If you have been to a live event, video, or broadcast technical conference or trade show in the last several years then you know 4K isn't just a fad. It's becoming almost a staple in the post-production world and it's slowly working its way into live production workflows as well.
In the post-production world, 4K pays off big dividends right now. There are many advantages to being able to crop your footage down to ¼ its size and retain full resolution in an HD environment.
On the live production side, manufacturers are making 4K products more viable, but for many of us in the church market HD hasn't been a standard long enough to consider making the jump to something new. Most of us remember how long it took to standardize HD, so while 4K may not be going anywhere, the “next big thing” could usurp the position.
That said, early adopters are getting more and more 4K options geared more specifically to live production.
Panasonic recently introduced what it calls “the first professional 4K PTZ (Pan Tilt Zoom) camera” at InfoComm 2015: the AW-UE70W. Now there may be a use for a PTZ camera in the post-production world, but I would think the applications would be few and far between. However, in live production, PTZs are a staple. For many people the small size, controllability, and flexibility of placement make these cameras perfect for a live production environment.
One of the limiting factors of PTZ cams is typically getting them integrated into a full production rig. They tend to use proprietary cables and often don't have genlock, meaning working them in requires cumbersome workarounds. This is not the case with Panasonic's AW-UE70W. It has broadcast standard SDI out and genlock. When it comes to ports, the AW-UE70W has all of the usual suspects; RS-422, HDMI, and 12v power. However it also has some not-so-usual ports like; RS232C in and out, Ethernet, 1/8-inch audio in, USB, and a micro SD card slot.
Some of these ports may seem odd on a PTZ, until you start reading about the feature set. My favorite example is the 1/8-inch audio in. Why would a PTZ need an audio in port? Well this PTZ can stream right from the camera, so being able to get a mix from your audio console without using any other hardware is an interesting feature for some churches that want to stream their services. Not to mention, the AW-UE70W can also record in camera to the micro SD card slot for an. I found that feature a little odd, only because typically where I end up placing PTZs, I would be unable to reach this slot. That said, it's a great feature if you can use it. This camera is also equipped with optical image stabilization, which will lead to smoother moves.
This PTZ was designed for lower cost installation. This is clear when you look at features like PoE+ (Power over Ethernet). This is a really easy way to reduce the cost of either of getting another cable to the camera, or worse, discovering your ideal position has no power at all and now requires an electrician to help install. Add to this the fact that the AW-UE70W does not require an expensive controller. In fact, it can be controlled from a free downloadable app on your iPad. The user can view the AW-UE70W via multi-view monitoring of up to 16 cameras in a single browser window (in M-JPEG mode only). All of these features speak to a lower installation cost, which is always a big selling point in the house-of-worship market.
4K in the post-production world, as I noted earlier, is a interesting feature. For the live production world it's really only helpful if you can use an HD portion of the 4K signal, which I presume is the case with the AW-UE70W, because at 4K it has a 22x optical zoom, but at HD it has a 30x. One can only assume those other 8x are coming from cropping down the full 4k image to just an HD portion of the signal. We look forward to getting our hands on a review unit and finding out for ourselves.
With all the features on this camera there was one feature I thought was missing. Since there are multiple outputs, I would like to have seen a selectable and assignable cropped output. For example, the SDI could put out the full 4K, but the HDMI could output a cropped version of the same shot right from the upper left quadrant at standard 1080. This would be great because it would effectively get you two cameras for the price of one. I think making a feature like this user-selectable/assignable on/off would add to an already interesting camera for the live-production market.
On paper, the AW-UE70W has the potential to be a top contender for the short list of any church that's considering a PTZ camera. We look forward to learning more when the product is released. Scheduled launch date is October 2015, and the price is yet to be determined.