Panasonic PTZ cameras allow content capture without an onsite crew

Kristian Hernandez from SVG News recently interview Steve Milley from Panasonic. Together they discussed Covid-19's effect on in-venue production.

 As everyone knows, the pandemic has really put a dent into sports production. Thus PTZ Cameras have become a hot commodity. Luckily Panasonic has risen to the call. 

"One of the things that makes us unique is that we’ve outfitted many of our employees with our professional PTZs, so the picture quality has improved," Steve Milley (National Sales Manager at Panasonic) said. 

He also gave a professional example of how PTZ cameras are being used in the industry. "There are more studios being built, even for in-venue, [where] PTZ’s are being used. For example, the NBA is using a number of Panasonic PTZs for [their season]. That wasn’t always the case: traditionally, cameras were either rolling in a mobile production truck or a facility already having studio cameras built in," he said. 

With PTZ cameras, some people are using devices to control them. Panasonic uses Unreal Engine with their PTZ lineup. These create setups that are common in esports which is perfect for people doing commentaries. 

Panasonic is also involved with coaching analysis. According to Steve, many places which are using their PTZ cameras are being used not just on the field, but also inside classrooms.

Gary Bettan (of Videoguys) recently did an entire webinar on Panasonic Pro PTZ Lineup. You can check it out right here!

Charting the future

"As we’ve seen standards like IP and SMPTE 2110 coming along, our business was already going in that direction, so now the pandemic has forced the acceleration of that dialogue even further," Steve said. 

Recently Panassonic launched KAIROS systems for their virtual NAB show. This helps a lot with switching, distribution, and control needs for remote production. This is based on SMPTE 2110 with only one frame of latency. Currently the only limiting factor is the bandwidth of the place using it. It's quite easy on hardware, software, or even GPUs. 

"Relative to the pandemic, we’re going to continue to develop and foster that type of content acquisition and delivery as the discussions that we are having now are evolving. Before, we weren’t as detailed on technology like the Unreal Engine and KAIROS. Now it’s changed, and we’re having much greater dialogues, with companies that we weren’t normally deeply engaged with," Steve concluded. 

Read the original article right here!

Learn more about Panasonic here!