RL500 Camera controls

Our Stake has purchased the newly recommended Clear Touch RL500 PTZ cameras for the stake center. So far we have not been able to have the camera connect to zoom via the ethernet cable system. We can via the usb-c connection or the hdmi, but when we mount the camera in the chapel we will need to run cabling approximately 50-75 feet to the control system in the materials center.

Also, we plan on having 2 cameras and control them via a joystick controller. So far we have not receive any confirmation that a controller like the Lumens VSKB30 will work with the RL500.

Does anyone have support help on these issues?

Have you installed NDI tools on the receiving computer?

I would persevere as NDI is so convenient and excellent once setup. Your camera also supports PoE so you literally just need one Ethernet cable and you're sorted.

I've only played with a handful of different PTZ cameras but they all worked with the same controller, guessing they have a standardized protocol for that.

Wattsuk wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 11:37 pm Have you installed NDI tools on the receiving computer?

I would persevere as NDI is so convenient and excellent once setup. Your camera also supports PoE so you literally just need one Ethernet cable and you're sorted.

I've only played with a handful of different PTZ cameras but they all worked with the same controller, guessing they have a standardized protocol for that.

I also agree that you need the NDI tools for this. We aren't using this brand of camera, but we have ours with NDI capabilities like this one, and you are able to access the cameras over the network. Just be aware, if you have a large percentage of users who use mobile devices during services, you may need to disable Liahona, depending on our bandwidth. We've made it known in our buildings, to limit the use of wifi during Sacrament services to allow those viewing from home to have the best experience. We haven't had to yet, but during Stake Conference, we definitely turn off wifi as we don't want to experience any issues. We leave Lehi on for the Stake members who are authorized to be on that network, as they are typically low bandwidth users.

I had found during Sacrament meetings and the first Stake Conference we did streaming, that there were people who were in the chapel, connecting to the stream

That blew my mind, that they were in person, but felt the need to be watching it from their phone... when the pulpit was less than 30 feet away.

jnpetersen wrote: Wed Aug 10, 2022 2:43 pm I had found during Sacrament meetings and the first Stake Conference we did streaming, that there were people who were in the chapel, connecting to the stream

That blew my mind, that they were in person, but felt the need to be watching it from their phone... when the pulpit was less than 30 feet away.

They might have had to find themselves a cry room. They were in the building, but not in a place to see/hear.

We also came across this phenomenon.

We asked the members why and the main reason was that they had shared the broadcast link with friends/family/ministering families etc and they wanted to make sure it was working ok.

They didn't watch the stream for an hour, just quickly jumped on and then back off.

There seemed to be 2 or 3 different members most weeks who would do this and show up on both our in person and virtual attendance reports at the same time.

Also, on the NDI side of things, if you are able with your device, reduce the video resolution down to 720p at source. It will save your internal network bandwidth and you won't be losing anything anyway as whichever service you are ultimately streaming to will typically be 720p or even lower.

We are installing three RL500 cameras and we set up the first camera using the default IP and reset the IP to our system address. We can ping it and it works fine, when we went to the other two units, doing identical setup with their consecutive IP address, they will not allow us to ping or connect to them, reseted to default a couple of times on each one but the still refuse to connect or allow pings??? Anyone else experienced this?

No experience with this particular camera, but this brother did a great step-by-step writeup on configuring the RL400 (which is very similar).

viewtopic.php?t=41802

Can I assume you're using the Public network and not Iot or Facilities? Are these cameras already mounted, or can you work with them in-hand on a countertop?

Had great success with our RL500 Cameras, we now have three joystick controlled cameras on Lan control using PTZController Software. Pan, tilt, zoom and focus with 100 presets to use on each camera. We had spent a long time figuring it out but in two hours it was all working as it should using the laptop in wireless mode Would love to share how its done but wonder if it would be easier using a zoom meeting so that as many as are interested could join. This will work for one to as many cameras as you have to use. Let me know and we can set it up… have a great day, Bro Rogers, Marietta Georgia Stake…

You are correct, the RL400 setup is spot on also… good job, follow his direction will get you there too, the only difference is the PTZcontroller software we use…

Thyratronman wrote: Sat Jun 10, 2023 9:17 am Had great success with our RL500 Cameras, we now have three joystick controlled cameras on Lan control using PTZController Software.

How did you get the 3 cameras? I assume FM only paid for the one. All the sites I've visited don't seem to sell the cameras directly.

My question also. Do we have to purchase directly from Clear Touch? How much do they cost, we would like to purchase one for our Stake before end of Dec.

If you want to buy one, check with Poll Sound in Salt Lake to see if they offer them. That is who most of us church and church contractors use to get equipment from.

https://www.pollsound.com/

After much trial and error we were able to get the RL500 IP Camera streaming both audio and video into a Zoom meeting. I screenshotted and documented every step.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c3O ... drive_link

Re: Guide to setup a ClearTouch RL500 IP Camera for use with Zoom (An outstanding article!)

We set up our Stake Center before the RL500 was available. We used a different solution to combine audio with video for Zoom.

1. We ran an audio feed from the PA system to a 4-input audio mixer instead of the camera.
2. The mixer feeds the microphone input of our webcasting computer through a fixed attenuator (the computer did not have a line level audio input.)
3. The Virtual Camera in OBS provides the video input to Zoom and the microphone input provides the audio to Zoom.
4. We also have two choir mics which feed the mixer.

This setup allows the webcast operator to adjust audio levels and also optionally add the choir mics when appropriate.

A more complete setup would allow for:
1. Remote presenter - A remote person gives a talk or prayer. This is easily done in Zoom, but the audio needs to go the the PA system and the video needs to be projected on a screen in the local chapel. (We actually had to this once.)

2. Local presenter using PowerPoint - Without webcasting, the presenter's computer would just feed a projector for video and the audio to the PA through a crab box. With webcasting the computer's video needs to feed the projector and also OBS so it appears in the Virtual Camera. If not done correctly there may be lip-sync problems. A simpler, but sub-optimal, solution is to point the camera at the screen where the video is projected.

We also found it useful to place a hand mic connected to the PA system on the floor under the piano to make the piano audible to Zoom viewers.
Since our system is also used to webcast sacrament meetings, we found a picture of a deacon passing the sacrament on the Church's website and display that on Zoom while the sacrament is being passed and the audio is muted.