KEIZER, Ore.—Municipal broadcaster Keizer City Television, K23 TV, has deployed four Telycam PTZ cameras to upgrade the visual quality of its live meeting coverage.
The government access broadcaster plays an important role in connecting Keizer officials with citizens. Broadcasting and streaming from council chambers in the Keizer City Hall, the channel, operated by Ambition Pictures, provides live coverage of city council and other municipal activities, including planning commission, transportation and parks advisory board sessions.
This past summer, the broadcaster set out to replace and improve its aging, first-generation NDI PTZ cameras.
“At KeizerTV, we do our best to maintain a high level of production for everything we do, to give our viewers an optimal experience,” KeizerTV Producer Phillip Wade said. “Our existing cameras were starting to have issues, such as focus drift, but we also wanted to improve our overall quality to meet our high standards.”
Wade’s quality goals included increasing the visual fidelity captured by the cameras. “The resolution of our existing cameras was 1920x1080 HD, but we wanted better color reproduction, exposure and sharpness,” he said. “Being able to get better color and exposure in our council chambers improves the overall production quality.”
The broadcaster also wanted to increase the number of cameras deployed to enable more comprehensive coverage and to have a greater optical zoom range to allow better close-ups across the council chamber space.
Systems integrator Mid-Valley Media recommended Wade evaluate Telycam’s Vision+ N3 cameras with 30x optical zoom. He found the camera delivered the performance K23 TV was seeking. The city purchased and deployed four of the cameras, which went live in August.
At the front of the city council chambers, up to seven meeting participants are seated at a forward-facing, curved dais. Smaller offshoots on each side seat additional participants. Two Telycam cameras at the back of the room capture close-up and wide shots of those on the main dais, while the other two cameras are positioned at the sides of the room to capture people seated on the offshoot wings. The side cameras also cover the area where members of the public present or speak during city meetings.
The cameras are connected to a Vizrt TriCaster TC1 Pro production switcher in an IP-based workflow using NDI HX3 connectivity. In addition to being broadcast on television via Comcast, the output of the TriCaster is also streamed live on the city’s Facebook and YouTube channels in both English and Spanish. The Spanish streams are created by sending the NDI feed of the TriCaster’s program output to another room where it is translated by interpreters. A Spanish audio translation is mixed in with a TriCaster Mini.
KeizerTV initially controlled the pan, tilt and zoom functions of the Telycam cameras through the TriCaster TC1, but found it cumbersome to do so with the same control surface used for switching.
“The TriCaster control surface has an integrated joystick, but it’s not positioned ergonomically for camera control,” said Wade. “You have to reach across all the other buttons on the panel to get to the joystick and press two buttons on the other side of the panel to activate which camera you want. It was awkward, which delayed getting the subject into frame.”
Wade added a Telycam V-Joy+ AT controller to the installation. “It’s important for us to be able to quickly select a camera and move it, and the Telycam controller lets us do that efficiently,” he said.
The Vision+ N3 cameras have met the broadcaster’s objectives and expectations. “We’re very happy with the quality of the video they produce,” Wade said. “I also appreciate being able to manually set the aperture of the camera. That gives us some control of the depth of field, which makes the footage look and feel higher-end.”
Wade also praised the speed and precision of the Telycam cameras’ autofocusing. “The cameras adjust very quickly,” he said. “When I move the camera position, it’s already in focus by the time I’m ready to cut to that camera.”
More information is available on the Telycam website.
