Camera Advice

[musictom]

I'm looking for advice on purchasing a video camera. This camera's mission is solely to send a video signal of our stage to a couple of 47" lobby monitors. I don't need recording capability, but would like to get a decent looking HD signal. I know I'm going to have to convert the HDMI to Cat6 or something like that, but right now I'm just looking for the best looking camera. A decent zoom would be nice, although I'm imagining it's going to pretty much be a fixed shot.

Budget is $1K–$1.5K, give or take.

Thanks, all.

Tom

 

[ruinexplorer]

What does your budget include? Is this just for the camera, or does it include cabling, converters/distribution, and the lobby monitors? Do you think that sometime in the future that you might want to record or stream to the internet? Is 720 acceptable or do you need 1080?

 

[musictom]

What does your budget include? Is this just for the camera, or does it include cabling, converters/distribution, and the lobby monitors? Do you think that sometime in the future that you might want to record or stream to the internet? Is 720 acceptable or do you need 1080?

Great questions, and thanks for the clarification!

The $1-1.5K is for the camera only.

I don't see the need to push 1080 at this point: from what I've read, the bang for the buck just isn't there (yet), and I don't think hardly anybody would see the difference in 720.

I can also see us doing some streaming in the future —*definitely! There's even talk (down the road) about several cameras, switcher, imag, etc. But that doesn't necessarily factor in here and now.

Thanks,

Tom

 

[musictom]

Great questions, and thanks for the clarification!

The $1-1.5K is for the camera only.

I don't see the need to push 1080 at this point: from what I've read, the bang for the buck just isn't there (yet), and I don't think hardly anybody would see the difference in 720.

I can also see us doing some streaming in the future —*definitely! There's even talk (down the road) about several cameras, switcher, imag, etc. But that doesn't necessarily factor in here and now.

Thanks,

Tom

Just to follow up, we ended up with a Canon VIXIA HF G10. It should come this weekend.
Thanks,
Tom

 

[ruinexplorer]

Thanks for the update. After you put it through some paces, let us know how well it suits your needs.

 

[musictom]

Thanks for the update. After you put it through some paces, let us know how well it suits your needs.

We are only using it as a locked down wide shot of the stage, for our lobby. I'm very happy with the image quality: low light sensitivity, etc.

I am, however, a video NOOB! It looks good to me, but we just upgraded from a 20 year old VHS camera feeding 25" TVs, so anything is going to look light years ahead!

I figured if it was good enough for Leo Laporte to use in his new studio, it would work for us.