PotNoodleTech Posted February 4, 2015 Posted February 4, 2015 Been asked to look at TV studio in school. Very limited budget, may have to be accomplished step by step over a couple of years. Not my area of expertise either! Anyone done something like this. The first stage is getting a decent camera I guess as we can make do with temporary green screen etc. Ideally would like it to be a camera that can be used for more advanced things in the future e.g. autocue,. external microphones etc. Any help appreciated! Ta
fairm010 Posted February 4, 2015 Posted February 4, 2015 We had an amazing one which was ripped out. SLT decided that everything you can do in there you can do with a FlipCam and Windows Movie Maker.
Sibrows Posted February 4, 2015 Posted February 4, 2015 We have a studio/green room. Currently with: - three SD cameras linked into a visual mixer - separate sound mixing desk - lighting I don't pretend to know that much about it but I can find out some more if it would be useful.
dhicks Posted February 4, 2015 Posted February 4, 2015 Been asked to look at TV studio in school. I'm no expert either - I'm currently looking at various video / audio production related bits and peices. I'm guessing that in a school you don't actually want a dedicated "TV" studio, you want a flexible drama / video workspace. Do you have a room or similar to dedicate to this, or do you just need to buy portable equipment to set up around the school? Do you have staging already? Any lights? A lot of video work these days is done on DSLRs. I've been considering a Panasonic GH4 with YAGH interface add-on and an external video recorder. That will shoot 4K video straight to SSD, no time limit on recording. That will also take an XLR audio input from a mixing desk, so you can place microphones around your studio and lead them all to the audio input of the camera. You can get green-screen kits off eBay for around £100 - they look pretty good value for money, although I'm not sure how well they actually work. I think I'm going to try and get the backdrop of our stage set up so it can be used for green screen.
antlear Posted February 4, 2015 Posted February 4, 2015 I worked in a school with a TV studio. It was never used as the school was getting re built and the studio became a class room. The new school had a TV studio room but the kit was quite old then as it was all component. I have built live video systems for event firms. It all depends on what you want to do. There are cheaper systems and you can get away with using of the shelf cheap cameras. Equipment which I would suggest looking at is the blackmagic stuff as your hardware video switcher. If you PM me and can tell me abit about your budget I am more than happy to help you build a system and recommend you some suppliers.
john Posted February 4, 2015 Posted February 4, 2015 @Soulfish had a funky TV Studio in his last place I'm sure he can share his views on having the BBC in your own place
Mullaney18 Posted February 4, 2015 Posted February 4, 2015 I think a few of us are in a similar position, where we (SLT) are looking for the next big technological presence other than the ICT suite. I'm am also looking at a multimedia / music/ recording studio. Other than this, is there any other extra ordinary IT we could have in schools?
DaveMurphy Posted February 4, 2015 Posted February 4, 2015 We had one fitted over summer, it was installed as part of the building work to redevelop a floor of the building. We spent £25k on equipment from 3 new 4K resolution cameras, a full control room of video editing hardware/applications and a very nice 86" 4k res HD touchscreen. 1
m25man Posted February 4, 2015 Posted February 4, 2015 We had one fitted over summer, it was installed as part of the building work to redevelop a floor of the building. We spent £25k on equipment from 3 new 4K resolution cameras, a full control room of video editing hardware/applications and a very nice 86" 4k res HD touchscreen. That's the way to do it...
