SONY RM-BR300 Serial PTZ Joystick Review
In this video, we review the SONY RM-BR300 Serial PTZ Joystick shown with the PTZOptics cameras in a daisy-chain multi-camera configuration. This joystick has a bunch of great features including a LED light up button panel, twist knobs for iris, focus and brightness among others.
SONY RM-BR300
We demonstrate the value of this SONY VISCA joystick and then move into the differences between the SONY PTZ joystick and the HuddleCamHD HC-JOY-G2 joystick controller. The HuddleCamHD joystick is less than 1/3 the cost of the SONY joystick. It has only 4 hot swappable buttons for camera control switching but can actually control more cameras with the address buttons.
SONY PTZ Joystick Controller
SONY PTZ Joystick Buttons & Knobs
I really like the backlit buttons on the SONY PTZ Joystick and the ability to use twisting knobs. The knobs can be mapped to camera features such as Brightness, Exposure and Focus. I feel like knobs are more intuitive to control camera adjustments than buttons. The buttons have the ability to light up different colors to identify which state the cameras and joystick are in. For example, you can see from the picture above that the joystick is selected on “camera 1”. The joystick buttons change color to help the operator quickly know where the joystick is.
HuddleCamHD HC-HOY-G2 Review
The HuddleCamHG HC-JOY-G2 joystick is our go-to serial PTZ camera joystick for a lot of reasons. I would argue that it’s more durable than the SONY joystick (you can see it’s already missing a knob) and it’s got a better warranty. The HuddleCamHD joystick is a standards based PTZ joystick meaning it works with VISCA or PELCO. The PTZOptics cameras all support VISCA and PELCO which allows us to connect easily. The interesting difference is that VISCA supports 7 cameras as you can see on the SONY joystick where PELCO can support 200+. So if you are doing a daisy-chained PTZ camera installation with more than 7 cameras the HuddleCamHD HC-JOY-G2 will accommodate PTZ control for the additional PTZ cameras.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, the SONY PTZ joystick is a better product when it comes to side by side features. I really like the feel of each button and the buttons that light up depending on the status of the cameras. I really like the knobs as well which are really easy to operate when fine tuning something like brightness or focus. It’s much easier to control a focus pull. With that being said many of us our on a budget and the HC-JOY-G2 from HuddleCamHD performs almost all the same functionality as the SONY PTZ joystick for quite a lot less. I really like the size of and feel of the RM-BR300 but the HC-JOY-G2 joystick feels good in my hand as the joystick. I will say the SONY joystick is a little longer and the HuddleCamHD joystick head is a little shorter. Other than that you will find that these joysticks perform equally in many scenarios.
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