Stream Deck and PTZOptics Camera Control

in this video I'm gonna show you how to program an elgato string deck with companion software and how to use it to control your PTZ optics cameras hello I'm Stephen ballast welcome to my channel where I explore worship Technology Solutions this Elgato stream deck is one of those devices that's come out recently that you're starting to see pop up everywhere I don't think I'll got Onew the goldmine they had created it was originally marketed to gamers to control their live stream while their gaming but it's become an amazing tool for live production especially when you pair it with the open source companion software that extends its ability to control all kinds of production equipment I saw a post on a companion Facebook group that they were using a whole bunch of stream decks to control media playback for the NFL Draft a few weeks ago it's just a really cool versatile tool in this video I'm gonna show you how you can set it up to control your PTZ optics cameras and at the end of this video I'm gonna give you something that you can download from my website that's gonna make it even better and easier I'm probably gonna have several videos about this stream deck because there are really a lot of cool things you can do with it and of course I'm gonna do a full video about this PTZ optics camera how to set it up configure it and what I think some people struggle with with these cameras is how to get the best looking image out of it so if you haven't already be sure and subscribe to my channel so you can catch those videos coming up but for now I just want to show you this really cool integration between the stream deck and PTZ optics cameras I've programmed the stream deck so that I can pretty much have complete control of the camera there is a page of buttons on the stream deck where I can control the pan and tilt zoom in focus a page where I can adjust a lot of the camera's exposure controls another page where I can store camera presets with one button push I would use these pages when I'm setting up my show storing the camera angles that I'm going to use and then finally I have this page where I can recall the presets from three different cameras with the push of the button this is the page I'd use during the actual program so let's talk about how to set this up and how you program the stream deck and then I'm going to show you how you can download this entire configuration that I've made with all the icons and already completely programmed and load that right on to your stream deck let's go through step by step how to set up and program your stream deck with companion software first you need to install the stream deck driver from the elgato website you'll find links to all of this down in the description of this video but we're not going to use their software to configure the stream deck I'm gonna go and download a program called companion this is open source software that's been created to extend the functionality of the stream deck and it has a growing community that's creating modules that allow it to control a wide range of production equipment so once companion is installed plug your stream deck into your computer by its USB cable and start Companion then I'm going to click the launch GUI button this is where we'll configure what the buttons of the stream deck view first we need to create an instance you create an instance for each device that you're going to be controlling so I'll click buy manufacturer find PTC optics and then click PTC optics visca under label I'll give it a name I'll call it camera 1 and then enter the IP address of my camera the PTC optics cameras have an Ethernet port to connect to your network for IP control and in a future video I'll talk all about how to set that up but for now I'm just gonna enter the IP address of this camera one ninety two dot one sixty eight dot v dot 203 and leave the port as default click apply changes and now under instances I'll see my camera and it will show the status with a green ok if I've configured everything successfully and it's communicating with the camera now that we have the camera instance setup the next tab over is where we'll program the functionality of our buttons just click a button and that opens up the programming page for that button you can load a PNG graphic file for the image you want to display or just make it a text button and set colors for the text and background the keydown action is where you program what will happen when the button is pressed in the drop-down we can see our camera instance and all of the commands available that we can use to control it so for example if I choose recall preset they now give me an option of what preset I want to recall I'll choose preset 1 now on my stream deck when I press that button the camera will go to whatever is stored in preset 1 so for the PTZ optics cameras we can program pan tilt zoom focus exposure modes iris shutter and saving and recalling presets depending on what parameter is selected here for our button press there is one thing that might not be completely intuitive when programming the PTZ optics cameras and that is if you program a button for movement zoom or focus let's use pan up as an example when you put that in the key down action and the button is pressed the camera will keep moving until it gets a pan stop command so what we need to do is put the pan stop command in the key up action the key up action is what it will do when the key press is released so now as long as we hold the button down the camera will move and when we release the button it will send the key up action programming which in this case is the pan stop command and the camera will stop moving now you can spend a lot of time programming all the functionality of your camera into these buttons but the good news is I've already done it for you you can download my configuration file from my website and import that into your installation of companion and you'll have this all up and running without really having to do much programming at all so let me show you how to do that you still need to install the elgato driver and companion software just like I've already shown you then download the configuration file from my website and unzip it to your desktop in Companion over here on the far right go to the import-export tab click import and select the file you just unzipped then click replace current configuration and that will bring in all of my programming now this part is important I found that at this point I have to restart companion for the import to take effect so close the browser window and click the close button and companion then launch companion again and all the programming should be there now go to your instance tab and what you need to do is click Edit for each instance of the cameras and enter the actual IP address of your camera and now you should be able to control your cameras with the buttons on the stream deck once you have things programmed using the browser interface you can close that everything is stored in the companion program so you just need that running and your stream deck will work let me walk you through page by page and show you what I've programmed the buttons to do on the first page are your camera preset recall buttons for three cameras it should be pretty self-explanatory the first row is camera one presets the second row is camera two presets and so forth the next page is storing presets so adjust your camera to a position press the store preset one button and that position and zoom have been stored in your camera so now back on my playback page if I press camera one preset one the camera will recall that position page three is individual camera controls the arrows should be pretty obvious they move the camera the plus and minus buttons zoom in and out and this top left button will send the focus far command which will move the focus out the next button down which is focus near will move the focus closer and the bottom button I call spot focus it puts the camera in autofocus as long as I'm holding the button down and then when I release the button it will go back to manual focus these buttons here on the top and bottom right are just quick ways to store preset one and store preset two for this camera while I'm on this page with my camera controls without having to go back to the other page to store them page 4 gives me exposure control for the camera the four button modes across the top will change the exposure mode selecting between manual auto shutter priority and iris priority then down below our buttons I can use to increase or decrease the shutter speed as well as two common shutter speeds I can recall and then over here I can control the iris up and down as well as jump to - iris settings the next pages are just repeats of what you've already seen but for camera 2 & 3 you can tell what camera you're controlling by the number in the center button which is a home position button so it takes the camera back to its home position when you're on the exposure page the numbers across the top will tell you what Tamara you're controlling let me know in the comments if you use this programming for your stream deck I'd love to hear if you're using it and what improvements you've made if you haven't already pick up a stream deck you can find a link to that down in the description of this video they are a really handy tool for live production I'm going to be making a video about using it to control OBS and a video server along with an 8m switcher so be sure and subscribe to my channel until next time bye

Channel: Ballast Media

Views: 23,312

Rating: 4.9633865 out of 5

Keywords: Stream Deck, Streamdeck, PTZOptics, PTZ Optics, livestream, live stream, multi-camera, facebook live, youtube live, multi camera live stream, live stream computer, obs walkthrough, obs tutorial, PTZ Camera, Stream Deck Tutorial, Stream Deck Programming

Id: hpdRs8VJQek

Length: 9min 50sec (590 seconds)

Published: Mon May 20 2019