Tutorial: How to Up Your Live Sports Streaming Game with PTZ and NDI

Working with the TriCaster TC1

Since all of these cameras use the same lens, it makes shading a breeze. You can manually control each camera's white balance to ensure all of your angles match. If you need finer control, the TC1 has built-in color grading. With the built-in TriCaster TC1 camera controls, I can set up camera presets to quickly recall areas of the football field during the action.

TriCaster stores a thumbnail image of the camera preset so I can click on the image I need and the camera will pan, tilt, and zoom to that location automatically (Figure 8, below). Features like this allow sports producers to do more with less, with smaller teams, eliminating the need for so many camera operators.

Figure 8. Use camera preset thumbnails to set camera movements on the TC1.

While the TC1 has built-in PTZ control for these cameras, it's always nice to have a physical controller, too. That's why I took along the PTZOptics IP controller (Figure 9, below). Once connected to my network, the IP joystick will automatically detect all PTZOptics cameras on the same network so the setup is easy, and I don't need every camera physically connected to the joystick. This is ideal for remotely located cameras on the same network but installed, perhaps, on the other side of the stadium.

Figure 9. The PTZOptics IP controller joystick on top of the TC1

Each camera is set to a specific channel, which allows me to control them all from a single interface. Preset positions can be recalled instantly from the button pad, or you can use the intuitive joystick to pan, tilt, and zoom any camera.

With PTZOptics responsive cameras and the TC1's high-recording frame rate, you'll be able to capture any live event with confidence and quality. You can hard wire each PTZOptics camera with an uncompressed 3G SDI signal connected directly into the TriCaster TC1, or choose to add PTZOptics cameras over your gigabit network with NewTek's industry-leading NDI IP video protocol (Figure 10, below).

Figure 10. I/O connectivity on the TC1

The choice is yours.