Jim O’Keefe on Television to Live Streaming plus RS-232 vs IP Joystick Controllers
Jim O’Keefe has 28 years of broadcast television experience working on projects that you would know such as: Happy Days, Full House, Step by Step, Family Matters (with Steve Erkle) and many more. He is know retired and as he explains it “I have been biten by the bug of live streaming” O’Keefe comments on a recent vMix reseller meetup party saying he was “Very impressed by the vibe, which is so collegiate in promotion and sharing of their love of webcasting.”
Television Broadcaster in Live Streaming Industry
We review our visit to the Central Hall at the livestream booth where we meet David Foster and Lauria Petrucci from Live Streaming Pros. The setup this year at NAB had an array of Mevo Cameras, lighting and more on the backdrop of silver air-streams. The Go Pro booth at NAB was also quite impressive. Right next door, the DJI booth features some of the latest drones and camera stabilizers. O’Keefe explains about the automation now available with way-points and pre-programming flight paths.
We share an example of the livestream video embed with the livestreamingpro’s chat room open and available on their website. Tess used OBS (open broadcaster software) to record a few quick desktop captures.
More on PTZ Camera Control & Software
More on PTZ Joystick Controllers
Using SONY PTZ Joystick controllers with PTZOptics cameras here
NAB 2017 Show – vMix, Streaming Idiots and Live Streaming Co-Op
This show aired directly before the “Streaming Idiots” show which consistently aires on Wednesday at 12PM ST 3PM EST. Tom has become a “vMix Guru” and O’Keefe mentions that “vMix is not the only live streaming software… but it is a good one… Tom is a nautral leader and I have been a viewer for a couple of years”. Podworks here in Las Vegas has a great little studio that works as a “Live Streaming Co-Op” which offers young live video producers a monthly subscription to use the studio equipment. The program owned and operated by Scott Whitney provides mentoring with various young and up and coming live video productions, shows and enthuisiasts.
During the live “Streaming Idiots” show from the NAB Show this year at 2017, Tom Sinclair broadcast from the vMix booth in the South Lower Hall. The PTZOptics booth was also located in the South Lower Hall and we connected our vMix systems via vMix call. vMix call automatically handles the mix-minus for live streaming /broadcasting along when you
Understanding vMix Playlists and PTZ camera control
The first time I had ever seen PTZ cameras controlled automatically through vMix was with Scott Whitney from Podworkz in Las Vegas. You can use the vMix playlist feature to have the system cycle through various inputs with times and transition effects. If you use input that are assigned to camera PTZ preset your playlist can trigger PTZ camera movements on a automated schedule. This is great for camera switch automation and camera control making pre-show camera switching or behind the scenes footage streaming more manageable and entertaining.
RS-232 vs IP Joystick controllers
RS-232 vs IP Joystick controllers
Also, in this live NAB Show stream we take a question from the chat room and provide a live joystick demo. The main differenve between RS=232 and IP controllers is the cabling and connection options. If you PTZ camera can be connected to a IP network, control can easily be achieved from a joystick plugged into that network. If you do no have a network, which is common for outdoor or on-the-go live streaming systems, you will be better served with a quick serial connection to your cameras possibly on a daisy-chain configuration.
Wireless HD-SDI transmitters
We demonstrated the Hollyland HD-SDI & HDMI combo wireless video extension product. This Hollyland wireless transmitter was able to provide high quality video for most of our broadcast when we used it for our main 12X-SDI-G2 camera. The NAB show has an incredible amount of wireless interence with literraly hundreds of different wireless networks being used in the tradeshow complex.
IP vs SDI which has the better quality
There are a number of new IP streaming standards now available such as SMPTE or NewTek NDI. NDI is technically a “lossless compression” so the quality going through is quite good. NDI is amazing but you do have to know your network and make sure you are using a Gigabit network. At the booth, we did determine how to use the NDI and make it work by tweaking our Windows 10 network settings with Martin Sinclair who stopeed by. Each camera has a static IP address and the each NDI system has be on the same local area network (LAN). With that being said, we just demonstrated wireless NDI technology at the vMix reseller meetup where Eric Pratt demonstrated how to broadcast 360 video. They setup a vMix setup with a 360 video camera and used the vMix merge functions to use the available 360 video sourch in a 1920×1080 video broadcast. Once setup, they decided to switch camera / live streaming computer locations. Using wireless NewTek NDI connection there is the possibility to be “un-tethered” while you are live streaming or connected to another broadcasting system.
With HD-SDI, you have the ability to run completely network independent with some of the industries most durable cabling. This is highly advantageous in mobile studios, and many other live broadcasting scenarios. “There is a solution, electronic or gadget for almost any situation” says Paul as we continue our conversation on live streaming.