antlear Posted February 4, 2015 Posted February 4, 2015 Having recording studios and tv studios are great if they are properly used. I have seen schools install all these rooms and unless the school is running a proper course which needs the equipment then it just sits there. The teachers also need to be trained properly in using it and the subject or a technician who knows how to use the equipment and who can support the teacher in teaching the subject. Another issue is the budgets that schools put into these projects of often way to little. If it is going to be done do it properly buy equipment that will ideally last or have a plan to start with the basics and then add to it. Another issue is rooms especially with recording studios these need sound proofing which adds extra costs. For some reasons these projects are handed to the IT department which to be fair is never ideal. People see that the equipment uses IT and assume that IT people can set it all up and spec all the equipment. I feel this is unfair as unless you have a specialist in your department who knows all about it then there is a lot to learn. One bit of advice I would say is don't go to companies who advertise as education specialists, they often have limited brands and offer limited equipment. Find someone local, even a freelancer who you can talk to about what you need and want to achieve. A good one will be able to think out side of what you need and should be able to spec a better system. Hope that helps that's just my thoughts and knowledge
dhicks Posted February 5, 2015 Posted February 5, 2015 (edited) I've been thinking a bit more about this. We're aiming to get a new stage installed in our hall, which we're getting quotes for and configuring now. If that stage could, in some way, be used as a TV studio environment as well as a stage then that's a bonus facility we've just gained. What do schools use TV studios for? Does a "TV studio" simple consist of some kind of area where people can stand while we point a camera at them, or are there specific set / lighting / camera requirements that differ from what you provide for a normal stage setup? We're aiming to buy modular staging with rails at the back that can support scenery flats. My plan was to simply get plain white flats for projecting on from a short-throw projector, but one easy-to-add "TV studio" feature would be to have them painted chromakey green on the other side so we could simply flip them round to make a chromakey-ready studio. Are there any particular features camera a camera generally has in a studio environment that differs to how it might be used elsewhere? I guess I could get a large tripod to support a camera with a matte box and follow-focus attached. Whenever I see TV studio cameras on TV they seem to be moveable - is it worth putting the camera tripod on wheels or rails? Edit: just thinking - one of the main problems we've always had with stage productions is amplifying sound. I guess with a fixed setup you can have ceiling-suspended mics all going in to a mixer and from there to your camera. If you have multiple cameras, how do you sync the footage and/or sound between multiple devices? Edited February 5, 2015 by dhicks
dhicks Posted February 25, 2015 Posted February 25, 2015 The first stage is getting a decent camera I've been thinking about this over the weekend as I've been filming a panto production. If I understand correctly, "film" and "TV" methods of filming are different. For "film" you get a snazzy camera or two, something with a large sensor and big lense on the front, and your action happens under the control of the director. At any time you can stop and re-shoot a scene if you mess up. After you've shot a bunch of footage you go and edit it for hours on end. Then you have a live production, which tends to be more the kind of thing you find in a school - a bunch of parents all sat watching a stage full of children, any slip-ups are dealt with as best as possible as you go along. If you want to film it, a TV-style live mixing system might be better - someone sits in front of a bunch of video feeds of various parts of the action, choosing the best shot at the time. Those video feeds might be a simple, static, unattended camera, or they might be from someone pointing a camera on a tripod at some specific part of the action. The camera director might want to communicate to a camera operator via a headset. Also, TV cameras have an indicator light on the front telling actors which one is live. I can picture a TV-style system as above consisting of Raspberry Pi cameras - they will encode and transmit H.264 video via a network connection to a central server where you could have some kind of interface that lets a controller pick which camera feed is live and talk to camera operators if needed. With 360-degree cameras or similar you could actually have the camera operator controll the direction of the current camera view without having to have a camera operator or motorised camera head. Does a system similar to the above already exist in some form, does anyone know?
GrumbleDook Posted February 25, 2015 Posted February 25, 2015 Probably the best folk to speak with are Wildern School in Hants. Can't remember Tim's EduGeek name though :-( 1
dhicks Posted August 14, 2015 Posted August 14, 2015 Right: we're looking to buy some new camcorders - nothing too expensive, these will be for day-to-day use by various staff and children, so expect a few breakages along the way. I've been looking at the Panasonic HC-V270 - available for around £230, seems like a decent camera. I then noticed it's compatible with Panasonic's remote pan-and-tilt cradle (the Panasonic VW-CTR1), available for around £100-ish, which lets you remotely control the camera direction and zoom from an iPad app. Also, it would seem that the camera and cradle will power from a USB port, so I can power the both of them from a large, portable USB-out battery rather than have to plug them in to the mains. Add a couple of cheap stands and you've got a self-contained, remote-operated camera probably capable of running for most of a day. As an added bonus, the camera also supports DLNA. Am I right in thinking I can set up a DLNA server / receiver of some kind, then mix various video feeds and broadcast the result live via something like Ustream? This all seems remarkably affordable, too - each camera with cradle, stand, batteries, etc, would be around £500. Has anyone got a similar setup? Am I right in thinking DLNA-compatible cameras are going to be capable enough? What central switcher / DLNA server should I look at? Is there any way to include a tally light on the camera to tell people which one is live?
