Setup Advise Wanted - New to OBS and NDI Cameras

[VLHOA]

I manage (or rather "try to" manage) hybrid Zoom meetings for my community in a theatre seating 200.
As you might imagine, trying to manage these with only 3 laptops over a 100 Mbps WiFi network is an absolute disaster, so I was able to get my HOA's approval to invest a few thousand in the equipment needed to permanently set up the room.

My issue is understanding what I need to do regarding the video equipment and setup of both the hardware and software.

We're permanently installing a high quality PC with Nivia graphics card, and will run Zoom from there, with USB audio input from our Midas M32 sound board, which has a card installed .
We've decided on 2 SMTAV 30x NDI cameras due to price, and will connect them to Netgear POE + switches.

1. How can I get these connected without ethernet from the sound booth to stage ? Should I invest in Netgear Airbridge, something else, or just pay someone to run the ethernet cable ?

2. Aside from this group's advise on the physical setup, and suggestions on hardware/ software configuration and/ or best practices for running Hybrid Zoom with OBS Studio will be greatly appreciated.....

Thanks in advance for your input and support !!!

Ed

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

I understand about price on NDI cameras, but sometimes you get what you pay for. You'll want to pay attention to latency consistency and lowlight performance

In general, if you can avoid a wireless connection, you are better off. period. most folks aren't doing real-time frequency spectrum utilization monitoring, so if something goes sideways you'll have no idea why, which may be tolerable in same cases but almost never in a 'live' situation
In my environment, we have our sound board in a closet, but really needed to be seated elsewhere. So I left the new OBS PC in closet, and used a 50ft DisplayPort fiber optic cable, then using DP MST, daisy-chained a 2nd DP monitor. Then for keyboard and mouse, I got a 50ft Active USB cable, and both work great. Longer DP cables are easy to find. You might want a remote KVM type solution for greater cable distances for keyboard and mouse.

As for your situation - a key question would be
- how often will this setup be done? (ie is laying cable on floor and taping for a once every 6 months setup acceptable, vs a couple times a week)?
- what are cable routing options? and associated cable length from mixer to PC?
You could go analog or digital audio connection, from mixer to OBS PC [sorry I'm not familiar with Midas M32].
Or, does the mixer already have a Dante Ethernet interface installed/licensed? If yes, then Ethernet would be my recommendation due to cable length considerations, ability to use that cable for other things should the desire arise, and more

As for PC OS (operating system), I'd say beware default settings of Microsoft that are focused on eye-candy vs performance. It may be a non-issue now, but I always like to have a clean running system, so my preference is disabling processes not in use, turning off certain eye-candy/features, etc.

And I'm a bit thrown by meetings in theater and spending big bucks. I'm guessing system will also be used for recording/streaming theater performances (not just Zoom meetings)? I say this, as the placement setup for a theater performance, with OBS streaming PC out of sight I'm assuming, will be different, and do you need to accommodate both with this same hardware?

 

[VLHOA]

I understand about price on NDI cameras, but sometimes you get what you pay for. You'll want to pay attention to latency consistency and lowlight performance

In general, if you can avoid a wireless connection, you are better off. period. most folks aren't doing real-time frequency spectrum utilization monitoring, so if something goes sideways you'll have no idea why, which may be tolerable in same cases but almost never in a 'live' situation
In my environment, we have our sound board in a closet, but really needed to be seated elsewhere. So I left the new OBS PC in closet, and used a 50ft DisplayPort fiber optic cable, then using DP MST, daisy-chained a 2nd DP monitor. Then for keyboard and mouse, I got a 50ft Active USB cable, and both work great. Longer DP cables are easy to find. You might want a remote KVM type solution for greater cable distances for keyboard and mouse.

As for your situation - a key question would be
- how often will this setup be done? (ie is laying cable on floor and taping for a once every 6 months setup acceptable, vs a couple times a week)?
- what are cable routing options? and associated cable length from mixer to PC?
You could go analog or digital audio connection, from mixer to OBS PC [sorry I'm not familiar with Midas M32].
Or, does the mixer already have a Dante Ethernet interface installed/licensed? If yes, then Ethernet would be my recommendation due to cable length considerations, ability to use that cable for other things should the desire arise, and more

As for PC OS (operating system), I'd say beware default settings of Microsoft that are focused on eye-candy vs performance. It may be a non-issue now, but I always like to have a clean running system, so my preference is disabling processes not in use, turning off certain eye-candy/features, etc.

