SDI Camera Recommendations for Conductor

[Ryan Ruddell]

Seeking Recommendation for: Low latency SDI camera for conductor/pit in a separate room. Video would need to be bi-directional - cast needs to see conductor and vice versa. We are fine with purchasing two cameras, and running two SDI lines. We  have a plan for stage fills, and will also have several monitors for members of the pit. 

Background: Our Theatre Space (1700 seat High School Auditorium) does NOT have a recessed pit for the orchestra. 

The orchestra is traditionally placed on the same level as the audience, pit walls are utilized for sight lines/minimal sound absorption for first few rows of the audience. 

This configuration places the orchestra about 15 feet in front of the LCR rig, which presents challenges when we mic the orchestra in terms of how much gain before feedback we are able to get from the orchestra mics. 

Additionally, we have to drive the actor worn mics at a higher level than preferable, to combat the acoustic level of the orchestra. 

The last two shows we deployed front fills in the form of JBL Control series speakers, for the first few rows of audience. 

Concept: Place orchestra in the band room behind the stage; utilize low latency SDI cameras for bi-directional video feed to cast, and condcutor. 

For audio, we would deploy RIO boxes in the band room, and fully mic the orchestra. Orchestra mix will have a dedicated engineer on an M7CL48 (the thing will not die).  FOH mix will be done on an X32 using Theatre Mix. Orchestra engineer will get a feed of cast mics. FOH will have overall level control of the orchestra, as well as be tasked with mixing the cast. 

Sorry for the lengthy write up - I hope I’ve painted the picture well enough. Happy to elucidate any further questions. I feel the juice with be worth the squeeze. However, I want it well planned and executed; otherwise I know it could be a hot mess. 

_______________ _______________

Ryan Ruddell

Communications Media Specialist

North Penn School District

401 E Hancock St. Lansdale PA 19446

Phone: 215-853-1265 • Email: rud...@npenn.org

"For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack." - Rudyard Kipling

[Mark Turpin]

We like Marshall cameras for this.  Look at something like the CV355.

Try BlackBox decoders for SDI to HDMI at the display.  They are inexpensive and very fast. 

Try to avoid a signal path that requires any display conversion by setting the SDI/HDMI converter to the display’s native resolution.  (If you have latency issues, it is often actually caused by display conversion.)

Be sure to look hard at your SDI cable specs.  Many SDI cables have limited distance for even 3GSDI.

How many displays will you deploy?  If more than one per camera, will you daisy-chain displays, or will you use a D/A?

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[rbing...@juno.com]

I would second all of these recommendations.  The Marshall cameras are compact but have decent picture quality.  I think Mark meant Black Magic conversion from SDI to HDMI.  I use those often as well.  And Marshall also makes some SDI distribution amps.  I would recommend that rather than daisy chaining from one converter to the next. 

 

Richard B Ingraham

[Mark Turpin]

Thanks, Richard – a short between the keyboard and the seat here.  Yes, I meant BlackMagic for the SDI converter.  Their D/A’s are also useful.  Older models will run up to 6GSDI, newer BlackMagic Teranex models will do 12g.  Marshall also has a UHD version of the CV cameras, FWIW.

 

From: theatre-s...@googlegroups.com <theatre-s...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of rbing...@juno.com
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2024 1:11 PM
To: theatre-s...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [theatre-sound-list] SDI Camera Recommendations for Conductor

 

I would second all of these recommendations.  The Marshall cameras are compact but have decent picture quality.  I think Mark meant Black Magic conversion from SDI to HDMI.  I use those often as well.  And Marshall also makes some SDI distribution amps.  I would recommend that rather than daisy chaining from one converter to the next. 

 

Richard B Ingraham

 

From: theatre-s...@googlegroups.com <theatre-s...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Mark Turpin
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2024 12:47 PM
To: theatre-s...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [theatre-sound-list] SDI Camera Recommendations for Conductor

 

We like Marshall cameras for this.  Look at something like the CV355.

Try BlackBox decoders for SDI to HDMI at the display.  They are inexpensive and very fast. 

Try to avoid a signal path that requires any display conversion by setting the SDI/HDMI converter to the display’s native resolution.  (If you have latency issues, it is often actually caused by display conversion.)

