Video Camera Replacement?

[Gongalong]

Hi folks,

 

We've got several SD video cameras that I'm looking to replace. Video cameras seem a bit old hat now, and are clearly a dying market, so is it best just to replace with one of the dwindling hand-held cameras or get something else? What have other schools done?

 

Thanks

[AlanPartridgeAhaa]

You could consider iPads, there are plenty of cases out there with handholds and tripod mounts (Iographer is a decent one that comes with lenses, but many others). Get some filming software on it like Filmic Pro and it becomes a good quality device for HD footage. They can even be editing stations depending on the level you're aiming at, then connect to PC to download the movie or raw footage. Edited October 28, 2018 by AlanPartridgeAhaa

[mavhc]

Except an iPad can never just connect to a PC, that would be too easy, have to screw about with changing drivers, which is admin only thing.

 

What do you use video cameras for? Do you need zoom, low light, depth of field. Are you trying to make it look professional, then use a DSLR, do you want 15x zoom and a massive battery so you can record a school play for 3 hours? How many do you want? What are you trying to teach?

[3s-gtech]

iPads will connect straight to a PC without drivers, if set up correctly. Ours (supervised) will plug into any PC and act as USB storage once unlocked.

[mavhc]

How does one do that?, whenever I plug them in they say they're apple something something, have to manually switch drivers

[3s-gtech]

When supervised with Apple Configurator, I just change the setting that allows them to connect to any computer (i.e. not just the supervising one).

[dhicks]

is it best just to replace with one of the dwindling hand-held cameras or get something else?

 

I could have sworn I read somewhere the new Huawei Mate 20 Pro can automatically remove the background, in real time, from a video. If so, that potentially gives you a phone / camera device you can replace a green-screen setup with, which sounds like a useful application. Handsets are around £900 at the moment, but I imagine that price will drop eventually, and the same feature will start to appear on more devices (I think the feature is actually a handy by-product of being able to do face recognition, which requires depth information from the camera as well as colour).

 

For filming productions / drama where you just want to set a camera up and leave it to record everything for an hour or two, I have a Samsung Gear 360 (plus a stand a external battery unit). That will record, in theory, for about 24 hours with a 256GB SD card in and plugged in to a suitable power supply.

[SamanthaD]

I'd look at GoPro's. Simple to use, can take a fair beating and decent quality footage. iPads by comparison are fragile, have lots to distract away from the task in hand and will always get used in portrait orientation....

[mavhc]

Or buy normal camcorders for £150 https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=dvcam&xf=193_10~197_optisch~208_H.264~212_SDXC 10x optical zoom

[Arthur]

I could have sworn I read somewhere the new Huawei Mate 20 Pro can automatically remove the background, in real time, from a video.

Apple recently purchased a company called Spektral that specialized in exactly what you're describing. I expect this feature will be incorporated into iOS at some point in the future. It's very cool!

 

https://youtu.be/gZUALClUIJc

[Gongalong]

We do have some LearnPads, which students use for filming. I guess it's about the requirement, and I'm thinking of something more traditional...

What do you use video cameras for? Do you need zoom, low light, depth of field. Are you trying to make it look professional, then use a DSLR, do you want 15x zoom and a massive battery so you can record a school play for 3 hours? How many do you want? What are you trying to teach?

I think a bit of zoom would be helpful. Not worried about low light. Just really good quality (full HD at least). This became evident when we wanted to film our school production, and they wanted 3 cameras (to cover a variety of angles) and our current 10-year old SD cameras were pretty poor.

 

There's this on Amazon, which is a smidge below the Sony and Panasonic equivalents, plus a lot of extra. To good to be true? I'm not sure I'd want students recording in 4k, but presumably the default can be changed https://www.amazon.co.uk/Camcorder-CofunKool-External-Microphone-Batteries/dp/B07FT91PQQ

[Gongalong]

I could have sworn I read somewhere the new Huawei Mate 20 Pro can automatically remove the background, in real time, from a video.

We have had that request a couple of times, but we looked at software at the time and ultimately nothing came of it and nothing was bought.

I'd look at GoPro's. Simple to use, can take a fair beating and decent quality footage. iPads by comparison are fragile, have lots to distract away from the task in hand and will always get used in portrait orientation....

I did think about Go Pro's, but do they make a reasonable video camera? Do they come with a fisheye/wide angle lens? They're not an easy thing to handle, unless using a gimbal stabiliser. As mentioned above, one use could be static filming of school productions/assemblies, where quality is key.

Edited October 29, 2018 by Gongalong

[TechMonkey]

I did think about Go Pro's, but do they make a reasonable video camera? Do they come with a fisheye/wide angle lens? They're not an easy thing to handle, unless using a gimbal stabiliser. As mentioned above, one use could be static filming of school productions/assemblies, where quality is key.

 

They always get marked highly for image quality, think of all those action cam, snowboarding, biking videos you see, the majority are GoPros. The fish eye effect can be turned off in the settings. I think with any camera you aren't going to get great free hand shots without a gimbal. We have been looking at them for staff to take on trips, as they are basically bulletproof.

[Arthur]

They always get marked highly for image quality

How is the audio on the GoPro cameras? When I tested a cheap Chinese equivalent (SJCam 4000 I think), the quality of the recorded audio was quite poor/too quiet. The person I was recording at the time was only standing ~2-3 meters away.

