Using PTZ Cameras with vMix for your live productions and live streams.

[Music] hi everyone this video today is going to take a look at using PTZ cameras in a live video production now first of all I just need to address the elephant in the room against my better judgment I'm going to be using the American Z instead of the proper English Z so PT Z as opposed to PT said now you may have heard a lot of people talking about PTZ cameras and wondered what are they going on about what is the PTZ camera do I need that for my live production so hopefully in this video will help to answer some of those questions and show you how to use it in live video now as a live streaming becomes more popular PTZ cameras have also grown in popularity due to their functionality and their flexibility they are more expensive than your typical consumer or prosumer camera so keep that in mind when weighing up your pros and cons one of the cool features in vmix is the ability to actually control certain PTZ cameras directly from the interface which means it really adds to their functionality ok so PT Z is short for pan tilt and zoom and refers to cameras that allow you to control these aspects remotely without a camera person so traditionally cameras need an operator on them at all times but PTZ cameras allow you to control them completely remotely this makes them great cameras for small production teams that might not have the luxury of camera operators or for camera positions that are really hard to reach if you're using the IP stream or MDI from the camera you may also only need one cable as a lot of PTZ cameras can be powered just by using a network cable using power over ethernet or Pio II but keep in mind if you want to use peoe you would need a POS switch now perhaps the most common use for them it's just for productions that need multiple angles from cameras and zooms so they have a single camera or they have multiple PTZ cameras that allow them to create 10 20 30 different shots in their production there are also a heap of popular applications for using PTZ cameras a lot of people use them in house of worship where they might have a small volunteer team where they can have multiple cameras set up and multiple angles on those cameras as well we've used it in our studio before we have them set up now and they're really good for being able to just sit here at our desk and be able to control them without having to get up each time and control them a lot of people use them in sporting situations where they can set up cameras that are completely remote from where the controller or the production team is they can maneuver them around lecture situations where you have them at conferences in universities and schools they're really good for that as well so there's a a really wide range of applications for using PTZ cameras now PTZ cameras come in all shapes and sizes colors connections prices and quality just like normal cameras PTZ cameras can be assessed based on your production needs for example if you have a HDMI based production then you'll need a camera that supports HDMI output or perhaps you need a certain frame rate or resolution each camera will have a spec sheet that will let you know exactly what they do support in our office we have models ranging from Panasonic Sony pgz optics lumens NewTek but there are many more that are available on the market now the ones that we have in the office here are special because they actually have a V Max control for these certain models which is something that we'll go through a little bit later on now as you can see on these cameras they each have different connector types PTZ cameras can have a vast array of connections some models can even support multiple ways to connect you'll see SDI HDMI USB and a network port as well so there's a connector pretty much for everyone's workflow there are even now nd I hate checks base connections so you can connect your cameras straight into your network for low latency and high quality video for your live production as we mentioned before you can control certain PTZ cameras directly within V mix over the network this is available in the 4k and Pro editions so now we're going to go into V mix and we're going to take a look okay so I have my basic setup here today Homer according my main output here and I've got another camera up here as well as you can see in a bit of a multi view with my green screen for my backdrop and my microphone those type of things so it's just kind of a basic production that we've got set up so now I'm going to go through and I'm going to add my PTZ camera I'm going to get my camera and I'm going to go to the section that it's oh sorry I'm going to go to the capture card it's plugged into which is this aja input to now we have actually connected the camera via SDI so that's what we've got connected here and we're going to click OK so as you can see now it's coming to our production and we have our camera going in via SDI into a capture card into this production here ready to use so one of the things like we mentioned before you can actually have multiple connections from this particular camera so this is a PBS the optics camera which means that we can connect as an SDI connector HDMI connector and because there's a network port we can also use an IP stream from it or we could use ndia checks with their upgrades which are probably available now if you're watching this in the future but they're coming very soon so as it's got that network port for IP streaming in India HX it also means that we can control it over the local network so we've