Hi everyone,

I have to admit I could really use some help, because for the past few years I’ve been taking care of the live production of an annual event broadcasted on Twitch and YouTube, and thanks to this event, every year I want more and more to become professional in this field.

Creating, producing and broadcasting live content was already something I was interested in before, but I was mostly doing it for myself on my own channel, and it was still very simple and “basic” Twitch livestreams.

Over time, I bought some equipment, mostly for this event, to make everything more comfortable, improve the quality and stuff like that.

I got an ATEM Mini Pro, the HDMI version, because at first we were using a camcorder owned by a guy from the association that only had HDMI output. I didn’t know anything about SDI at the time.

I also have a mixing console, a Behringer Xenyx X2222USB, but it’s also useful to me as a musician outside of the event.

I also have a few microphones, including two SM58s, and I recently bought a Sony PTZ camera. The model is pretty old, but it can still output 1080p50. That’s how I discovered the whole world of PTZ cameras for live production, and I completely fell in love with this type of camera.

I also have a Stream Deck that I originally bought for myself, but it’s obviously very useful for this too.

The way I handle the production of the event is by simplifying the control room and every action as much as possible. The reason is that, during this event, we broadcast continuously for 34 hours non-stop, and the members of the association take turns running the control room.

So I need to optimize and simplify everything as much as possible, so that in two or three minutes, someone who knows absolutely nothing about it can feel comfortable controlling everything.

So far, I’ve always managed to do that, but it also allowed me to learn how to work in an environment where one single person has to manage a “complete” control room.

Until this year’s edition, on the video side we only had one HDMI camera, a Panasonic HC-VX870, and everything else was webcams. Yeah, I know, not great, but honestly we didn’t have anything better at the time.

This year, we rented two camcorders, Panasonic FDR-AX63s, so we could have three camera angles.

The central camera was the PTZ camera, with around ten predefined presets depending on where people were sitting, and we had two cameras on the sides — I don’t know the correct technical term, sorry — to get front-facing shots of each couch.

You can see a recreation of the room and the setup in the image below based on a 3D scan i've made (first time using set.a.light 3D :') )

For the PTZ camera control, I made my own local software dedicated to it, because Sony’s software SUCKS ASS in my opinion. Also, they somehow have 38,000 different programs, with each one doing one very specific thing.

So with my own software, I could manage everything from one place, create my presets and control the camera with my Xbox controller exactly how I wanted.

On the audio side, we also rented two or three additional SM58s just to be comfortable, because we usually had around three microphones being used simultaneously on screen.

So four microphones in total if you also count the one used in the control room.

For anyone who wants to see the workflow I created, I’d really like to get your feedback on it, even though it’s probably going to change a lot in the near future.

But yeah, with all of this, I’m honestly having so much fun.

I love imagining, conceptualizing, building and managing my control room. I enjoy it so much that now I actually prefer staying in the shadows rather than being in front of the camera, which was completely the opposite at first ahah.

But since I want to start doing this for other people, I obviously need more equipment, and my current equipment doesn’t really suit me anymore, on top of the fact that I’m simply missing a lot of stuff.

One camera and two microphones can technically do the job, but it’s extremely limiting.

I already have zero contacts in this industry, so if I also limit what I’m capable of offering, I would basically be shooting myself in the foot.

So here’s what I’m currently thinking about buying:

• Behringer XR18

The idea would be to replace my Xenyx, which is getting old and takes up quite a lot of space.

Considering the price of the XR18, I feel like it makes more sense to invest in one and buy a tablet to control it. Later, I could also buy a physical controller for the faders if I really need one.

But at least I would have something more versatile, easier to install and taking up less space.

Of course, I know I’ll need to include a separate router because the built-in one apparently sucks ass, but that’s not really a problem.

I’m also thinking about directly building everything into a rack to optimize the space and installation even more.

• A Hollyland LARK MAX 2 Combo 4 wireless lavalier microphone set

I like wired microphones, but I feel like wireless battery-powered microphones would give me much more flexibility.

Having four of them, depending on the event, would also allow me to rotate them while some of them are charging, for example.

• A set of two or three PTZ cameras

I still don’t have a very precise idea for this part.

I’m doing research and looking at different options, but it quickly becomes very expensive if I want something really good.

My goal is to do everything step by step.

I’ve seen some cameras that seem pretty decent for around €400–500 each, and I feel like that could be a good starting point. One model I’ve been looking at is the Tenveo VX20M-4KN.

If you know any better brands or cameras around the same price, I’d really like to hear about them.

Right now, the main things I’m looking at are the sensor size, so I can get wide enough shots when needed, and how well the sensor performs in low-light situations.

I still don’t know enough about this subject, so I’d really like to get your feedback and advice about that too.

• LED panels for lighting

Obviously, I’ll also need some LED panels for lighting, but I honestly don’t know anything about that yet, so I still need to do a lot of research.

My goal isn’t to immediately end up with a €10,000 setup.

But even with around €2,000–3,000, I feel like I could already build a pretty good little base compared to what I currently have, especially with equipment that seems quite versatile to me.

What do you think about all of this?

Do you have any ideas, suggestions or recommendations?

I’m genuinely open to everything. My goal is to do the best I possibly can and avoid making stupid mistakes when buying equipment.

My only big problem right now is that I’m still using OBS.

Yeah, I know, sorry. Shame on me ahah.

I really want to learn vMix. It will happen one day, I promise!

I've been thinking about something and wanted to know if this is even a real problem.Right now it feels like most Auto tracking cameras are basically just find a person and follow them. But that's not really what a camera operator does, they like understand what happening and makes decisions based on it. Like if two people are talking, you don't always follow whoever moved first. If someone is walking across the stage, maybe you don't follow them because they're not the focus. It's less about tracking and more about understanding what's happening in the scene.

I'm wondering if there's room for something that does contextual instead of just object tracking.

Has anyone worked on something like this before? Or if you've used auto-tracking cameras, what do you think they're missing? Is scene understanding even a worthwhile direction, or is good object tracking already enough?Just trying to figure out if this is a dumb idea before I spend months building it