Be sure to look hard at your SDI cable specs.  Many SDI cables have limited distance for even 3GSDI.

How many displays will you deploy?  If more than one per camera, will you daisy-chain displays, or will you use a D/A?

--

Please edit unnecessary quoted text out of your reply.
Take non-theatre-sound topics to private email.
 

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[Ryan Ruddell]

Thank you both for your replies, we will more than likely need to do multiple displays for the cast to see the conductor. 

I think we already own some black-magic SDI to HDMI boxes. 

Thanks again! 

______________________________

Ryan Ruddell

Communications Media Specialist

North Penn School District

[rbing...@juno.com]

I do these remote pits in several high schools.  A couple of things I would highly recommend in addition to the video links, which you may have already thought of but just in case you haven’t.

 

1. Make sure the MD or whoever is conducting in the pit has a talkback mic with a switch, so they can give notes and respond from the pit, mostly used during tech.
2. Put out one or two floor mics or some other sort of “area” mic at the edge of the stage.  This is so just in case an RF mic goes down or some other issue pops up, the pit doesn’t suddenly have no audio feed to know what’s going on on stage at all.  It also allows them to hear things like applause so they can wait to start the next musical number, etc.   It also allows for someone that doesn’t have a god mic to just come to the edge of the stage and have communication with the pit.
3. Have a plan for how you’re going to cue the orchestra to start the show and top of Act 2, etc..  It’s amazing to me how many very skilled and experienced theatre people have to be reminded of this, typically by the sound designer.  😊  But I’ve seen it all from the pit just starting way too soon because someone bumped the house light controller to the SM trying to start the show or Act 2 and half the pit is missing, or the MD isn’t even paying attention.  Even when the MD has a headset.

 

There are other more sophisticated ways to achieve some of these of course with nicer COM systems but most high schools don’t have such gear and these are sort of the basics.

 

Richard B Ingraham

[K Maxwell]

This is probably more information that I should be posting here but I wanted to cover the things that popped out to me in the original question.

I’m surprised that you have a problem with feedback on a mic(ed) orchestra (or pit band) even with the location of the speakers to the orchestra. The venue where I do most of the musicals that I work on the pit is only mic(ed) for the video taping of the show. They are usually too loud to put into the house system and even if I needed to put them in the house system the mics don’t need to be reaching that much that feedback is an issue. The pit in this room is not recessed just like yours.    

For actors to see the conductor we have a 50” TV mounted on the edge or the balcony. That was the requested positon by the conductor and director, because they wanted the actors to be looking out to the audience not down or to the side to see the actual conductor in front of them, depending on where the conductor was for that particular show. We have also had to have the camera set to Black and White so it doesn’t light up the room like it would if it was in color.

We have a really cheap camera on the conductor that has SDI and composite outputs. We get a nice picture with the SDI to a BMD (Black Magic Design) SDI to HDMI converter. But we have had a problem with the image intermittently just cutting out and seconds later coming back in. We are using quality SDI coax cable about a 150’ run. We have played around with the settings on the BMD unit and we just can’t get it to work consistently. We thought we had it because it worked for over an hour just fine but then we noticed it was intermittently cutting out again. I should try a better camera to see how that would work.  

If we use the composite output of the camera into the Composite input of the TV it works just fine. We put the TV in game mode to reduce the propagation delay.

We have a rig with a pair of about 7’ rack mounted composite flat screens with the camera mounter on top of that.  This sits in front of the conductor, relatively close to the conductor. The camera goes into and then loops out of one of the screens when using composite to the TV. The left screen is used as a confidence monitor so the conductor knows they are properly in the shot. I think we had to reverse the image on the camera so that the actors would see the conductor in the proper orientation to them. When the pit is not in the pit the second screen has a locked down wide shot of the stage for the conductor to see.

We have done a few shows with the pit on stage. In Cabaret they were on an upper layer of the set. In others they have been all the way up stage sometimes behind the scenery. Sometimes they are revealed at the end, other times they have had to work their way out for the curtain call. The conductor hasn’t wanted a stage shot on a TV for the pit to look at (when they are not in the pit) the conductor wants the pit to look be looking at them.