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Multi-Cam Live Streaming
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Waragainstsleep
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Join Date: Mar 2004
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Sep 6, 2020, 08:13 PM
 
So I've been tasked with helping build a set up for a new and unique venue that wants to stream live performances from bands. This place has a good atmosphere, its quite well hidden without being terribly remote, its a pretty perfect place to have secret gigs, especially if they are online only so to speak. I know you can do those from anywhere, but we're hoping that if we can get a couple of higher profile bands to play then more will follow suit and it will become a trendy thing for bands to do.

Anyway, we have an outdoor ethernet cable running 200MB internet to the space. I also need to distribute this to a few buildings and a wireless AP or two. I was planning how to do this when I suddenly realised I have no idea what kind of connections people use for cameras these days when building a multi camera set up. I consulted a couple of experts to learn that there is a lot of ways this can be done at various levels. HDMI and SDI being the preferred options for cable runs to the cameras but the cameras, capture cards (if needed) and adaptors between HDMI/ethernet/SDI are all pretty expensive kit.

I was advised to get a box called an ATEM Mini/Pro which looks the business for a reasonable price but there is a super long wait list and it still left me wondering about cameras. Lots of people seem to use DSLRs but they switch off after 30 minutes for tax reasons. I'm guessing you can get hacked firmware if you look but meh.

I think what I'm going to do for now is use my MBP and OBS to handle the streaming, at least for testing. I'm thinking phones for the cameras. As a test I'll use my iPhone 11, the client has a very recent Huawei bought because the camera is good so maybe I can add that in as the second cam. I've played with a couple of apps that allow wireless access to the cameras and while they work, there is bad lag and this would get worse if there was any kind of audience around so I'm thinking lighting/USB to ethernet for the phones. Then I can just run Cat5e around wherever I need and hopefully it will deal with the lagging pretty well. I have a cheap adaptor on order but didn't notice until I bought it Amazon won't deliver for a couple of weeks.

Does this sound realistic? I'm not even sure what the budget is yet but I'm thinking if this setup works we can just go out and get new iPhone SEs or used iPhone 8s or something to make cheap but decent cameras. There are even PoE versions of the adaptor so I don't need to worry about charging. (Those are ten times more than the unpowered lightning to ethernet sadly but still way cheaper than any kind of adaptor to use an SLR camera or do ethernet to HDMI).

Does anyone have any thoughts or experience doing anything like this?
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
subego
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Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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Sep 7, 2020, 05:31 PM
 
The big advantage of SDI is it’s ****in’ bulletproof. It’s designed to be abused.

SDI doesn’t care if you step on it, it can’t be kicked loose, and the connector always works.

Stepping on an HDMI cable can kill it. It disconnects if kicked, and the connectors break if I keep plugging and unplugging them.


Edit: also, SDI run can go 15m or more without needing a relay.
( Last edited by subego; Sep 7, 2020 at 11:29 PM. )
     
Waragainstsleep  (op)
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Sep 8, 2020, 05:06 AM
 
Yeah I was not keen on long HDMI runs tbh. SDI gear looks to be expensive though. Converter boxes from SDI to HDMI (or NDI) also expensive. I figured budget-wise running Cat5 is super affordable and easy and if it gets trampled to death I can just run more no sweat. I'm going to see what kind of lag I get from an iPhone over ethernet.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
Waragainstsleep  (op)
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Sep 9, 2020, 05:13 AM
 
Subject to testing I now have my original budget option using phones, Cat5 and OBS or the better version using an Atem Mini/Pro , Blackmagic HDMI-SDI adaptors and something like Sony A6000s. Or at a push some Canon 550Ds with magic lantern firmware.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
   
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