Clear Touch RL400 PTZ documetation

Below is documentation and info for the Clear Touch RL400 PTZ camera, which was installed in our stake center.

Unfortunately, Clear Touch doesn't supply any of this themselves and do not respond to email requests. Through internet sleuthing and trial-and-error, I found the following. See attachments.

Thank you for finding and posting this! Just saved me untold hours!

TKofford wrote: Fri Feb 23, 2024 12:26 pm Thank you for finding and posting this! Just saved me untold hours!

Glad it worked. As a heads up, I've found the colors and brightness lacking on this camera. It has a knack for making skin, especially tops of heads, gleaming white. Certain faces with makeup it can make look rather ghastly. In the red-orange-yellow-green-blue-purple, it's just never capable of showing all 6 colors, and usually shows 4 or 5ish at best. It also has a variable mode where it can try to auto detect and adjust, and that usually works well, but if it sees too much of one color it adjusts badly. We had one situation someone with red hair, an orange suit and tie, and a red beard speak, and the entire talk was bright orange. Anything not orange was turned to orange.

I took a five pieces of colored paper (red, yellow, light green, blue, purple), and then tried numerous permutations on various modes. Attached is the one seems to be the best:
WB Mode: VAR
Color Temp 3000K
RG Tuning 2 to 3
BG Tuning -2
Saturation 100%
Hue 4

It's not perfect, it makes blues too purple. But it's the best I can find.

Have you tried using the camera's manual white balance? With the change in lighting to different technologies, I'm not sure as I'd trust the presets to do a good job.

Great info! What VISCA client did you try that worked? I’m looking at a couple on GitHub based on python - was it one of those?

Not sure about the RL400, but with our camera we use the VISCA over IP plug-in with OBS. Works great, especially when using presets.

EDIT: Just read through the RL400 docs and it appears to support VISCA over TCP/IP using the standard port 5678. Of course, RS-232 is always an option too.

russellhltn wrote: Sat Mar 09, 2024 10:11 pm Have you tried using the camera's manual white balance? With the change in lighting to different technologies, I'm not sure as I'd trust the presets to do a good job.

The camera has several different color modes. Each seems to give you access to some things but not others. I tried them all, many times, and this is the one I found worked best. This setting turns some blues into purples, and some purples into deep purples. But most everything else is good. All other settings would make heads angelic beaming white, or lose two colors (red, orange, yellow, and/or green were frequently lost), or just look badly muted, or auto adjust the wrong way too often.

I also made a typo, I said RG tuning is -2 to -3, I meant RG tuning is 2 to 3.

TKofford wrote: Sat Mar 09, 2024 10:22 pm Great info! What VISCA client did you try that worked? I’m looking at a couple on GitHub based on python - was it one of those?

OBS-PTZ plugin with OBS. That plugin has a bug on certain machines on com ports, and hopefully it's fixed now. It relied on QT6 which was the source of the bug but is now fixed I believe? If you have a direct IP connection, use that first, it's much better, and it avoids the bug. If you only have a com port, it will work, but it takes a several seconds before it accepts its first command, and subsequent commands are a bit sluggish. See the prior attached document for a screenshot how I do it.

I haven't found any plugin that's satisfactory in moving the camera with ease. The pros seem to use a physical joystick for easy steering control. With that plugin you just have to get good at very quick flicks to move the camera slightly. I also recommend 8-12 presets, it really makes a difference.

brad_p wrote: Sun Mar 10, 2024 11:26 am I also made a typo, I said RG tuning is -2 to -3, I meant RG tuning is 2 to 3.

Fixed.

A small update. I had trouble communicating with my camera this morning. The cause ultimately appears to be a routing change between subnets zones.

The instructions I posted suggested to put the camera on 192.168.108.2 (the church calls this the Public zone). My server rack has 2 ethernet jacks for me to use, and they are both in the 10.134.104.X range (the church calls this the Facility zone). Since installation I've been able to communicate from a laptop plugged into the Facility zone to the Public zone. But this morning I could not, it seems all TCP/IP packets are now blocked between those two zones. Strangely ping/ICMP packets still route.

My fix was to get a longer Ethernet cable and plug into a switch much higher up on the rack. That gave me a 192.168.108.x address in the Public zone, and thus I could talk to the camera again.

brad_p wrote: Sun Jan 12, 2025 11:23 am ...it seems all TCP/IP packets are now blocked between those two zones. Strangely ping/ICMP packets still route.

Hummm... as far as I know, the zones are supposed to be totally isolated from each other. I'll have to do some testing this week on our system.

FM group just installed this camera. How are you getting the house audio into the NDI feed? Or, are you using the built in microphone?

Also, how are you getting the NDI feed into zoom?

epgulbrandsen wrote: Sat Apr 11, 2026 9:43 pm FM group just installed this camera. How are you getting the house audio into the NDI feed? Or, are you using the built in microphone?

We were able to get an audio line run from the sound rack to the camera's audio input jack. Having both audio and video go over NDI helped solve lip sync issues in the webcast. I strongly suggest not using the built-in mic as you'll get a lot of congregation noise.

epgulbrandsen wrote: Sat Apr 11, 2026 9:43 pm Also, how are you getting the NDI feed into zoom?

Many are using OBS to decode the NDI signal. (Plugin required.) OBS can then create a virtual camera for Zoom to use. There are several steps to get from here to there, but it's all available on the interwebs. https://www.google.com/search?q=NDI+to+ ... with+audio

I found OBS to be too resource heavy to use. I just use NDI Studio to control the PTZ camera, and NDI Webcam to capture the audio and video, and use it as a virtual webcam in my Zoom meeting.

We are having problems all of a sudden with our camera. It powers up and goes through is positional calibration. Then the green light on the camera goes out, the red light comes on as the lense zooms in and out. Then the light flashes twice and the camera shuts off. The camera doesn’t not respond to the commands on the remote for camera positioning.

I need help as we have a funeral coming up

klink wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2026 8:27 pm ...
I need help as we have a funeral coming up

Is this the manual you're looking for? https://www.getcleartouch.com/download/ ... er-manual/

I did not find mention of what two red blinks means. You might have to call Clear Touch support for that.