A friend has recently tasked me with live-streaming some local concerts and I need some advice.
The setup they have at the moment is pieced together with a Roland VR-1HD mixer, 3 ancient iPhones that won’t stay charged, a bunch of cables pieced together to convert hdmi to lightning, and my M1 MacBook running OBS.
It is always an issue getting these old iPhones to connect and stay connected throughout the concerts so I am looking for some decent and affordable cameras to replace them that will work with the rest of what I already have.
This is for video only as sound runs straight from the house mixer into the Roland.
We stream our jams weekly with a few of these Logitech C9XX series. Direct usb connection, you just need enough ports if not get a usb hub. You have a M1 so get a decent usb C hub with multiple usb A ports.
They are recognised directly by OBS, no frills they just work. As with any camera work you need decent lighting, they are not good in low or very low light.
We got ours second hand for 30€ each which was a bargain, but, even buying new you will not get more bang for the buck.
If you need to place the cameras more than 3m away from the computer you will need active usb cables(they have a signal amplifier in the middle) which will cost you about 20€. That plus a few tripods to hold the cams is all you need.
There are way more professional and effective solutions, but this is a budget solution that will take you very far for less than 500€ total, for a 3 or 4 multicam solution.
Edit;: this replaced our old “use a cellphone in a tripod method” and the improvements are night and day.
And we are set to broadcast our first live gig in September (fingers crossed) with this equipment, I can certainly share some more tips and stuff to avoid then, if it’s not too late, and you find the above advice useful.
If you want to stream in low light you’re going to want something with a wide aperture lens, i.e. something with a low f.stop number. The exact f.stop you need will depend on the size of the sensor in the camera. Typically the larger sensor the higher f.stop you can get away with.
For example on a micro four thirds camera, such as the EM-1 you could use an f1.7 lense to bring in lots of light. On a APS-C camera the equivalent could be an f2.8 lens.
Generally webcams aren’t as good in low light as “large sensor compact cameras” or micro four thirds or bigger cameras.
I think what they’re looking to spend is right in the middle of these 2 recommendations. We basically need 3 cameras that will easily fit into the setup we have with the Roland mixer and less painful/better performance than the iPhones.
What about camcorders? They seem relatively inexpensive and probably better in low light situations than the cheap webcams.
I think this depends on your threshold of pain. You will probably get better low light performance of camcorders, but probably not the inexpensive kind.
And also beware of inexpensive camcorders.
they may record 4k but will they stream at that quality? Some will only stream the display HUD and all at a lower resolution .
what format do they stream and from where? If it’s only from the hdmi port, suddenly you need to a bunch of hdmi converters cause your M1 has zero hdmi inputs. And you want more than two cameras so a simple usb c hub will not do. You are talking specialised hardware there.
are the cameras self powered? If not how long does the camcorder run without needing a recharge? Then you need power near the cameras. Not a big deal but do keep it mind,
will the camcorder power on in the streaming mode? Or do you need to go to every camera every time and activate that mode?
will all this be simple with OBS?
It’s all about the trade off, and we found the camcorder solution a real PITA.
As for low light performance, our studio is not at all well illuminated, and the webcams do the job fine for our purposes. It has about 4 foot lamps with common domestic 100w or less lamps.
I think it depends a bit on the expectations of the venue and the purpose of the streaming. If you intend to sell them for 10€ a gig like the Berlin philharmonic, yes it will be lacking. If it’s for a bit of facebook streaming for marketing purposes I suppose it’s ok.
Here is a jam we streamed two weeks ago, 5 cams, so you can judge by yourself!
First of all, The gatherings… ambient/space music in a church? That would certainly be something I would gravitate to, if I was local. Alas, there is this thing called the Atlantic Ocean in the middle.
As for the lights… I did not watch the entire video (yet), but did skip a bit ahead, and I think the biggest challenge is the purple low light. With Neil ‘s performance I can see the white light parts being well captured and exposed (49:15), and with the purple lighting the side but close shot should be fine (37:15), but the webcams will probably struggle with the other side but far purple (45:40).
A similar situation applies to the Jason shots. (1:45:49) all good, but I’m not sure (2:27:50) will be amazing.
I know you don’t want to spend twice, but if you scour Craigslist or some thing and find a Logitech c9XX for a reasonable low price, I would try them out before going all in with camcorders or expensive cameras.
I was pretty interested in the recommendations of this camera on this forum. But my ultimate goal is to use it through HDMI into a Roland VR-4HD mixer (I think). It seems the camera only streams 30p over HDMI, and the VR-4HD requires 59.97p.
Yeah, this. Bummer!
I think I want something that can record/stream at 720p even, which is weird, but I’m using SD video (VGA/RGB) on input 4, and I assume I’m going to need to match a 4:3 aspect ratio – trying to stay away from 16:9 or stretching
Amazingly/surprisingly: I bought a second-hand Sony Cyber-shot WX1x0 at a garage sale, and it has an HDMI out which conforms to the VR-4HD frame rate / resolution requirements. Now I just have to figure out the specific/exact mode I need to be in, to have it stream video out of HDMI without overlaying the panel graphics.
I also picked up the matching tripod off eBay and it’s working well for recording conformant video.
