Posted a question about Video for Onstage Musicians but it's dead over there so....

[sventvkg]

Wow...These forums are truly dead aren't they? Bummer anyway, I'll pose the question here but here's the link anyway.

 

http://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/forum/recording/acapella-143/31612698-individual-musician-cameras-on-stage-for-live-video

 

I want to integrate small cameras on each musician in our live show for use in our video show. I'm interested in what others are using as far as hardware or suggestions. I've seen Peter Gabriel doing what I want to do. For instance a cool keyboard part comes and it switches to the keyboard player's camera mounted on his board or mic stand...or drummer doing a solo, etc etc...You get the point. I know GoPro's will work but we don't need anything that expensive or wide angle most likely. Any ideas or insight appreciated. Thanks.

[ski219]

Well you will likely need cameras that work well in low light situations...unless you are well lit. And you need a switcher and someone to run it. You might be able to get away with using a security camera system.

[Opus Antics]

Great idea. I have no input on what you can use but I am eager to see if anyone has a useful response.

[wesg]

I'm working with security cameras at work right now. Be advised that most of the 12MP cameras can't do 12MP at 30 fps.. *sigh*

 

One of my guys is playing around with cameras built in to Raspberry-Pis. That's going better than expected. I think it's less than $100 per camera including the Pi. I have a sneaking suspicion that you could even record the video straight to an SD card. You need to be pretty nerdy to get it working, though.

 

Wes

[sventvkg]

I posted this on Gearslutz and have gotten some responses there as well.

 

Here's more info.

 

We are going have prerecorded video and visuals that play in sync with our backing tracks and lights. Probably going to use a program like ProPlayerVideo 2 and integrate live cameras in with our pre-edited video show. We'll use MTC to cue when each camera pops in. However we will not need to record anything. It's just for playback.

 

I'm assuming we'll need something like Blackmagic UltraStudio Express and some splitters for the camera to go into first. I'm not so sure in this case we will need genlock cameras for this. I'm pretty sure I've seen it done with smaller cheap cameras.

[trevcda]

Love the Gabriel video. Also reminds me of Huey Lewis's Hip to be Square video:

 

 

 

I'm a big fan of the small scale proof of concept trial run. You could get some relatively inexpensive color bullet cams like these:

 

https://us.boschsecurity.com/us_product/products/video/analogcameras/fixedcameras/standardresolutionminibul/standardresolutionminibul_2370

 

The mounts come off and you can tape them to a mic or stand or guitar pretty easily. Keep in mind you will need to run video and power to each of these cameras.

 

You will want to stick with analog cameras for this and here's why: IP cameras are all going to have some amount of latency in them. Not a big deal when it's being recorded of viewed from another location, but when you have the actual event to compare the delay to it would be off putting and probably more than a little dizzying for more than a few moments. Analog is also cheaper and easier to distribute, for the moment at least. Genlocking is pretty important if you're trying for a polished look for the presentation. With everything going IP and HD, you can find used analog video mixers dirt cheap online, as they hold little value for anyone other than someone like you! Don't forget the distribution amplifier on the output going to your video monitors to keep the video level up and the colors bright.