dominicgross Posted December 7, 2003 Share Posted December 7, 2003 I think this fits in here somewhere: We are looking at getting a camera to serve as a SM, BS and as a black out display up in the lighting box. What kinda gear do we need to allow the camera to have a clear view of the stage in a D.B.O? IR lamp? and what kinda camera is good for this type of thing. Also, have you got any recommendations for distro and splitting: it will need to serve 5 screens. cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 A couple of qucik questions... 1/. Is any cabling installed at the mo'?2/. Do you have monitors for the BS areas already? If so are they monitors or TVs?3/ Rough idea of how much you want to spend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DSA Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 Im interested in this too. I expect it would be far too expensive for us though - however I have not really looked into it. It would have to be a complete system for us, as we currently have no cameras, cabling or monitors. I presume one would also need some sort of vision mixer/switcher too. David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 The cheap way to do the distribution is to turn the video feed from the camera to a UHF TV signal. Like that you can use ordinary TVs in the BS areas. Cable and connectors are also cheap. A modulator can be had from Maplin for £30 (VH89W), couple this to a TV 6-way splitter for another £30 and you're in business. Have a look in Maplin too for cheap cameras. For blackout use you will need IR, if you don't mind a bit of basic making things then you can get a B&W IR camera module for £40 add in about £24 for a box and PSU. IR illuminators can be a bit expensive, you can get LED ones for £80 but thay re only good to 10m, more powerful ones go for around £180. Another place to find CCTV cameras is e-bay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DSA Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 OK. To extend this now - what if I want to have AV Monitors on stage, like on the pop idol set to have camera feeds and other visualisations. Can this be achieved with this setup. Do I now need a mixer. Are there any cheap ones??? David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 OK, I've never seen Pop Idol (or if I did it made so little impression that it's been erased from my memory) but I imagine what you want are screens dotted around behind an act so that they show images from video tape/DVDs/cameras. To do this properly you need all your video sources syncronised so that all the sources starts their pictures at the same time. However, this is also the most expensive route to go. Multi-input video syncronisers are not cheap. In reality you will probably get away with simply switching between sources. At the worst case a monitor may sometimes 'roll' for a split second but most modern monitors are very tolerant. A simple box to take 4 sources and feed two different destinations is £20 from Maplin (L62AB). With this you could feed four sources to two different sets of screens simultaneously. They also have a 6-way unit with one output and remote control for £50 (L63AB). These all switch the pictures at video level. If you want to feed the screens with a UHF TV signal you do the modualtion after the switcher. Video mixers which do effects like wipes and dissolves start at around £150. But, when was the last time you ever saw a wipe on real TV? Other people supply this stuff as well, it's just my Maplin catalogue is open on my desk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DSA Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 Right, so if this costs £20, why are broadcast ones so much.... Also how many screens could I run from one output of the £20 box. Would it support like camcorders for close-ups, as well as fixed cctv type cameras? Great. That sounds good - much cheaper than I thought! I dont think all the screens need to be in perfect sync, although viewing a mouth on the screen may not be synced very well, say with voice. Is it likely to be far out??? Could always put a delay on the sound system... David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ike Posted December 8, 2003 Share Posted December 8, 2003 The problem of sync is not that audio will be out of sync with visuals but that the pictures received by the switch will be out of sync in terms of data position. The data used to create the picture starts at one corner of the screen and moves to the other. If one source is on line 5 and suddenly you switch to source on line 12, 7 lines of data will be missing. This may cause the output to flicker or even roll however it should self correct very soon. I'm sure somebody will come up with a better explanation but I hope this was useful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 I'm sure somebody will come up with a better explanation but I hope this was usefulNo, that's fine. I've used almost that same explanation for many TV production types over the past xx years. If anyone wants a REALLY technical explanation then just ask :D As to David's question about cost, it's all down to picture quality and features. A broadcast vision mixer as fitted in a OB truck or 'proper' studio will often cost in excess of £50,000 but handles all the pictures as digital signals running at 270 Megabits/second (DMX is 250 kilobits/second ie 1000 times slower); have maybe 60 inputs and 40 outputs and use very expensive switches. Some control panels use switches with a built in LCD displays to label the switch, they cost £18 each. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thirdtap Posted December 10, 2003 Share Posted December 10, 2003 From my experience:I installed a CCTV camera and monitor in a previous venue as part of end of year buying so it was a little rushed. There was already a co ax cable run which helped, so I purchased camera and monitor from HBL for around £500. The system worked hopefully / still works well. A few of the amateur companies that use the venue would prefer a colour system but at the time the price of a colour monitor would have been around £500 on it's own at that time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted December 10, 2003 Share Posted December 10, 2003 On e-bay I found a number of CCD cameras with built in Infra Red LEDs to illuminate the scene. They auto switch from black and white in 'night mode' to colour when the lights come on. Price seems to be around £50, search on 'infrared'. The limit with these devices will be that the IR illumination will only work up to around 10 metres. On e-bay are also so seperate IR illuminators which could be used to boost the range. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven Posted December 12, 2003 Share Posted December 12, 2003 A modulator can be had from Maplin for £30 (VH89W),You could just use a VCR as a modulator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dominicgross Posted December 12, 2003 Author Share Posted December 12, 2003 IR illumination will only work up to around 10 metres would it work is we fitted a pair of IR's above the stage to illuminate (with the camera FOH) still? So we will need a decent CCTV cam with necessary lense, splitter and modulator of work with our screens? - and IR's for above the stage?? (will it work?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted December 12, 2003 Share Posted December 12, 2003 would it work is we fitted a pair of IR's above the stage to illuminate (with the camera FOH) still?Probably, the limit is due to fall-off in the IR not a problem with the camera. So we will need a decent CCTV cam with necessary lense, splitter and modulator of work with our screens?Sounds about right. Make sure you get the right lens, it will depend on the size of stage and distance to camera. I recently bought a colour CCD camera with zoom lens on e-bay for £60 and am well pleased with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian_P Posted December 14, 2003 Share Posted December 14, 2003 OK, All good advice, but can anyone shed light on this? I have colour cameras that output standard video signals, but monitors are still B&W. I have a ready supply of old colour PC monitors, but these have a 15 pin connector on the back, is there a cheap way to get these to work together, or is it not compatible? Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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