For Bethany Place Baptist Church in Chesterfield, Virginia, it’s been PTZ cameras from the start. To meet the church’s needs and budget, PTZ’s from PTZOptics were chosen over manned cameras. The church uses mostly volunteers for production staff and the PTZOptics cameras have been their only source of video infrastructure since they began streaming.
The PTZOptics Move 4K PTZ Camera and SuperJoy Controller have received the Church Production Road Test Certification.
Andrew Ryan is a production team volunteer at Bethany Place Baptist. “We have never had an issue with them. They're rock solid. They connect easily. Everything is controlled over IP. They connect to multiple streaming software that we've used, but you can also control the PTZ function using PTZOptics web interface, which you don't have to pay a dime for,” Ryan explains.
"...they work basically in any application, in any lighting.”
—Andrew Ryan production team volunteer, Bethany Place Baptist Church
As part of Church Production’s Road Test User Experience, PTZOptics sent Bethany Place a set of their new Move 4K cameras and SuperJoy Controller for a test drive. “Like any PTZOptics product, the first thing that you're going to notice when you pull it out of the boxes, is they pack extra gravity. These are solid units. They're not falling apart in your hands. I like that. It really helps that I know when I place it somewhere, it's not going to be especially affected by vibrations,” says Ryan.
Ryan says he mounted the new cameras along the back wall along with the multiple cameras there already. That meant they were able to run cameras on the side, in the back, and then have two cameras in the center, which allowed them to switch between tight shots and wide shots without having to do more transitions.
"...the camera itself is a plug and play unit. If you're using NDI, it's super easy."
—Andrew Ryan production team volunteer, Bethany Place Baptist Church
“So, the camera itself is a plug-and-play unit. If you're using NDI, it's super easy. You get signal and power over ethernet, which is great if you've got an existing network. It's also easy to set up if you don't already have anything in place. The 30X zoom is wonderful. I found that it's useful in almost any size room,” Ryan enthuses. “We've actually used this in a couple rooms here on campus in a large room like we use for our normal Sunday services. It's absolutely great for getting your tight closeup headshots when you've got a specific speaker, but it also retains a great color balance and lighting. When you zoom out for a wide shot of your band or your lead pastor, the ability to record and stream in 4K if we wanted to, it's a great upgrade. It allows us the potential for future growth as we continue to grow our team, to grow our capabilities. That's something that we want to do in the future as we continue to add hardware and quite honestly, train volunteers.”
Ryan also explains some of the features they like about the SuperJoy Controller, also from PTZOptics. Starting with the oversized focus and exposure knobs. “They feel really good. This one is spring-loaded. They work really well. Our volunteers really liked them in that you know when you've engaged the knob. The other feature that our volunteers were really over the moon about is the actual PTZ control the joystick here, so it's very heavily spring-loaded. It's smooth, and the twist focus resets very easily without any kind of bounce. So, the controller that we were using previously had some bounce on the zoom control, so when you released it, it would basically unzoom just a bit as it bobbled. With this, no issues at all. Some of the other really nice features that we've been enjoying using are the focus lock and the exposure controls. That allows us to adjust cameras without having to go into the web interface for different lighting conditions.”
"...it's not going to be especially affected by vibrations.”
—Andrew Ryan production team volunteer, Bethany Place Baptist Church
Ryan also says the stand-alone Auto-Focus lock button makes it easy to get centered on a speaker and get the focus where they want it and then lock it. “So that you don't get the little blurry bits of a speaker coming in and out. The SuperJoy has an HDMI output that's independent of any output or control software that you're using. We found that really helpful because the Super Joy doesn't indicate within your streaming software what camera you currently have selected, so you want to make sure that you don't accidentally move your currently selected camera during your production.”
Designed for use in smaller classrooms as well as large worship areas, the cameras have an L-shaped mount which allows placement almost anywhere with plenty of clearance once mounted to get all the connections on it. Ryan says they’ve used the cameras in many applications successfully. “We've used these cameras for our worship services. We've used them for church meetings that we recorded. We've used them for memorial services, and for a couple choir concerts. At this point, they work basically in any application, in any lighting.”
>> Learn more about PTZOptics Move 4K Cameras and SuperJoy Joystick Camera Controller.