been built in the ability to control those certain cameras within vmix directly over the local network so we're going to have a quick look at that now so we've got our camera input here it's been connected to our AJ a capture card here via the SDI port so if we go into the settings here now the little cog icon will open up the settings for your input so as you can see here we could go ahead and name this so we've given that a name and that type of thing but as we go down the left-hand side here we can find a PTZ section so we'll click on the PTZ section now what that does is the PTZ section here is where we can control it directly from our BMX interface so first of all you will need to select the device type so we've got a PT z 12x camera here so we are going to select PTZ optics this guy UDP so depending on what camera that you've got will depend on the connection for the device type so say we had our Sony plugged in or a Panasonic plugged in we would need to select those protocols when connecting if you're not sure about that you can check out our website or you can check with the manufacturer as well the next thing you'll need to do is work out the IP address for the camera now typically when you buy a PTZ camera you will get a utility with it that will allow you to connect and assign an IP address so we already know what our IP address is for this particular camera so we're going to plug that in so that's a local IP address that has been assigned to this camera again if you're not sure check with your manufacturer how to find this out then we just need to click connect now as you can see all of these buttons here are now available once we've connected so directly from vmix we can now start controlling the camera so we can move it up down we can move it all around we can change the speed in which we're moving we control the zoom as well we control the speed of the zoom if we want to so we can do a lot of different things all of these functions in here are mapable within our shortcuts as well so instead of just using this interface here if you wanted to use your own controller you can set that up as well which we'll go into a little bit more detail soon now you'll notice on the right-hand side here there's a focus section unfortunately the focus section is only currently available for Sony visca over IP so it's not available in this particular connection so just keep that in mind as well so that's available for the Sony cameras and the new tech PT z1 which connects in the same way now we're going to talk about the ways you can control your PTZ camera in phoenix with shortcuts now if you've used vmix before you'll know that we have over 300 shortcuts that are available to you to use just by pressing a button so you can press a button on a keyboard on any midi controller x keys or even an xbox remote to perform a function in v mix so that could be anything from to a camera starting recording and streaming or anything you want to do in your BMX production and the PTZ controls are no different so we're going to show you how to set that up now okay so to access shortcuts in V mix you can go down the bottom here and click Edit or you can go to settings which will bring up this window and then you can click shortcuts now down the bottom you'll see an add button so if you click the Add button it will allow you to assign a shortcut to a key on a keyboard MIDI control or X Keys device so now we're going to select the key so we can just use the a key there's a drop down menu for keyboard keys or you can click the find button which will help you find a button on a keyboard or in a mini control X keys or Xbox so we're just going to select a just for an example quickly now in the function menu this is where you can choose what happens when you press the key so if we go down and we select PTZ we can choose any of the options that we have available to us in the PTZ controls so that's anything from you know creating an input that will be showing you next we can creating shortcuts to move it around now down down left down right so everything that you saw on the control panel in the PTZ options so the little angles to move them to different locations you can choose a button to move them there's a home button so you can move that back to Center and I ends oming and that type of thing as well so these are all available in the function so we're just going to select home for an example now for the input we can choose to use the preview but we can set it also to active hover we could go to the cameras s what we're going to do we're going to select this particular camera to do the shortcuts on we can give it a title description we can make it a local shortcut which means that the shortcut is saved to this preset it's not saved globally to vmix so when you load up this preset this shortcut will load up so you want any more information about our shortcuts video sauron shortcuts you can check out the video on youtube now finally down the bottom showing web controller now if you tick this box it means that the shortcuts available on the vmix web controller again we have a V Max web controller video as well if you'd like to check that out but in short what it does it is allows you to load up a browser on a tablet or an iPhone or something and allows you to control vmix from that so you can set up shortcuts for your PTZ cameras and you could have somebody sitting in the audience controlling the camera just connected to the network and pressing buttons to say up-down left-right zoom in zoom out so that's a pretty cool feature if you want to use that so