Budget homemade TCP "on the knees" (mobile television station). Part 1

Preface 1:
This article is not an advertisement for any device or product. But in order not to force those who wish to realize this idea to google “similar devices”, we call all firms and models openly here.

Preface 2:
Initially, the plans were to make only a video version. However, later the idea arose to publish the material here as an article. Nevertheless, I recommend to get acquainted with the video version. It is placed at the bottom of the article. So let's go!
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1. Introduction.

From time to time we have the need to shoot an event in some cameras (and get a “mounted video” at once), without having a high level, but also not using a high budget and not renting a professional PTS (Mobile Television Station). For such purposes, we have collected "PTS on their knees."

We often use such a TCP and, in order not to answer the same questions about how it works and how to do it all, we decided to write a series of articles and make a series of small videos in which we will try to explain concisely and intelligibly how to organize it all and run.
All that I am going to tell here is a personal experience, and exactly how we do it.

In our “homemade” PTS, apart from two cameras out of six, we do not use expensive television equipment that, to put it mildly, not everyone can afford. Our self-made PTS has 6 cameras and operates in a resolution of 854 by 480 pixels, with a frame rate of 25 per second. In principle, it is possible to work in HD 1280 to 720, but our computer doesn’t like this load much. Clearly, this is not about professional level and technology. Perhaps in the future we will make such videos, how to assemble a professional TCP in six cameras based on Blackmagic, with professional office communication, Studio cameras, etc., but here we have a completely different task.

Surely there are many options for solutions, but we will talk about what we personally use, at least once a week, for more than five years.

2. Equipment.

Our homemade PTS uses the following equipment:

For general plans, we will use webcams. The quality of the image of certain webcams has long been not inferior to some amateur handhelds ...

After going through different, we stopped at the Logitech cameras. Value for money we are more than satisfied. Somewhere I heard that if you use the same webcams, the virtual mixer on the computer will confuse them, the settings may fly, in general, this will complicate the work. We decided not to experiment with this and took four cameras of different models.

So, we have included the following Logitech models: C310, C510, Pro 9000 and C910 (Details in the video below). Despite the fact that these cameras are used by us in shooting at 480 points, they can all work well in 1280x720 points. model C910 even copes with Full HD (that is: 1920 to 1080 pixels). By the way, at the moment the model C920 has appeared at the firm Logitech. We checked, it worked well with us for the C910 . But colleagues said that the C910 and C920 computer confused. So we do not recommend having them both, although in the picture they are the best, in our opinion.



Further, besides 4 webcams, we use two cameras in DV format. One of them is the legendary Panasonic “weaving” ( Panasonic DVX 100 ). The second one can be the same, and maybe the “handheld” (an amateur camera, which is easy to lose in hand), anyone who can give a DV signal. It may even be a professional HD camera switched to DV mode. In general, you can use any two DV cameras. But, as you understand, the quality of the picture will depend on their matrix and optics. When we use a handheld instead of one of the "weave", the picture is much worse. It seems that this is due to the smaller number of points. But there are as many of them, which once again proves that "happiness is not in pixels".

The next item in our kit is a Windows 7- based computer (before that, everything calmly worked on Windows XP , service packs 2nd and 3rd). About Windows Vista and Windows 8 I will not say anything, to try - there is no desire. I7 processor It will be more convenient if two monitors are connected.

We also use a simple indicator service connection made on our knees, which we will separately discuss in the following chapters.

Also, in our PTS audio circuit, the Behringer processor was used in order to make the sound fatter and more equal. But later we abandoned it, because the new sound console, from which we received the sound for broadcast, already knew how to compress and limit the audio signal.

In general, this is all that is required from the equipment in our case, for multi-camera shooting and live broadcast on the Internet.

Of course, for the commercial level, this survey is not suitable. But for the archive, or the report, or for the broadcast, you can shoot not only a corporate party, or a meeting, but also a completely dynamic concert, provided there are competent operators on the first and second cameras and an experienced director of the TCP, at the computer.

VIDEOS:



and



In the next article we will share - how we have our cameras in the hall, and the interaction of the television team.
Before communication!

Go to the second part >>>

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