And I'm a bit thrown by meetings in theater and spending big bucks. I'm guessing system will also be used for recording/streaming theater performances (not just Zoom meetings)? I say this, as the placement setup for a theater performance, with OBS streaming PC out of sight I'm assuming, will be different, and do you need to accommodate both with this same hardware?

Thank you for posting !!!

Cameras will definitely be wired, and if a WiFi device like the Airbridge is not a good long-term solution, we will paya vendor 1K to run 3 cat 6 cables from our sound booth to the stage, which is a 150 ft run.

The Sound Board has a USB card for audio out, does have a Dante ethernet interface option, however I do not know if one is installed, nor what I would need to do with it.

The sound board, PC, and network switch will all be within 25 ft of each other.
One camera will be within the same area, and the other will be on stage, viewing the audience.

We will not be using this to stream theatrical or musical events. Only board meetings and seminars, which could be as often as 100 times monthly.

I'm not sure if any additional DP-MST would be needed in this setup, as we already have the capability to simultaneously display PC output to a monitor in the sound booth, and to 2 projectors that feed two screens in the room.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

That's expensive for the cable runs in general, but not knowing specifics, I won't say anything further, other than cable cost tends to be a small fraction of cost (largely labor), so my recommendation would be to get better cable (ie CAT6a, maybe even shielded to be on safe side if uncertain about possible electrical wiring run interference ... not supposed to run Ethernet close and in parallel with electrical wire [sometimes hard to avoid].

You mentioned getting audio from mixer to stage (I presumed OBS PC), but now you mention PC within 25 of mixer, but 150ft cable run to stage?
so.. not sure the actual layout here.. so various comments
- I would NOT even try to run audio over a 150ft long USB cable (spec is 6ft, longer is possible with active (vs passive) but at that distance... not worth the headache in my opinion unless you have specific knowledge and time to test). A Dante interface gives you a relative 'standard' for running Audio over Ethernet (and here my knowledge ends).
- running analog audio over 25ft (and longer) is no problem at all (presuming good quality cables, and capable of avoiding electrical interface with cable routing/placement)

One thing to consider, and one that is a source of minor frustration for me now, regarding audio:
- It is common (and usually desirable) to have a slightly different audio mix for in-room/in-house vs livestream audience. I have a number of mics that get livestream, which are NOT amplified for in-house. [then again I'm dealing with more than conversational speech]
ymmv
- I am getting an analog stereo output from our mixer (Presonus) into OBS PC, which means it is all or nothing [ie, whatever mixer output is, is what OBS will use, you can't get selective on mics. And in our case, it is a sub-mix, not the main mix]
- There are plenty of times it would be really nice to be able to Mute (or Boost) selected Mic(s)
- like many more recent mixers, our AR12 has a USB interface. However, the default expectation appears to be to connect that USB audio input into PC into Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software. It is common for DAW software to NOT output to the Windows Audio subsystem [ie, can't use as input into OBS.. I'll skip the annoying technical details of why], with the common workaround to use a loopback setup (physical or virtual)
I bring this up in case you need to Mute the audience (or other) mic for whatever reason... but leave the others on. If someone is at the mixer, then that person can adjust on the mixer directly, no problem. But, if the mixer is not 'manned' full-time during livestream, and is physically distant, having the option on the streaming computer to adjust mic volume/levels will come in [really] handy..
just food for thought

DP-MST was a god-send for us, as it allowed a single, long fiber-optic cable to drive 2 monitors that were 50ft away from PC. Understood that there are plenty of scenarios/setups (most) where that wouldn't be helpful/applicable. However, depending on your setup and broadcast content, a single monitor can be very limiting. For us, we have OBS, the stream environment (FB in our case) preview (also acting as digital usher), and we use PowerPoint and combine with PTZ camera. All of that is one screen, with software-based PTZ controls on a 2nd monitor. DAW s/w would also be on 2nd screen once I set that up. Could I drive this all from 1 monitor? Sure... and make plenty of more mistakes... again, ymmv depending on setup, content to broadcast, and training