My New Favorite PTZ Camera Choice for Churches and Nonprofits

Last week I went to my first ever NAB conference – the National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas. It’s a massive, massive tradeshow with all of the video and live streaming manufacturers there showing their latest and greatest inventions and products.

I went to meet some of our distributors and talk shop – but I also had a specific goal in mind: I wanted to get my hands on the latest camera and live streaming equipment churches can use today. I wanted to see what the image quality was like, I wanted to see how it all worked, and I wanted to get a feel for the quality of some of these new cameras.

Several companies impressed me, but none so much as BirdDog Eyes.

I was able to hang out at the BirdDog booth and spend some time with their co-founder to talk about their older cameras, as well as some of their newer releases. And to say I was impressed and excited would be an understatement. I couldn’t wait to get back home and build a whole product line of our live streaming kits based on the BirdDog equipment.

BirdDog PTZ Cameras For Churches

Long story short – if you’ve shopped ChurchSetup before, you know we have traditionally leaned heavily on the PTZOptics equipment. And we will continue to offer PTZOptics for entery-level products. Their cameras and equipment are quite good. They are an awesome brand, with an amazing support system for our clients. I love PTZOptics.

But I have to say, I think I like the camera quality of BirdDog even better now.

If you look at our website, we now have a ton of products featuring BirdDog equipment. And, while they are a tiny bit more expensive than the PTZOptics line, there are several reasons why I will be recommending these products to our new customers:

Reason #1: Video Quality

So when you put the two exact kits together, you notice right away that the PTZOptics kits are cheaper. The 2-camera kit with 30X zooms for the PTZOptics is just over $6k, while the BirdDog kit comes in at around $9700. That’s more than a $3000 difference. So, why is it more expensive?

The BirdDog cameras are more expensive per camera, and the Joystick controller is about twice the price of the PTZOptics version.

But here is why I believe it’s worth it:

The 30X version comes with Sony mechanics and, most importantly, the backlit Sony Sensor. Sony is my favorite camera brand, but their PTZ cameras can get ridiculously expensive. BirdDog’s cameras have the same Sony sensors, but for a fraction of the price.

The PTZOptics cameras have great sensors, but they aren’t the broadcast quality that Sony can offer.

Take it from me: I am a PTZOptics fan, but when I saw with my own eyes the quality of the P200, I was sold. The video quality is just amazing, even at a small price increase.

How good is the image – well, considering ESPN uses the entry-level camera, the P100, as their NBA referee camera… and NFL teams are using the P200 for their pressrooms… it’s being used in some pretty demanding environments by large organizations. That’s a pretty good testimonial.

Reason #2: Free Autotracking Feature

This is NEW and something that had me very excited. I have been waiting for a reasonable option for auto-tracking.

Now, with their new software, every BirdDog camera will have the auto-tracking capability built in. You don’t have to pay extra for add-on software, and you don’t have to pay a premium for additional hardware. It’s built-in to their cameras and doesn’t cost any extra.

Now, at this time, I’m not really sure how well it works. I wasn’t able to test this out at the tradeshow – too many people were crowding around. But the co-founder of BirdDog seemed super excited about it. I have a couple of BirdDog demos ordered, and I can’t wait to get my hands on them and this new software to try it out. I will definitely be making another video all about this in particular.

Reason #3: Free Software for Churches

Now, not every church will be able to utilize this completely. Larger churches with established media teams will, however. Intercoms are a big deal, being able to communicate with your camera operators and live stream controllers is key, especially when dealing with a lot of camera angles. In larger productions, a producer will call the shots to produce the live stream or recording. They will tell the camera operators what to focus on, they will tell their media team what graphics to cue up, and they will tell the controllers which cameras to cut to and when and for how long.

Other churches with a lot of displays, video sources, and screens will also love this – even smaller churches may find this super helpful.

BirdDog is offering their pro-level Comms and NDI Routing software to churches and nonprofits for FREE. This could cost over $1500 if you purchased them at full price.

Comms is an integrated system that allows video and media teams to communicate through their cameras and control stations.

Central allows you to route NDI sources and signals to any NDI-enabled devices. This means you can say, oh let’s send footage from Camera 1 to our nursery, and then send the program out of our live stream to the foyer, and let’s send this to that, and that to this. Routing NDI opens up a ton of flexibility without the need for an endless supply of wires and cables. And Central allows you to control all of that from a single device.

Reason #4: It Integrates with Dante

Dante is kind of like NDI for audio – although Dante is now coming out with features for video, that’s another discussion. It’s networked audio rather than needing large snakes and physical cables, you can run it over an Ethernet network.

If you’ve never heard of Dante, this won’t matter. If you know what Dante is, you now know the brilliance of this. Imagine being able to route your live stream mix to the live stream, without needing a direct connection to the video equipment. It’s going to be a huge benefit for churches running on a Dante sound system.

Reason #5: The Camera Software

One of the complaints I have about PTZOptics (not to throw them under the bus, because I love them), is their camera control. The web-based control panel is very dated, and it lacks some of the controls you want on a camera. Controlling things like White Balance and exposure is just a little bit clunky, and it makes it difficult to match other cameras.

The software for the BirdDog cameras is amazing. Color control is precise and fully available. Dialing in your image quality is a piece of cake – and it’s intuitive too.

Reason #6: Built-In Tally-Lights

Tally lights let those in front of the cameras know where the “live” camera is, and which camera is cued up to be live next. Usually by the colors red and green. The live camera will have a red light, while the one in the preview will be green.

This is true across all video brands and equipment, it’s a standard.

Without tally lights, the only other option is to have a preview and follow the angle of the camera.

For me, this is going to be a game-changer, because my church is small at the moment, and we don’t always have a full team running the live stream. I’ve used tools to automate most of it, but there are times (quite often) when I’m unsure of what is showing on the live stream. I’m not sure if the keyboard camera is showing, and it worries me because no one is on the keyboard. We have had instances where someone switched to the keyboard during a song, and when the song was over, never switched back to the front of the stage. So the live stream just saw the empty keyboard for several minutes.

Tally lights would have solved that problem.

Reason #7: Remote Production Possibilities

BirdDog’s deep NDI integration means someone can produce your church’s live stream from anywhere in the world. They can control the cameras, produce the show, and even monitor and mix the audio to a degree.