune zoom level does get distracting for viewers, so we try in most circumstances to move the camera ONLY using the presets (so a single motion then done)
Again, I'm agreeing that having an alternate camera view and not have to show motion would be preferred. BUT... at least in out set up, we are fine with single camera, so I'm sure others could do the same

Note, my solution is using an upper-end (and expensive) PTZ camera. ymmv depending on make and model of camera and I suspect that in many cases you get what you pay for. I wish I could get some hands on time with other setups, as I suspect I over-paid for our needs (but it was the safe choice under the circumstances) and I have no regrets.
 
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1) You may want to keep the older camera connected via an HDMI, to use when you want to change the pan/tilt/zoom settings on the new camera.

2) I would stick with 30 fps for now unless you have a lot of rapid movements happening on video. Your data stream will be smaller and I think you will be less likely to drop frames.
 
One thing to be cautious of is mixing video input technology because you run a greater risk of varying video latency which can get really complicated to sync.
 
Hey Everyone ! Thanks for the great input !

Apologies for not getting back sooner as even though my email when new posts is on , I never got notified of the comments !

We ended up with PTZ Optics 30X Cameras (2 ) Back Magic design box and a serial cable from the camera(s) control unit for the ptz , looks like stuff we possibly did not need too , and they are fantastic ! The wiring was tough as you need 3 cables to each camera ( Cat 6 ethernet for power -Coax for the SDI/HDMI - and a serial cable for control ) . I have one completely installed and the second one having to drill thru concrete and install molding for a wall , I'll finish that part up this next Saturday .
I set up a pc downstairs and wired everything back to it . The video is absolutely incredible as we stream out to you tube .

However :

One issue I am having is the audio . I cannot get it to work so I'll be working on that this week ! I set up a stream but it fails to turn on as I put in a shotgun microphone on the camera to test but no matter what I do I cannot get an audio stream ! I'll be working that this week as well as I was upset today that we could not stream the new camera with no audio . Any tips will be appreciated as I scoured obs an
ptzoptics for setup info but nothing seems to work ! But not sure why I cannot enable the audio stream .. I'll continue to search online also ...

My audio guy is bringing in 2 mic lines from the audio equipment hopefully this week so We can get the mics directly into the black magic design control box ( Mic 1 and Mic 2 inputs )
PTZ Optics camera via SDI/HDMI/Black magic design box hdmi connection into the pc .
I have to start playing around with the ptz zoom and presets as time goes on ! We have one camera in the back of the church facing the altar and the other ( Not installed yet ) looking over the alter at the front of the church .

Any tips would be greatly appreciate as I promise I'll log in every day and check the comments !
Again Thank You for the great info !

Regards

Rich
 
Ah, the joy of audio. the area I struggled with the most
For me, Iin OBS, I disabled all of the Global Audio inputs (in OBS Settings). Then I added an Audio Input Source for our sound system.
- Now, to get this to work requires understanding the are various standards for mics, and PC audio, so you have to match Audio Out gain/level, and the settings on the PC . For us, that meant getting an adapter that could adjust the Sub-audio out from the mixer, and then using a particular 3.5mm Audio In port on the PC (there were 2, 1 worked, the other we couldn't get the level right). And then telling the PC audio Software (realtek) whether it was Line In vs Mic.

Then there is understanding that an Audio mix for in-person and for remote viewers should most likely be different. But get started, you can optimize audio later. But recognize that if audio isn't good, folks won't stick around to watch stream. Audio is key (more than the cameras)
My go to recommendation - For audio (and usually video) - get it working in the Operating System, outside of OBS especially if one is new to OBS. The vast majority of the time, folks are frustrated by complexity and power of OBS, and think something wrong there when in reality it is the processing from source to PC/Windows that needs fixing.

As for multi-cam views, side consideration is privacy and that some folks will have very good reasons to NOT have their face on camera. For those, make sure a space is identified that you don't put on camera

As for notifications, that is in this forums' settings. Or.. maybe in your Watch settings for this thread?
 
Lawrence_SoCal said:
Ah, the joy of audio. the area I struggled with the most
For me, Iin OBS, I disabled all of the Global Audio inputs (in OBS Settings). Then I added an Audio Input Source for our sound system.
- Now, to get this to work requires understanding the are various standards for mics, and PC audio, so you have to match Audio Out gain/level, and the settings on the PC . For us, that meant getting an adapter that could adjust the Sub-audio out from the mixer, and then using a particular 3.5mm Audio In port on the PC (there were 2, 1 worked, the other we couldn't get the level right). And then telling the PC audio Software (realtek) whether it was Line In vs Mic.

Then there is understanding that an Audio mix for in-person and for remote viewers should most likely be different. But get started, you can optimize audio later. But recognize that if audio isn't good, folks won't stick around to watch stream. Audio is key (more than the cameras)
My go to recommendation - For audio (and usually video) - get it working in the Operating System, outside of OBS especially if one is new to OBS. The vast majority of the time, folks are frustrated by complexity and power of OBS, and think something wrong there when in reality it is the processing from source to PC/Windows that needs fixing.

As for multi-cam views, side consideration is privacy and that some folks will have very good reasons to NOT have their face on camera. For those, make sure a space is identified that you don't put on camera

As for notifications, that is in this forums' settings. Or.. maybe in your Watch settings for this thread?
Click to expand...
Thx Lawrence ! Yea being new it is tough to figure these issues out . We are heading over to our church tonight to see if we can bring in a direct audio feed from the Audio equipment to the Black magic design box and create a mic 1 interface . Hopefully this will work and get rid of switchiover from cam 1 to cam 2 also ( something our audio guy mentioned )

I'll let you know how we make out as the Shotgun Mic would not come up as I tried everything to get the unit to work .
 
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