we're just going to click OK now as you can see when we press the a button it's going the PTZ camera is going to move to the home section and it's going to work on our ptzoptics camera so we're gonna click ok down here once we've set that up we want to add it let's click OK now we're just going to go back in here we'll move this around and then what we'll do is we'll press the a key right here and it will move back to our main area so if we go back into the shortcuts again now one of the things to keep in mind when setting up shortcuts is that when you say press a button to move left it needs to know to stop because the function just goes left it doesn't automatically stop so it's a little bit difficult on the keyboard you would need to set up a key for movement and a key for stopping as well however it's a little bit easier on a MIDI controller or an X keys and I'll show you how to set that up now so I have got a giant MIDI controller set up here well there it is and so if I press a button on it I'm gonna press this button here now because I'm holding it down it has a different velocity so I'm holding it down to 127 we'll click OK and what I'm going to do is I'm going to go to the PTZ options and I'm going to say move it right so I'm going to use that for my camera and then I'm going to click ok down the bottom so if I press the button now it's just going to continue to move the camera right which is not really what I want what I wanted to do is I wanted to stop as well so what I can do is I can go to add again fine and I can press the same key but I'm not going to hold it down so when the button is pressed it's going to move and when I release it it's going it to stop so PTC and then I'm going to select the move stop function so it stops the PTZ movement I'm gonna select my camera and I'm just going to click ok so now when I preview it's on the same button it's using a different velocity so when I push down it's going to move and when I push up when I take my finger off it's going to stop so let's try that out now so I'm gonna push down this button here hold it down and then lift it and it stops hold down let's done so that's something that you can use when you've got your MIDI controller or an X Keys like the X Keys joystick you can have the center to stop you can move it and then stop so that's that's an option so yeah so as I alluded to you can use MIDI controllers you could set this up to go up down left right you could do all sorts of stuff with it on the buttons and you can also use something like an X Keys joystick that we have here so you could set up the joystick to move the the camera around and then you could use all these buttons here you know for zoom for cutting to cameras and all sorts of stuff in your actual production as well so you could set up a production so switch camera start streaming recording titles and stuff on these buttons have a couple for PTZ and have joystick movement as well for the camera so those were some quick examples on how you can use any MIDI controller X keys or your keyboard to control the PTZ cameras in vmix now another cool thing is that we have the ability to use an Xbox remote for it so you can use an Xbox 360 controller an Xbox one controller we use the hardwired USB ones for our production and you can use these to control your PTZ cameras in your production now these work similar to any other MIDI or X keys so you can actually use other buttons here to control your production as well so use the joysticks for the cameras but use a couple of the other buttons to switch cameras overlay titles start streaming and recording too so we're going to go to the shortcut section in V mix we're going to go to edit now you can see the ones that we've already set up for those MIDI controllers I'm just gonna click Add to add another one now we can move these joystick click find first and we can move this joystick around to set any PTZ option we can press the buttons anything we want to do to add a PTC function to it however we're going to go out and actually use a template so we have some templates built into vmix for certain things so we have this 4 and Xbox controller so as you can see we've got the left or the right joystick here is used for all of the camera movement and this other joystick here is used for zooming and that type of thing we have a couple of buttons here that can be used as well so you can have a look at this if you want to use this you can click apply and this will load up all of these shortcuts onto your Xbox controller now again you don't have to do this you can then go in and edit them however you like it's just an easy way to add a lot and use it in the templated way so what you can do then is you can start using it in your production now these are assigned to a preview again you could set these up you could edit them to assign them to a different input say a specific camera but what a lot of people like to do is is they like to move the PTZ camera into the preview and then that way they can use the controller to control the preview and then switch it when it's ready so I'll show you how that works now so we'll click OK to add those and so now as you grab my Xbox controller and I start moving it around like so so we've got the this joystick here moving it left and right and then we have this one to zoom in and zoom out and then I could set other functions to different keys as well I think that's the HOME key so we can zoom that back in and move it around ok so that's how you set up your Xbox controller so a lot of people have them lying around so you've everyone