Live wireless cameras.

[Joe Allen]

Hello all
We are a youth company looking to put on a Theatre Production, and as part of our show, we would like 4 of the cast to wear a camera, and have that projected/shown live on screens at the back. Would this be possible? It would need to be wireless from the Camera's to a mixer, but from there it can be any format. Any suggestions for this would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you all in advance.

 

[macsound]

I'm assuming because it's youth theatre, the budget isn't huge. If it is, Cinegear makes a great SDI wireless streamer for about $1k. You'd add a $500 POV camera and figure out a power supply.
For cheap, the Polaroid Cube is $99 and has built in wifi. You can view the live video from the camera on an iPhone, then mirror that to a projector. It would be complicated because you need a video switcher, the video has latency and is only about 15fps.

FWIW, I've done shows where something like this was requested and we ended up doing a shoot ahead of time and then using pre-recorded video as if it was live. Took some practice to make it sync up, but if the actors are already well rehearsed, watching the video was helpful locking it in.

 

[Joe Allen]

For cheap, the Polaroid Cube is $99 and has built in wifi. You can view the live video from the camera on an iPhone, then mirror that to a projector

That could work, I think we have access to some go-pros that should do the same job. If we can get something to mirror the Iphones, this could work quite well!
As for switching, I think that could be done with software (Like OBS)? If not, we'd probably hire one for the show.

Thank you!

 

[macsound]

I haven't used GoPros in that way, but it may be possible.
OBS does do switching, but because the video is being mirrored to an iOS app, you'd need 4 old iPhones or iPod touches with Lightning to HDMI outputs and then some way to get the live video into a computer, switch with OBS and then output to your projector.

 

[Joe Allen]

Just posting an update to this. We have given up with giving the actors cameras, and have instead opted for 3 CCTV cameras, 2 stationary (sl and sr, crossing) and a central camera on a 'boom arm' (Microphone stand). They all run to a real DVR (but it doesn't have any hard drive). This then outputs to a projector/screen that we control using the remote control.