[dhicks]

I think with any camera you aren't going to get great free hand shots without a gimbal.

 

Actually, that's exactly what the new GoPro is marketed as - a camera that doesn't need a gimbal setup to produce shake-free video. It uses its extra-wide field of view from the fish-eye lens combined with data from internal acceleration sensors to process video into a shake-free version. I'm not sure if it can do this in real time - you probably have to download and process the video with their software first. GoPro's editing software is very good (they bought a couple of video editing companies), and free.

 

With their 360 degree camera you can film a scene in 360 degrees and then produce a standard 2D version afterwards, moving the viewpoint as you want - this actually works quite well for filming productions where you haven't rehearsed scenes for camera takes beforehand, you can plonk a 360-degree camera somewhere down the front, film everything, then edit the point of view to track movement afterwards. I've done that with a couple of school productions, combined with a wide-shot from a Panasonic camcorder somewhere at the back of the hall so you can cut between the two. Again, the Panasonics will work quite nicely from an external USB battery pack, and are light enough to sit on a monopod, so you can just plug them in and leave them for 3 hours and edit the footage down later.

 

You can stick a different lense on a GoPro - I have a Backbone modified GoPro with a zoom lense on - but that changes it from being a simple, robust device. Also, GoPros can be run from external power (battery or mains via a USB adaptor), but they tend to overheat - you wind up having to remove the internal battery and replace it with a direct-power adaptor widget, which again changes it from being a handy pick-up-and-go sort of device.

 

The video quality from a GoPro can be excellent, but they tend to work best in nice bright, even lighting, although I've found they've got better in recent years. For productions and so on with stage lights, a well-lit area of a stage can be over-exposed while a dark section can be under-exposed, for internal stuff in a hall or similar you might be better off with a camcorder.

[Arthur]

Actually, that's exactly what the new GoPro is marketed as - a camera that doesn't need a gimbal setup to produce shake-free video. It uses its extra-wide field of view from the fish-eye lens combined with data from internal acceleration sensors to process video into a shake-free version. I'm not sure if it can do this in real time - you probably have to download and process the video with their software first.

GoPro's "HyperSmooth" video stablization is limited to the Hero 7 Black model although it is in-camera and in real-time. The Silver and White models just have bog standard stabilization.

 

Google's Pixel 2/2 XL video stabilization is impressive too...

 

Fused Video Stabilization on the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL

 

With the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphones, the videos you capture are smoother and clearer than ever before, thanks to our Fused Video Stabilization technique based on both optical image stabilization (OIS) and electronic image stabilization (EIS). Fused Video Stabilization delivers highly stable footage with minimal artifacts, and the Pixel 2 is currently rated as the leader in DxO's video ranking (also earning the highest overall rating for a smartphone camera).

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5rHog6RnNQ

 

There's also the Warp Stabilizer feature in Premiere Pro.

Edited October 29, 2018 by Arthur

[mavhc]

There's 0 reason to pay for 4k video, just get a name brand £150 camcorder, if you want external microphones, ac power etc look for those features

[dhicks]

There's this on Amazon, which is a smidge below the Sony and Panasonic equivalents, plus a lot of extra.

 

For school productions, with multiple cameras, I'd aim to get something that can be powered by an external mains/battery USB supply, then you can just plonk a couple of cameras down and leave them running for three hours with no worries. Set those up to do wide shots which you can cut to at any time while you concentrate on zooming in to the action. For the static cameras you can just get a couple of cheap Amazon basics tripods, but try and get a slightly nicer fluid head for the camera you'll be pointing at things so you can move it around more easily. For video editing, sticking three shots together is actually quite easy (use the zoomed-in shot when child on stage is talking, otherwise use zoomed-out shot, helps to have another wide shot in case someone walks in front of the first camera or your camera is pointing elsewhere when something interesting happens), but it helps if you have editing software that can align footage via the soundtrack, it saves a lot of messing around at the start. Don't forget to add a couple of USB battery units and some large (128GB) SD cards.

[Gongalong]

@mavhc The 4k bit of the camera doesn't really bother me (file sizes are so big!) but even compared with a full HD camera it seems a lot of functionality and extras for the price.

[mavhc]

Well, if you can find a legit long term review let us know

[chewee]

the sony handycams are fantastic and produce good quallity audio and video. If you have the budget you could even look at a DSLR on ebay that way it gives scope for useage outside of just recording plays etc and can be used for photography.

[SamanthaD]

Most DSLR's have a maximum recording time of 30 minutes, so wouldn't recommend going that way for video.

 

Agree that 4k is a bit excessive for most things at the moment, but if you go for a wider shot in 4k there's always capacity to crop it down in post to give you "zoomed in" shots that are still 1080 quality.

[Gongalong]

I think there's a concern about overheat as well with DSLR's and video recording.

[chewee]

the limit exists for some but not all. Iv'e never known a DSLR to overheat, unless its in a really warm place it shouldn't be a problem

[Arthur]

I've never known a DSLR to overheat

It's quite a common issue with Sony cameras.

 

• sonyalphalab.com/sony-a6500-overheat-testing-4k-video-recording
  
• cinema5d.com/sony-a7s-ii-firmware-update-3-0-stops-4k-overheating-issues/
  
• artisticbrit.com/blog/post/sonys-new-rx100-mkiv-has-overheating-issues