Room Controls – Cameras
- Camera controls are essential to produce quality recordings. No two professors act the same way during recordings – one may stay perfectly still and another may run around the room, doing a lap every 5 minutes. In either case, we want the camera to record professional quality content. That means the camera should keep the professor in the frame at all times and react quickly to Instructor movement. Every producer should be familiar with camera controls to be able to provide this type of quality.
- ELO CAMERA CONTROLS
- In ELO rooms, the camera controls are integrated into the touch panel controls: the same touch panel that is used for the projector. ELO cameras move in steps; there is an up, down, left, and right button to move the camera one “step” in the corresponding direction. Because the movement is not smooth and continuous, our policy is to set the camera distance so that it completely encompasses the full range of the Instructor’s motion. So, if the Instructor never moves, it is okay to zoom in close and leave it there. If the Instructor moves all across the front of the room, zoom the camera out so that the full front of the room is visible (a “wide” shot). If the Instructor moves around more than that, leave the camera in a wide shot and move as little as possible to keep him in the frame.
- Another aspect of ELO rooms is that there are multiple cameras. The Instructor camera will be used most of the time, but for collaboration segments or question/answer sessions, you may want to switch to the Student camera. The touch panel also has two buttons to select either the Instructor or Student camera. As soon as either is pressed, the corresponding feed will switch in all of our recording programs. The switch takes several seconds, so do not use it unless you know the activity you want to capture is going to last longer than several seconds.
- NON-ELO ROOMS
- In most of the non-ELO rooms, camera controls are located in the IT rack that houses our Encoder and Echo
box. there are three pieces of equipment you should pay attention to. The first is the camera monitor. This will give you a preview of what each camera is currently showing, along with a number for that camera.
- The second is the camera switcher. This control panel has many different functions, but you only need to worry about one – the live feed. You can change which source is the live feed by selecting the button corresponding to the number of the camera you want to make live. This will change the input to Panopto, Echo, and WebEx to the camera you’ve selected.
- The third is the camera control box. This has a joystick, allowing you to position the camera appropriately. To zoom in or out, twist the top of the joystick clockwise and counterclockwise, respectively. This will only move one camera at a time.
You can change which camera you are controlling by pressing the button corresponding to the number of the camera you want to control. There are also controls for camera brightness and focus, but these should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.
