PTZ for 4k Micro Studio Camera?

Can anyone recommend a PTZ head that is good to use with the 4k Micro Studio Camera?

Thanks,

This information is not available at this time, as the PTZ feature has not been baked into AREM control software, so compatible heads can not be determined until full implementation of the feature is available to see what PTZ command set BM is going tomuse on the ATEM.

The PTZ control feature on the camera is just a link to take commands sent from ATEM to camera on return SDI connection, and break out those commands via the RS422 connection on the break out cable to the PTZ head under the camera. It's a nice feature, will be interesting to see how it really is going to work.
Also no menu options in camera firmware for it either.

This information is not available at this time, as the PTZ feature has not been baked into AREM control software, so compatible heads can not be determined until full implementation of the feature is available to see what PTZ command set BM is going tomuse on the ATEM.

The PTZ control feature on the camera is just a link to take commands sent from ATEM to camera on return SDI connection, and break out those commands via the RS422 connection on the break out cable to the PTZ head under the camera. It's a nice feature, will be interesting to see how it really is going to work.
Also no menu options in camera firmware for it either.

Does the new ATEM 6.6 software released yesterday with enhanced PTZ not include PTZ support? That was the highlight feature of the new release.

Admittedly, I'm not completely up on the technical implementations of PTZ so maybe what was delivered with the new 6.6 software only partially addresses the control requirements for the 4k Micro cameras.

That said, how about independently controlled PTZ heads in general? Does anyone have a good recommendation?

Thanks,

Brett, thanks for the info on the update, last time I checked was last week. Sounds like they " baked" the PTZ control and camera CCU control for the MIcro Studio camera in the ATEM software. Great news, happened faster than I thought it would. Now for the ATEM Gurus to to get cracking on figuring this out, and which heads will work.

As for robotic heads, you should be able to use any head that will support the combined weight of camera, battery, and the lens being used. My previous experience was with Cat5 network controlled heads,math at had their own controller, and they worked great. You should be able to get info on the PTZ control command set from the update documentation when you download it.

No they put very basic (pretty much useless) VISCA protocol support into the ATEM Broadcast Panels.

VISCA is a Sony protocol for their PTZ cameras, it's not commonly available in standalone remote heads.

The panel just supports Pan Tilt and Zoom movement from the joystick, there is neither focus nor iris support, nor the ability to recall presets. This makes it all but useless.

It would be interesting to know how they think any of this is going to work in the longer term?? It seems like they have begun to implement two utterly different approaches to PTZ. Maybe there is a master plan to join up somewhere in the future? Or maybe the left hand is not talking to the right?

We shall wait and see!


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Tom, this is what I was wondering. Pan, tilt and zoom are the basic commands to control the head (and zoom on a Sony camera). If a standalone PZ head used this command set, and you are using the Micro Studio camera, the ATEM CCU commands would control the camera Iris and focus, and other camera functions (including zoom on a PZ lens).

The biggie here is you need the control,surface joystick to,use it anyway, so unless there is a PTX VISCA head available, all,you are going to control is a Sony PTZ camera, without the ability to focus, which as you pointed out, makes it pretty much useless if you can not focus the camera.

The interesting part will be if they add PTZ control from the software control panel.

And...imagine with Baz could do with his special sauce to issue Macros/Shot presets to the PTZ cameras

it would be interesting if they implement a useful VISCA set of functions including preset recall. without having the ability to do preset recall you cannot really use PTZ cameras very effectively.

Anyone such as BAZ or Skaarhoj can already do VISCA preset recalls very easily simply using a dedicated serial output from a micro controller. There is no need for Blackmagic to do anything for these people to have working systems. (IIRC both Skaarhoj and JustMacros have already done some kind of PTZ control systems)

The current functions that BMD have added to the ATEM are a good starting point but are not really actually usable during a show as such.

it's very early days for the BMD system in regards to PTZ so we will have to wait and see how it develops over the next few years.

Great information everyone. Thanks for helping bring a noob a little more up to speed on PTZ with the ATEM system.

Thanks,

After looking through the ATEM manual, it seems like the PTZ control only works if the PTZ cameras/heads are connected over the RS-422 port on the ATEM. So it would only work for ATEM 1 M/E and 2 M/E since the other ATEM units don't have an RS-422 port.

It sounds like the PTZ commands aren't actually being sent out to the cameras over the SDI port yet. Which means this wouldn't really work with the Micro Studio 4K camera and its own RS-485 output connector.

I also looked in the SDK documentation, and couldn't find any functions related to PTZ support. So maybe it's not part of the public API yet? Since it sounds like support is only enabled for the hardware broadcast panel (not the ATEM software control panel), it's possible it isn't really intended for 3rd party usage yet. It might require some reverse engineering of the commands sent by the hardware control panel to figure out what commands are actually being sent.

So PTZ has only been added for the Sony PTZ cameras when using one of the B.m panels on the two supported ATEMs. Micro Studio camera PTZ control us still not "Baked in" yet! OK, back to the drawing board.

Yes.

On the up side at least VISCA is a PTZ protocol and it is published on full by Sony.

The RS485 that the micro camera talks about isn't a PTZ protocol at all afaik. In actual fact it isn't really anything as it currently doesn't exist even on the cameras which list it as one of their functions.

I'd love someone from BMD to explain the plan with all this, but I truly believe that there isn't one! It looks like two separate teams without a coordinated plan of attack.


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Hi there all remote operators out there!

Are there any news on this topic?

Is it possible to remotely operate a BMD Micro Studio Camera 4K from a Production Switcher 4K?
What kind of input is allowed? I don't have RS422 or similar on my switcher.
Do we know of any brands who sell compatible PT heads?

Thank you and have a great weekend! / Marcus

It all depends on what you mean by "remotely controlled operation" and what lenses you will use on the Micro Studio camera. There are quite a few Robotic camera heads that will work, with their own controllers, and interface with the camera for lens focus and Iris control via LANC.
Also the Arduino Sheild, which can give yiu the ATEM CCU control over the Micro cameras functions via the camera's SDI return feed input (useually from the ATEM switcher). Their are also several examp,es of Stuido type CCU control with third party controllers.

Do a search on studio camera CCU control, Robotic video heads and the Arduino Shield here and in BM User group. Lots of previous posts in the subject. PTZ control of the Micro perse, does not exist yet.
DS

Check out www.multicamzilla.com for an elegant solution.

Hi guys,

We're 5 years on now. Has anyone came up with a use for the 4K Micro Studio Cameras and joystick on the Broadcast Panel? or alternatively a PTZ camera that works with it?

Thanks,
Sam

We're 5 years on now. Has anyone came up with a use for the 4K Micro Studio Cameras and joystick on the Broadcast Panel? or alternatively a PTZ camera that works with it?

We developed a box that takes the signal from the SDI control and turns it into to Visca control for Visca enabled PTZ cams. It also listens to the Camera Control data and sets shutter, whitebalance, iris, etc..

But the control on the Atem is still very limited to PTZ. The SDI protocol supports up to 6 presets but there is no way on the panel to Set or recall presets..
So the implementation on the Atem side is failing.. Which does not make it that interested to use the BMD control panel. But rather just buy a good Visca controller which does have all the controls.