PTZ Camera into Qlab (control)

[TomHoward]

Has anyone got PTZ working on Qlab through some method or other?

We have a show coming up with some live video, where there is a map on a table and puppets / characters moving around the table, and live video of the map is relayed onto a screen.

Thinking of programming the zooms/areas and some moves on the map (items are left on it so live video is preferable) so they can be relayed via PTZ camera onto projector for the show.

I have some cameras available (canon HF G50) which could be mounted on a pan/tilt gimbal , I could hack the zoom with a servo but it'd be driven blind as I don't think the camera has data control of zoom. I am assuming though I'd be better buying a PTZ camera and using absolute values to drive it..

Edited January 12, 2022 by TomHoward

[david.elsbury]

Most PTZ cameras store presets which you can recall. Are you wanting live movement or just static positions?

[Dave m]

I haven’t got into it but on the ATEM (black magic streaming) Facebook pages people seem to use companion along with stream deck as PTZ controllers?

[J Pearce]

You could use a 4K camera and do the zooms inside QLab. Just another tool in the box.

[cedd]

If you got a PTZ camera that took RS485 control then via a converter you could drive it from an RS232/485 converter off of a serial port (or just get a USB to RS485 interface). There are a few posts about sending serial data from QLab kicking around the internet (particularly with regard to driving projectors). They all seem to involve another application and Apple Script, but they seem pretty straightforward. 

[Dave m]

 

I don't speak German

[TomHoward]

It needs live video, but it could be moving between presets. It would be nice to have control of speed of movement though and maybe zooming at the end.
It could be recalling many presets along the way depending how many were needed.

The 4K camera is an interesting idea, thanks for that - I have got an ATEM that may be used for capture and maybe switching but not 100% sure yet. It's possible I could use the camera on a 'right arm' / pair of servos for pan&tilt from QLab (see how much shake the servos have) and use zooming in qlab to pull in and out. I could also have a wide camera and the panning camera and maybe switch between them either in Qlab on the ATEM controlled from qlab.

Do you know if the control systems from PTZ over RS485 are absolute or relative? does it drive like a servo to a position according to value or drive "left / right / in / out" and would need tracking from the top of the show to repeat the same moves?

[cedd]

https://www.commfront.com/pages/pelco-d-protocol-tutorial#3

Random, generic command set for a PTZ camera, but it seems pretty standard. It would appear that they're relative, and also that there's some kind of checksum to calculate. Maybe it's not quite as straightforward.

[TomHoward]

Ta. I've found a PTZ camera to borrow (event I think not CCTV) and will have a play. I'm not sure if the focus will need moving too, so I might revisit doing it with servos and control the servos from DMX/Artnet out of Qlab maybe....

 

[Dave m]

 

This is a bit above my knowledge

But at about 30 mins in the sax player explains how he uses software to control cameras and MIDI to action camera changes through Qlab. 

It isn't clear to me if he's figured pan/tilt yet? he seems to have a solution for cropping 4k and producing 'angles" from two cameras

[richardash1981]

About 15 years ago I used a (standard definition) PTZ camera, and the controller for that (RS-485 I think, but we had the desktop ball controller) had absolute positioning, so you could save about 15 shots (Pan / Tilt / Zoom / Focus positions) and they would recall on push of a button. I didn't give much control over how it moved, but the coding was clever - it would zoom out, pan and tilt, then zoom back in so it didn't make viewers sick. Certainly much better than a manual operator managed!
The give-away for absolute control was that when switched on it did a calibration run from end to end of all the drives before it would respond to commands (which was an interesting watch if the video was routed at the time!).

[Dave m]

We had a PTZ camera at work and (maybe this is standard) it would freeze the image  when a new shot was requested, rapidly change and then release the freeze. It worked really well so long as you didn’t ask it to pan across a large room.

it was for video relay/ overspill so was acceptable.

[TomHoward]

Thanks. We've been reviewing what we need to do and it's likely if we use the ATEM we can pair one PTZ cam up with 3 fixed cameras to make it slightly more palatable to watch. It's a production of Around the world in 80 days and there's some animations for the transitions (the boat moving across the map, etc) that the cast are going to re-create live in miniature on a map and relay to projection. What I'd thought at first was going to be one large map worked across is more likely to be 2-3 set up on different tables and moving across localised continent maps etc.

I've found the loan of a PTZ camera but programming absolute moves directly from Qlab doesn't sound like it's going to be easy, and if they're relative I'd rather not stack a whole show up based on relative moves in case they are run out of sequence.... I'll have a look at using some controller software with absolute presets and seeing if I can automate triggering that from Qlab, or use a hardware controller and maybe try control the controller presents from Qlab rather than the camera directly. (This would also give easy driving if the preset / action ended up off the mark...)

[Dave m]

I don’t suppose one of those “follow me” cameras would help?

[ninjadingle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyf-_ptdJZQ

He's using a stream deck, but would have thought whatever command he's sending through the stream deck would be able to be sent by Qlab as well?