VeryPC_Anthony_L Posted August 17, 2015 Posted August 17, 2015 Hi dhicks, I have had a look at the camera and the DLNA is for playback of prerecorded things and not live stream. Are you wanting to use the cameras in one place or multiple places. [h=1][/h] 1
dhicks Posted August 17, 2015 Posted August 17, 2015 I have had a look at the camera and the DLNA is for playback of prerecorded things and not live stream. Ah, darn - you mean I can get the camera to play back a recorded clip via DLNA, but it won't live-stream whatever it is currently pointing at as a DLNA stream? Any idea if you can attach an HDMI-to-DLNA dongle to the HDMI output of the camera and use that for live streaming instead? Any idea if the Canon camcorders are any better in this regard? I understand the camera supports streaming directly to Ustream. Will Ustream let me mix multiple video signals? Are you wanting to use the cameras in one place or multiple places. We'll probably end up using multiple cameras in multiple locations - I'm aiming for a portable setup that we can use around various locations, hopefully with no cables needed to any cameras so we can place them wherever is best to film from. Live streaming would be a bonus features, really, we'll probably mainly be using the cameras to capture a bunch of footage that we then edit together afterwards.
VeryPC_Anthony_L Posted August 17, 2015 Posted August 17, 2015 I have not used Ustream in a while but generally you need all your sources or video feed going into a PC via a capture card. They software from memory generally only allowed 1 or 2 cameras / sources to be mixed. Are you looking to just stream or record a the mix output to say burn on DVD. The camera may beable to feed directly to Ustream via its wifi connection this though just broadcast one feed and not allow you to mix. Anthony 1
dhicks Posted August 18, 2015 Posted August 18, 2015 I have not used Ustream in a while but generally you need all your sources or video feed going into a PC via a capture card. They software from memory generally only allowed 1 or 2 cameras / sources to be mixed. Are you looking to just stream or record a the mix output to say burn on DVD. I need to sort out some new cameras, and live mixing / streaming of video would be nice extra feature, but isn't a main requirement. It sounds like we would need to have our video mixed before it went to Ustream (or similar services). Does anyone have any idea if any of cheaper consumer-level camcorders will live stream, somehow, to a local video mixer of some sort? Can I plug the Panasonics in to an HDMI video mixing desk (BlackMagic, as Anthony suggests, seem to do a good range starting at around £1,000)? Will the Panasonic camcorders stream live to DLNA or not? If so, could I maybe use a Raspberry Pi as a receiver for each separate camera and use the HDMI output from each of those to feed in to the mixing desk? Would that work, and what would the video quality be like (having been re-encoded to and from H.264 around 3 times by the time the vierwer would see it)? Does anyone have any experience of other camcorders? Our current camcorders, and my own one, are Panasonic - do Canon have any different live-streaming features?
VeryPC_Anthony_L Posted August 19, 2015 Posted August 19, 2015 From what you are saying it sounds like the wireless stream from a camera is an important factor. Personally I would always cable cameras if you were to cable it you could use powered HDMI to cat5 converters or hdmi to HD-SDI convertors and get some BNC cables. For a stream option you could purchase some cheapish wireless HDMI kits and connect the transmitter to the HDMI output of the camera and then the receiver into the vision mixer. If you want a solid wireless option I would look at the following Bolt Pro 300 3G-SDI/HDMI Video Transceiver Set | Teradek, LLC - Wireless HD Video If looking at the blackmagic option I would look at the https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/gb/products/atemtelevisionstudio as this will give you the stream output via USB which can be then plugged into a PC. Anthony 1
dhicks Posted August 19, 2015 Posted August 19, 2015 For a stream option you could purchase some cheapish wireless HDMI kits and connect the transmitter to the HDMI output of the camera and then the receiver into the vision mixer. Yes, indeed. Would you happen to know if Panasonic's HC-V270 camcorder will let you send a live copy of whatever it is recording via the HDMI port, or is it limited to pre-reocrded clips only as it seems to be for direct DLNA streaming? If not, any idea if Canon's camcorders will? Why, specifically, a wireless HDMI transmitter / receiver and not a wireless DLNA transmitter?
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