lying around and plug it in and try it out with them it's a really cost effective way to add control to your production now there are other ways to control a PTZ camera different manufacturers will provide hardware that you can use to control them and that type of thing so there's a few different ways there's also ways to control them via web interfaces so this is the PTZ optics example of a web interface where you can actually connect to the camera you can make changes to color brightness math type of stuff as well as make changes to where the camera actually is and different information about the camera so I can use the web interface as well to move things around so that's something else to consider for camera control so one of the cool features about the ptc functionality in vmix is that you're actually able to create different camera angles from the one camera so that's the beauty of a PTZ camera so in v-max you can go through and you can create all these different camera angles and different shots and add them as their very own input in vmix just like you had 810 different cameras and that the cool thing is is that you can set up shortcuts on your MIDI X keys Xbox controller to then switch to those if you want to use a shortcut obviously you can just click to it in the remix interface but you can also use shortcuts for that as well so now we're going to show you how to set up these different camera angle presets in V mix okay so preset shots allow you to create multiple multiple camera shots using the PTZ presets on it so I move a camera I can set it to that shot move it to a different point set it at that shot so within your show you can just click on the different preset shots and the camera will automatically move to those shots for you which makes it really easy if you don't have a an additional camera person to create multiple angles multiple zooms and shots from your particular camera okay so now we're going to show you how to set those up so what I need to do is go to the PTZ section again I can move it around where I want to so say I want a close-up of let's say the cameras I can set that up to that particular point and then I click create input at this position so that's going to create that input then I can say move back to the home area you can move this around to this side doesn't I can click create input so now I have two additional inputs created now if we take a look at the interface now we've also got the setup so we've got our main camera which is our peaches the optics camera here but then we have another two camera angles that we can use in our production so you may want to rename these to make it easier for you to recognize so we could call this Kam's probably and then we can call this one right because it's right of things kind of in a way so those are the shots set up now so what if what happens is I click on our main camera then I click on this shot here it will move to our shot that we have here if I click on this one it will move back to that so that's how you can set up multiple shots within vmix just from the one camera and then switch between them as you need to now another quick way of doing that is by going to the PTZ camera you've got setup and then right clicking the gear icon and then creating an input at a particular position so if we go to the etz section we move it around a bit put it over here I don't have to necessarily create input here I can right-click it here and create an input at this position so that's another way of adding a camera shot to it and then you can go in there and you could rename it as well so that's how you can create different inputs or different camera angles from the PTZ camera in Phoenix move the camera to the right position that you want you don't have to use the interface you obviously you can use your xbox controller or however else you controlling your camera and then you can set the different positions and then save them in vmix so you can use them next time okay so we've shown you how to control the camera and how to connect to SDI HDMI and that type of thing but now we're going to go over some other ways to connect the video and audio from your camera now recently ndia checks has been available on certain cameras so it's built into some cameras and some you can upgrade as well so NDI allows you to add video and audio over a local network using the NDI standard which for those that know we're pretty big fans of and it's a great way to add stuff to your production now you need more information about that you can check it out on our website or watch any of our other videos so basically if I go to add input I'll be able to see any NDI available things on our network so we have this awh e-40 camera which is this camera right here which is Panasonic and that's got some firmware upgrades so it works with NDI so if I click ok then I'll be able to bring in this camera directly into our production so that's one way that you can bring it in again that's using a single cable so it's been powered via power over ethernet and then it's bringing the video signal as well of our MDI HX now in order to control it we still need to use the PTZ options here so if we select the Panasonic option and I believe that's the IP address for it and we can connect up this camera and move it around as well in vmix now there are some NDI controls for PTZ but currently they aren't able to perform the same functions as the v-max positioning and different functions that we use for the v-max so unfortunately it's not supported at the moment if that changes in the future we can then add