Live multi-camera system

[Adam Grunseth]

I finally have my multi-camera live system up and running.

Here is a video tour of it-

High Def Flypack System Tour - YouTube

So far I am using it mainly for performance based events like plays and concerts. I'm not sure how well it would really work for a wedding due to the setup times and crew requirements.

Let me know what you think.

[Dave Partington]

Interesting.

I've often thought about putting something like this together for multi camera shoots, as long as there's some talk back to control the crew at the same time.

What would you say is the setup time?

What is the furthest you've had a camera roam front he unit and still had a good feed?

Are all your cameras on HDMI over cat5 or do you do any wireless HDMI?

[Rob Cantwell]

great setup, well done!

i'm not sure how practical it would be in a wedding scenario.

[Adam Grunseth]

Originally Posted by Dave Partington

Interesting.

I've often thought about putting something like this together for multi camera shoots, as long as there's some talk back to control the crew at the same time.

What would you say is the setup time?

What is the furthest you've had a camera roam front he unit and still had a good feed?

Are all your cameras on HDMI over cat5 or do you do any wireless HDMI?

Setup time is approximately three hours with the jib. The jib takes a decent amount of time to balance and setup. Without the jib, setup time can easily be less than an hour. Minus the jib, all that goes into setup is putting the cameras on tripods, plugging in the flypack and monitors, and running cable to the cameras.

The way I have it set up right now, each camera has its own 200' SDI cable reel, so the farthest any camera can be at this time is 200'. I use the same cable reels every time, even if the cameras are only 30' away, just the whole reel doesn't get used.

As you probably inferred from my mention of SDI cable, I am using SDI from the cameras to the flypack. SDI allows for longer cable runs and seems more robust than HDMI to me.

Right now the cameras I am using with this setup are a bit older. I am using three Sony FX1 cameras for the tripod and jib cams, and a JVC HM700 as the handheld cam. The Sony FX1's do a pretty good job. They have good low light performance and produce a surprisingly high quality image considering they are only HDV. I take the analog component output from the cameras, before HDV compression, and go straight into a Blackmagic SDI converter at the camera. From there it is SDI to the flypack.

For communication with the crew, at this point I am just using FRS radios with headsets. I hope to eventually upgrade to a professional intercom solution, but that is for the future. So far the radios have worked fine for us.