ONE CAMERA - live feed to 5 diff televisions, and 1 projector

1. huastec
   Member

   

    Greetings & Salutations… I have never setup a live feed camera project. I am helping with an event in our congregation. In our main auditorium we will have a speaker. We will capture his talk with camera from about 20-30 feet away. We would like to transmit his image LIVE to 5 different televisions located in the premises but located in other areas of our hall. Also we would need to transmit his image to a projector that we have in another auditorium. NO AUDIO SETUP IS NEEDED FOR THIS PROJECT. My questions are as follows:

   1) what output should my camera have? what cable should i purchase for that? 

   2) what input do all the televisions need to have? if the television does not have the necessary input can i purchase CONVERTER CONNECTOR or something?

   3) for the projector, what type of input does the projector need to have to do live feed from camera setup?

   4) will i need to buy connectors/dividers so the one cable from the camera divides into 5 televisions? or is there such a thing as a "router" or "hub" for the signal? (excuse my ignorance)

    5) id love to have a "preview monitor" close to the camera. is this possible?

    THANKS SO MUCH FOR WHATEVER ASSISTANCE YOU CAN PROVIDE!

   huastec 

   Posted 3 years ago #

2. fmind
   Member

   

    Huastec:

   This should be a fairly easy thing to do.  The main limitation will be cable length.  What I will suggest will provide a quality level that is a bit better than standard tv.  Some folks will say to limit your cables to around 50' total length each (and they are correct that there is loss in long runs), but I have run up to 200' with minimal quality loss.  It won't be HD, but it should look nice for what you want.  Here's the scoop:

   You need to take "S" video out of your camera.  DO NOT TRY to split this with "Y" cables, or any other "passive" method.  I don't think you would actually do damage (although.....), but you would definately have garbage for quality.  You need a Distribution Amplifier (DA) unit to split the signal.  These come in numerous sizes, but a 1x6 (one input, six outputs) would give you feeds for your five areas plus your preview monitor.  Get one that is native "S" format, don't try to use a composite amplifier and then adapt the ins/outs!  You can then use runs up to 200' using "S" cable to each screen/projector. (it should not be any problem to find sets that take "S" in.)  You can try longer runs, but your picture may really start to suffer.

    The quality of "S" vid. is not as good as a digital solution, but for your purposes, it should work nicely.  It also provides "real-time" video to your screens, so you will not have the screens in the same room as the speaker lagging about 1 second behind as firewire will do (very distracting!)

   Hope that helps.  Good luck with your event!

   Best,

   Kfox

   F.M. Industries

   Posted 3 years ago #

3. huastec
   Member

   

    FMIND… thanks, this is a huge help!

   Posted 3 years ago #

4. sketcht
   Member

   

   I would stick to using regular composite video with BNC connectors. The cost of S-video cable in comaprison to regular composite is quite more, and the quality isn't that different. Judging by the distance of the signal path you mentioned, you will be running a fairly lengthy cable run. The quality of cable you use determines the length you can go with out amplifing the signal. I wouldn't go more than 100' without the use of a distibution amplifer (D.A.). After the D.A. I've gone over 200' without signal loss/noise.

   Here's what I would do. Take the video signal out of the camera and send it directly to the preview monitor your camera operator will use.
   Providing that the monitor is a decent one you should be able to continue the video signal path out of it. Go from the output of the monitor to the back of the room. This is where you want to use the D.A. This way there is only one cable on the ground you need to tape down. Not five. Now send the video from the outputs of the D.A. to the other locations following the walls.

   Most pro gear has BNC connectors, less pro gear would be using RCA connectors. BNC being the better of the two due to the fact that it locks the cable to the device, making less chance of the cable being yanked out like what could happen with Mini-Din (S-video) or RCA.If you need to you can use an adapter to convert BNC to anything. They are fairly cheap. You can find them at any electronics store. Hope this helps.

   Cheers.

   Posted 3 years ago #

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