that to v-max and probably another would be another video about it but most of these cameras will support even though they're ndia checks they will probably support one of the protocols we have Envy mix for example the Panasonic one the the new tech one has supports Sony visca over IP and then PTC optics ones supports the PTC optics connection as well so there are a lot of lot of ways to to actually control the PTZ camera without using the NDI HX controller so most PTZ cameras will actually allow you to send an IP stream from them via RTSP so not only can you have you know the hard wired connections STI hdmi USB and the o HX now with some of them but most of them will allow you to do an RTSP stream that can be picked up in V mix so we're going to show you now how to send that from a camera so we've got our Panasonic camera here and we're going to go to add input and then we're going to go to stream now we're going to select the VLC down the bottom here as we can add a bunch of different types of streams and then you're going to need to know the IP sorry the URL for the RTSP from the camera now you can check with your manufacturer to see what this URL is going to be so this Panasonic camera is then going to push out the RTSP video from the camera into our production so we're just going to click OK here as you can see here that's video is now coming in via an RT SP IP stream into our video production okay so one thing that I did want to cover is how to best use a PTZ camera if you only have one now PTZ cameras are designed in order to switch between their shots and maneuvers as quick as possible so if you set multiple preset camera shots as inputs and vmix it's going to try and move to them as quick as it can so we have added some things in remix to control the position speed here however most cameras will ignore this and the cameras that it does work with only works with the pan and tilt and the zoom is still really quick so unfortunately there isn't much we can do about that we've tried to add some things in there but unfortunately it still looks a little bit weird unfortunately it's just how PTZ cameras work so what we recommend doing is setting up a second shot in your production so if you've got even just a webcam that you could use a wide-angle shot for a GoPro or something like that or you could even use just a still image maybe it's still image with some text that you could cross to before making the changes on the camera so I'll show you what I mean by that so let's just say we have this camera shot here we want to change the camera angle we could switch to our our webcam or a wide-angle shot and then we could go ahead and we could make changes to that and then bring it across so that's just a way to be able to not show the movement of the camera transition and then transition back to the shot that we want okay so that is a lot of information regarding PTZ control in V mix different connections for PTZ cameras how you can use the controller how you can bring in a stream how you can use nd ihx with these cameras so finally we do have a list on our website regarding all of the different specific PTZ cameras that are directly controllable in V mix now obviously there are other PTZ cameras that will work you just plug them in via SD our USB however else you want to buy there are only certain ones that are controllable via V mix it's quite a big list we have a lot of the popular different models that are available to be purchased so we have you know Panasonic Sony Peters the optics lumens NewTek Sony if I haven't already said that so we have a lot that are available that work directly within vmix so here is a list that we have on our website you know you can go to our website to check out a little bit more later on those specific models now some people ask us well why doesn't my old camera work or why doesn't this work it's because in vmix we need to be able to control it over a local network so it definitely needs to be you know web enabled and all of the models that we have on our website are and we are able to work with them over using a specific protocol so that's why those ones are on our website and other ones aren't now if you have any questions at all about PTZ control PVC cameras and that type of thing feel free to send us an email via our website there's a support page with an email that allows you to send us an email with any questions that you might have and don't forget to check out the website with the PTC cameras on it because it's very important not to just rush out and buy one but if you want to control it in vmix definitely check out that list and and try out one of those cameras now another thing to keep in mind is that the veneks trial that we have if we have a free 60 day trial and that is for the pro edition so if you want to try out vmix with your ptc cameras you can use that trial for 60 days for free with no watermarks and test it out with your PTZ cameras in your productions again thanks for watching this video today if you have any further questions email us check out our forums and our website as well so we'll see you on the next video and um catch you later click to watch another exciting V mix tutorial [Music]

Channel: vMix

Views: 100,874

Rating: 4.8563328 out of 5

Keywords: vMix, live streaming software, webcasting, live video production, video switcher, live production software, PTZ Optics, NDI|HX, PTZ camera tutorial, Lumens PTZ, NewTek PTZ1, Panasonic AW HE 40, vMix PTZ, PTZ vMix

Id: EFi9ovpXjq0

Length: 28min 31sec (1711 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 01 2018